Thursday

Thursday, Thursday. I’m always waiting for Thursdays, it seems.

In school, it told me that it was almost the weekend, and it gave me enough hope to stick through the rest of the week. During the summer, it told me that I’d be free from work on Friday, and the rest of the weekend – it gave me that breath of relaxation I needed. Thursdays have always, however, no matter the season, reminded me that soon I’d be sitting in Ray’s backyard, either late Friday night or early Saturday morning, sipping on Diet Coke, listening to records and playing various board games.

Ray is my best friend. He has been for years now, since middle school. We had bonded in Band class as measly sixth graders, him too short and scrawny, me a head taller than him, taking our seats next to each other as part of the String section. He’d played violin then, encouraged by his mother, and I was taking my turn at cello. We’d grown since then, a lot. He was a giant, standing at a whopping five foot ten, his legs stick thin, his stomach puffed out in this odd, skinny kid fatness. I, however, was barely scraping by at 5’3”, unable to conjure up even an inch of growth in the last number of years.

As it happens, it’s Wednesday. Sure, it’s the middle of June and it’s a Wednesday, but it’s a Wednesday, nonetheless. I am currently at home, curled in my bed, nursing the “cold” I had called in to work with. Really, I’m just sleeping, wishing it wasn’t Wednesday, and for Ray to text me back. It may not be time for our weekly get together, but we can still hang out – he’s always up for a mid-week jam session, or something.

I fall back to sleep, somewhere between my third text to Ray – “fuck U man, I need a docta” – and cracking open another can of Diet Coke. When I wake up, my phone says that it’s running on 2 PM, and that I’ve got a new text, and a voicemail. I lean back against my pillows, one hand combing through my hair, the other holding the phone up, above my head, where I read the text – a simple, “listen here, biotch” and then press my four digit passcode for voicemail. I click speaker, drop the phone to my chest, and listen.

“ Alright, Julian-I’m-sick-cough-cough. Listen, I’ll come over and nurse you to health – ooh, how’s that sound? I’ve got to drop by Kelsey’s, and then I’ll be over. You better not be too sick, or I’m outta there. See ya, girl.”

I shook my head, picking up my phone and pressing at the End button. Of course, Kelsey.

Kelsey is just Ray’s latest girlfriend, a cute little girl with a deep accent and a thing for floral skirts. We’d been going to school with her for as long as we’d been friends – she’d slowly grown closer and closer to Ray over this last year, our senior year. She’d started it off by saying hello to him in the halls, and in class, and then she’d gone where none of her Ray’s many former girlfriends had gone before – she attempted to befriend me.

I had to give it to the girl. I mean she wasn’t rude or mean to me, or Ray, for that matter. She was a genuinely sweet girl, with everyone’s best interest at heart. She understood that Ray and I are kind of a package deal, what, with our witty conversations and amazing instrumental skills – ranging from cello to piano to violin and guitar. She was just a little high-maintenance, what was what generally caused the end to all of Ray’s relationships.

Ray is the most relaxed person I know, aside from my Great Uncle, who sits around all day, every day, drinking beer and eating potato chips, flipping from SportsNation to ESPN and back. He never cared about what other people thought about him, or about most things. He’s not liberal, not conservative – he’s just Ray, wearing one of his many novelty tank tops, a pair of Wayfarers perched in his golden hair, dancing around in his seat as he strums a few chords on his acoustic Fender, jumps my piece in Checkers, sings a line from an older Panic! At The Disco song.

“You don’t look sick to me,” I sat up fast, and yes, there was Ray, laying on his back on the floor, his iPod set on his chest, headphones in his ears.

“Don’t ya know,” I said, stretching my arms out, swinging my legs around to rest my feet on the ground. “I’m sick. I’ve got a cold.” Then, I brought a hand to my mouth and coughed, twice.

“Boo, you whore,” he said, sitting up. He pulled the edges of his purple tank down, covering up his stomach. “Get dressed. You slept too freaking long.”

