Secret Admiring

Ryan and I were set to leave at six on the morning. He picked me up in front of my house. I was so excited to see him compete. I bounced out of my house wearing an outfit that I figured would be good for the weather, an expected cloudy and slightly breezy day. I climbed into his car. It was a pick-up truck that had a trailer hitched to the back. 

"Out of curiosity, why do skateboarders need a whole trailer? Your board wouldn't take up the whole backseat. What else could you need?" I asked as I put on my seatbelt. 

"Good morning to you too, sweetheart," Ryan said lightly as he pulled from the curb. 

I smiled, "Mornin'."

"For your information, I have all of my replacement parts and boards in the trailer. Now, I get to ask a question. Why are you wearing a skirt to a skateboarding competition?"

"For your information, my shorts were either too small, too big, dirty, or missing. Now it's my turn. Why are asking about my outfit?" 

"For your information, most girls don't wear skirts to these things. Calm down, gorgeous, you look fine. How was your sister's dance recital?"

"It was pretty cool and not as boring as I thought."

"Ha!" Ryan exclaimed. 

"What in the world?" I asked. 

"I won," he stated simply. "You didn't say 'For your information'."

"You're ridiculous," I said as I smiled and ran my fingers through my hair. 

"And you love it," he said as he looked at me with a wide grin and then back to the road. 

"Yep, ever second of it," I admitted. He looked back on the road and continues smiling, happy that I admitted to liking some feature of him. 

"So how's your friend?" He asked. I knew he was talking about Marla, the only one of my friends that he has seen. 

"She's good," I answered simply. "What can we do for musical entertainment?" I said as the radio began filling with static as we left the city. 

"Well I have my iPod you can plug up if you want. It's in my bag on the floor behind my seat." 

I leaned behind his seat. I felt my shirt rise slightly. Before I knew it, I felt Ryan's finger in my belly button. I curled into a lop-sided crunch. I grabbed the bag and pulled it and myself back up. I opened it and began fishing around for his iPod. There was bunch of randomness like a camera, pen and notepad, a hat, and shirts. I finally found what I was looking for. I scolded him for touching my navel before asking him the purpose behind multiple shirts. 

"Well, if it's really hot, I'll skate shirtless. So I have shirts to change into." He explained as he drove. I plugged the iPod in as I listened. 

"Do a lot of guys do that?" I asked as casually as I could. I knew that sounded weird but I mean- who could blame me for wanting to know?

Ryan looked at me with a furrowed brow. "Do you want me to lie to you?"

"Tell me what you want me to hear." 

"Well, then, I'm the only one." He said with a smirk and a wink. 

I laughed and shook my head as I continued scrolling through his list of songs. I finally landed on "I'll Be In The Sky" by B.O.B. 

We continued talking on the way to Phoenix. The music soon became background noise and the highway became endless, but it didn't matter. I was with Ryan; nothing else mattered. 

"Shecky," I whined. "Are we there yet?"

"Almost, Lynnie," he answered with a playful, exasperated sigh before smiling at me. "Want to know something?" 

"Hmm?" I asked before looking up at him. 

"You're the only who actually calls me 'Shecky'. Everyone else says it to be funny or just once or twice. You actually call me that as a nickname." He said as he glanced at me then back at the road.  

"Is that a bad thing? Like, does it bother you?" I asked. 

"Not really, I sort of like it. Besides, it just shows that you're different." 

"Well, you're different too. No one calls me Lynnie. It's always  Lynn."

"Is that a bad thing? Like, does it bother you?" He asked, repeating what I said with a huge smile. 

He continued driving with that same smile and took an exit, followed by a few turns. We pulled into a parking lot and parked. 

"You know, I've noticed something about you, Ryan." I said as I unbuckled my seatbelt. 

"What?" He said as station off his seatbelt and opened the door to get out. 

"You smile a lot."

He stopped in his tracks and looked back at me. He looked up before meeting his eyes with mine. He couldn't refrain from smiling as he answered, "You make me smile."