“How long have you been there?” I ask, not remembering what time I had fallen out. He pulled out his phone, checking the time.

“Maybe ten or fifteen minutes,” he said, rolling his eyes at my expression. “What? That’s a long ass time! I could have been doing something else, like practicing for my audition, but you know, no, I came here to help you, Julian, but you’re sleeping in bed, snoring loud enough to raise the roof – “

I rolled my eyes again, ignoring his words, and throwing my smallest pillow, a black square thing that is hard as bricks, toward his head. I took this time to walk across the room to my closet, pull out my best: a pair of cloth shorts and an old t-shirt, which happened to be, har har har, from one of our middle school band competitions.

“So,” I say, once I return to my room from changing in the bathroom down the hall, dodging the black pillow, which hit the door with a slam. “What are we gonna do now?”

Ray was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, hands in his lap, looking up at me. “Well,” he said, quietly. “Can we maybe practice my song and then we can do something else?”

Ray’s got an audition/interview/try-out thing in a week, for a record label. It’ll be his first audition for anything outside of high school, and even though he won’t flat out say it, he’s hella nervous. Which is a really, really hard thing to do to Ray, make him nervous, because he doesn’t get stressed over anything. Not school work, not his girlfriends, nothing. Not unless you count his music.

Ray started playing guitar after he felt his skills were – not wasted, so much, as limited – with violin. He’d started up the middle of the year we met, playing on his Dad’s old Fender (which he gifted to Ray a few years later), trying to teach himself a thing or two (his Dad, having taught himself, refused to help Ray learn). He’d roped me in with him, saying we could learn together, and that had been that – we’d been playing ever since; even though I continued on to dabble in more instruments, while he worked to master his acoustic.

“Of course you can practice,” I saw, and his shoulders drop, relaxing. I don’t like seeing Ray tense, considering how out of the norm it is. It makes me want to hug him, or maybe rub the tenseness out of his shoulders, which, honestly, would not be a good idea. “You have to sing it, though, not just play.”

He stiffens up again, and I try to ignore it as I wait for him to step in front of me, into the hall. I busied myself with turning off my light, shutting the door, and ignoring the fact that I was crushing sorta kinda in like with my best friend.

**

Ray’s song is great. He’s played it for me many times, and it always makes the hair on my arms stand up. He’s been working on this one for a long time, he told me once, perfecting the chords with the lyrics. He’s done a really great job, actually, and I’m proud of his work.

“It’s fantastic,” I say, as he goes over the song again, not yet singing with it, “beautiful, breathtaking, heartbreaking, pee-inducing, vomit wrenching…”

“Julian,” he said, laughing.

“Okay, okay,” I hold up my hands. “I kid. I stop. It is fantastic, though, Ray. As if I haven’t said it enough.”

He smiled. “You are my biggest fan,” he said. I laughed, a fake, high pitched pair of chimes that went high, then fell low, batting my hand at him to stop, oh stop, I’ll follow you until you love me. “And for that, I thank you. I am eternally grateful.” Then, he reached out, stealing my hand, and placing a kiss there, his smile peeking out from his façade of a kiss face, light blue eyes looking up, up, up and across, at me.

“Now,” I said, once he finally returned my hand, “Play it again, and sing. The masses demand it.” And he did.

**

Days had passed now, and it was Saturday morning. Ray had called me up early, earlier than usual, and said that he didn’t know if we’d be able to hang out at the usual time – or even at all, today.

“Are you okay?” I asked, rolling over in bed.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. For right now, at least. I mean, Kelsey just called me up and told me that she wanted to meet up, and talk – and you know how that is, so. I just… I don’t know if I can do it today, Julian.”

We’ve had to cancel on each other before. It’s happened a handful of times, and it’s understandable. But for whatever reason, this time, I didn’t like it. It bothered me, and I hated that it did, because hello, this is Ray – he’s my best friend, he has a life outside of me, as I have one outside of him, so what’s the problem?

I know what the problem is, I just don’t want to admit it.

“That’s fine,” I tell him, on the phone, now. “Just be careful. I’m here, if you need me.”

“Thanks, Julian,” he said.

“Alright. Bye, Ray.”

It’s not like this is something new to me, these feelings towards Ray. I’ve felt that pull, that little tingle in my stomach when he smiles, that little heart drop when he touches me in anyway, for maybe a year now. That’s just how it is. Ray is my best friend, my rock, my cute, adorable, gorgeous partner in crime who enjoys acoustic jams with me any day of the week and understands me better than anyone else.

That’s how it is, and that’s how it will always be, because Ray doesn’t feel the same way that I feel about him. We love each other, yes, in the ‘I care about you, you are my friend, it would hurt if you were gone’ way. I like him, though. I feel inclined to watch him, and remember his movements, and his words, because I am not only infatuated, I am intrigued. And, well, Ray is Ray, and Ray goes for the girls who act like they don’t have a care in the world – live in the moment, all that jazz – but are really completely and utterly aware of everyone around them and are extremely prone to being affected by gossip. He goes for the pretty things that don’t mind if they can have fun for a little while, but oh, when they get bored of each other it’s okay, go ahead. He doesn’t stick with people. He has acquaintances, girlfriends, family and me. Only the latter two seem to matter much to him for long.

**

Kelsey didn’t break up with Ray that Saturday – but they did have a talk. Something along the lines of they were supposed to hang out on Wednesday, but then he’d dropped by only to leave an hour later… hmm. He’d told her that he’d needed to practice for his audition, and she stared at him for a few seconds, before asking “What audition?”

That had upset Ray. Really, it really did. He didn’t do too much to show it, but when he retold the incident to me later over the phone that night – I could tell. His voice got quieter, tighter, as he neared this part.

What really did Ray in, though – was when Kelsey really did break up with him. It was on Tuesday, when he called her up that morning to say hello (as the good boyfriend he has always been), and she broke the news to him. Normally, this wouldn’t have bothered him. Not one bit. Sure, he’d miss her for a while, maybe, but she was just a girl, and he was just a boy, petty young relationships are nothing when there is no sustenance to fill in the gaps.

The thing was, he told me, that this wasn’t just any old day. This was possibly the biggest day of his life, his audition day, and Kelsey had dumped him. He’d shown up on my doorstep just a few minutes after the whole ordeal, looking down, his car parked sloppily in the drive. I knew something was up, and there was.

Ray was completely dissatisfied with life. He’d had one rejection of the day, from a girl, and that meant, hey, I’m vulnerable and at easy access for another one – for a record company! This part, he didn’t say, it was just understood between us.

So, now, I’m driving Ray’s beat up Jetta to his audition, while he sits in the passenger seat, guitar in hands, trying to sing a little before we get there. His voice is breaking some, every few words, before he stops, no, no, no, and starts again. He knows the movements and words by heart – he could play and sing this song in his sleep – but his nerves are getting the best of him. I catch his right hand in my peripheral vision, hovering over the body of the guitar, trembling slightly.

“Okay, Ray,” I say, and I put a hand out blindly, searching until I touch his skin, his hand. He stops his mumbling and moving. “You need to listen to me. You don’t need to be worrying about this, do you hear me? I’m your biggest fan, and I’m following you around, y’know, ‘cause I love ya, and I’m not coming out here to watch you get shut down. I’m coming out here because I know when you walk out of those doors, and back to me, that you’ll have the biggest, best news of your life. You don’t have a thing to worry about. Not one little thing.

“Your voice is perfect today. You need to let your nerves go, and let your inner musician shine! That’s what you are; you’re a musician. You have lived this song up and down, day in and day out, and you know it better than you know yourself. You’ve got this. Do you understand me, Ray? Only a fool would pass you up, and trust me, these producers are no fools. They’re not a bunch of Kelseys, okay? Fuck Kelsey. Fuck Kelsey. You’re living for you, Ray Otterman, and you’re about to make it big – you’re up to bat, and I can see a perfect pitch coming in your direction, and there is absolutely no way that you can mess it up.” I’m doing my best to watch the road, drive, and give Ray looks as I talk, emphasizing what I’m saying. It’s a tough job, but I get it done – he nods, mumbling thanks, and I bring my hand back to the steering wheel.

Even after all of my mighty words, I turn into a nervous wreck as soon as Ray leaves with the secretary, who takes him back to a sound room with whoever is listening to him today. I can’t sit still. I can’t sit at all. I pace the room, from the secretary’s long, maple desk to the exit, to the fern in the corner, back to the desk. I look up continuously, looking for Ray, who doesn’t come. I check my phone and try to plug into my iPod, but neither sidetracks me.

Finally, I calm enough to take a seat, leaning my head back against the wall. I have my legs stretched out, and my arms are resting, my fingers knotted together. I’ve almost completely cleared my mind of where I am and what I’m doing here, instead focusing on replaying Mean Girls in my head.

“Incoming,” the receptionist says, suddenly, and yes, I can hear it, the slow footsteps of someone, tall and lanky, taking heavy steps in a pair of Vans that aren’t tied. I pushed myself up, sitting on the edge of my seat, ready to gauge Ray’s expression.

The door slides open, and he steps back in, his back to me as he pulls the door shut. His guitar bumps against his back.

I stand up, one foot ahead of the other, ready to confront whatever has just happened.

When Ray turns back to me, his face is solemn, and flat. Not unhappy, no frown, just a mask of an expressionless boy – I watch him carefully. He’s not looking directly at me, or anywhere, and his eyes seem glazed as they shoot from here to there to over there.

“Ray,” I said, taking another step. “Ray, what did they say?”

He looked down, taking a step forward, watching his legs and feet move. He started to shake his head, back and forth slowly, and then he looked back up at me, and I watched as a smile slid across his face – nice and slow – before he stepped forward again, one two three, his steps wider, and he was reaching down, grabbing me up, and spinning us around.

All too fast, the spinning and the suddenness of it and the stopping – my head is dizzy as I try to calm my whirling head, and I grab onto Ray’s arm for balance.

“They said they loved it, my song, and they liked my voice. They liked what I did. They liked it and they want to meet again, and they said there is definitely going to be work for me soon.” He was smiling, looking down at me, and he was trembling, all over, as he continued. “This is it. This is it! I can’t believe it!” Then, still shaking, still smiling, he reached down again, both hands sliding over my face, over my cheeks, and he kissed me.

I was in shock. Too much, all at once. Ray returning, Ray hiding what had happened, Ray getting good news, Ray… kissing me. His palms were warm, relaxed, on my skin, thumbs smoothing over my face as his hands slid lower toward my jaw. He moved his lips, slightly chapped, against mine. Unthinkingly, my hands moved, both of them, to wrap around his forearms, close to the elbow, my body pushing closer to his.

“Thank you so, so much,” he whispered, his face now inches from mine. I was confused, my eyes passing over his blues, then his nose and his mouth and his face as a whole. “I couldn’t have done this without you, Julian.” Then, again, he pressed his lips to mine, quicker this time, but with just as much force and gusto as before. He pulled back again, dropping my face from his hands, and stepped back, reaching for the neck of his guitar to pull it around, and remove a paper he had tucked into it.

He held it out to me, and I grabbed at it, giving myself something to read over, as a distraction. He waved over at the receptionist, a goodbye, and I did my best to muster a goodbye smile for her. I looked back down at this paper, reading over the typed words and signatures. Ray put both of his hands on my shoulders, pushing me through the door and out to the parking lot, where he opened the car door for me, and he started to drive us home. The whole time, I kept my head bent, reading and rereading this form. The words here weren’t changing, though the atmosphere of this car’s environment was.

“This is great,” I said, finally, to Ray. My voice was quieter than I would have liked it to be, hushed. I willed myself to look over at him, and I did. Not that it helped. He was staring ahead, fingers curled around the steering wheel, bottom lip being gnawed at between his teeth. I turned back, staring ahead as well, and said again. “This is really great.”

It really is fantastic news. It’s everything, and I do mean absolutely everything that Ray has ever dreamed for. I can still remember word for word conversations in the back of Band all those years, our teenage angst getting the best of us as we went on and on about how the only thing we had and needed was music. For Ray, that was completely true. The paper he handed me is an overview contract with the company that basically says Ray will get the opportunity to professionally record a minimum of three songs, and that his overall success with the company from this point depends on a second meeting he’ll have with others in the upcoming future. Its official, with three other signatures to the left of Ray’s scratchy, quick scrawl where you can only make out R-scribble-y Ott-a few fast, compacted loops, and an extended leg of the n.

We don’t say much of anything on the ride home. It’s odd, watching how our ride there had been, how I’d been so nervous waiting, and now that we had good news – and we’re not much different from our first trip in the car, our positions swapped in the seats. I don’t like this, but I don’t say anything anymore, not as Ray bumps the radio on, and mumbles the words to himself, and drops me off at home, waving goodbye but not waiting for me to get inside before pulling away.

I didn’t even try to get in contact with Ray until that day came around. Thursday. It wasn’t a long wait, only a day’s part… except for I waited until the last possible moment of Thursday to send a text.

It wasn’t anything special, just a simple, “So, tomorrow or Saturday?”

I’d been hoping that he was actually asleep, seeing as when Ray sleeps he sleeps hard, not waking for tornados, police sirens or the smell of pancakes, but a few minutes later I got a reply.

“2morro. bring ur A game, my bro found battleship.”

“Can do.” I send back, and then wait for the reply, which is a short “tired. g’night.” I shake my head at the nonsense that is Ray’s texting capabilities, but can’t get over how easy this had just gone over.

I’ve been mulling over what happened at the recording studio since the kiss. It just doesn’t make sense – why would Ray kiss me? Not even that, why would he kiss me the way that he did? I mean, a friendly, I’m excited kiss is acceptable, but he really, really kissed me. He kissed me like… like he wanted me, which is completely and utterly impossible, because we’ve been friends for so long, too long. It is perfectly unacceptable enough that I am attracted to him, he can’t be playing games with my head – or my lips. I’ve run over every single possible reason Ray would kiss me, and have only found a few.

A) He feels the same way about me as I feel about him.

B) He is confused with what a friendly kiss is.

C) He was simply excited and needed to express himself in a way that didn’t mean smashing his acoustic on the tile or peeing himself.

D) He didn’t get a last kiss with Kelsey and needed a little sumt’n sumt’n.

E) While he was “auditioning,” he was brainwashed into a mainstream pop heartthrob who can kiss and tell without any problems or worries.

Not all of them were believable, and none of them were even possible in my opinion. That didn’t stop me from thinking over them all over, and over again, followed and preceded by the kiss playing back in my mind. Ray’s lips, warm and enticing, smoothing over mine over and over again. His face when he pulled back, slightly pink but otherwise bright from joy.

**

Ray wasn’t kidding. Robby, his little brother, had found Battleship in the family’s linen closet, and brought it out from its hiding place. We’d moved it into the backyard, spread it out on the wooden table that we always moved to the grass, compared to where it usually sat on the patio, and taken our seats on the wooden crates we’d towed. We’d done all of this in relative silence, and had just placed our ships when I couldn’t take it anymore.

“B6,” I told him, which was a miss. I shook my head, placing a white stub into the “radar.”

“E4,” he said, and I groaned. Hit. On the first try? Damn.

“So,” I say, closing my eyes for a second and then pointing my finger at the radar, taking a guess. “C3. So, um, what was with Tuesday?”

I missed again, and again, and again, with each call I made. “I already told you… I went to Kelsey’s and she kinda blew up on me, and then broke up with me, and then I went to your house –“

“Ray, you know what I mean,” I say, just as he sinks my Destroyer.

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you meant.” I watched him. He pulled at his striped tank, pulled his glasses up to sit on the top of his head. Then, he looked across our Battleship boards, at me. “I don’t know. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I mean… I didn’t plan that out at all. I just… did it.”

Ray kept talking, but I was stuck on some of his first words – that wasn’t supposed to happen. No, it wasn’t. I knew that. We were supposed to be friends, just friends, but I was pining over him, and he had kissed me, so where did that leave us? I was staring down at the top of our Battleship boards, barely touching each other, like we had been Tuesday, and tried to tell myself to stop, stop Julian.

“But I mean, I was so excited – everything was such a blur, and I didn’t even care. You’re my best friend, and you were the only person I could have wanted there. Not just ‘cause you’re my biggest fan, or ‘cause you could be, but because I wanted you to be there.

“I don’t regret it.”

I almost don’t hear him, because I have too many things, too many words and scenes and feelings, running through my mind at one time. I’m half between looking for another place to call and getting up and leaving, but I’m so tied and twisted I don’t know.

“I wanted to kiss you. So I did.”

I stared across at him. Of all of the options, that one had been under the categories unrealistic and impossible. I couldn’t understand why.

“Why?” I asked, and I watched as he looked at me, a smile creeping up, and then laughed, mouth open, head falling back, before looking back to me. He reached out a hand, pulling his Battleship board down and shut. Then, he reached even farther and pushed at mine. Now, we were in each other’s clear line of vision.

He sighed then, rolling his eyes, before staring me down again. His mouth was set more to one side, and he was looking at me as if the answer was obvious – which it obviously wasn’t.

“Oh, I really have to say it? Oh, okay. Well, I guess… you’re not just my best friend. You’re not just my biggest supporter and my best critique. You’re a beautiful, nice, wonderful girl who I’ve known for so, so, so long and who I can actually enjoy spending my time with – and can get inspiration from. I like you. A lot more than I should.”

I drop my head to my hands. This is not even funny.

“Am I being Punk’d? Am I on some fucked up show right now? Is this like a let’s trick Julian and put it on MTV and I’ll get to get my opportunity on the biggest sell out of a music icon ever? Is that what this is, because I swear to God, Ray…”

“No, no,” Ray said, louder than me, his face was pinking up. “No! See, this is what I meant! I can’t do this, I shouldn’t have kissed you but I did, and I shouldn’t have told you this but I did! I trust you, and I expected you to at least maybe accept that I had something to say and that I mean it and that I actually have feelings for you. You’ve always seemed to at least care about my feelings, and me, but right now I don’t know.”

That’s when I realize he’s not joking around, because Ray isn’t a good actor. He doesn’t get upset a lot, but he is right now. He’s a light shade of red, his brow scrunching, and I can see that this is real, he’s not messing around. He’s trying to leave some truth with me, about me, about us, and I’m shutting him out.

I laugh. I put my hands up over my mouth, and I laugh and laugh and laugh. This is funny to me. This is horribly and sickeningly funny to me. When I peer through watering eyes over at Ray, he’s staring to the side, fuming.

“Hey,” I say, and he turns, slowly, to look at me. “I kissed you back, didn’t I?”

He nodded, smiling, laughing some. Then, I lifted my board back to its correct position, and Ray did the same.

I called out a number, at random.

“Hit,” Ray said.

Finally.

**

I end up staying for dinner. We don’t say a word about any of the Ray kissing me and liking me and my liking him situation, but we do talk about his new opportunity, and Ray goes over what exactly happened when he sang for those guys.

“Well, I got in there, and shook their hands and introduced myself. They were really laid back, and they told me to take a seat in this booth and put these headphones on, get comfortable, and go. I got in there and turned around away from them, took a few breaths, y’know, and started playing a little bit of nothing, and then I turned back and busted into “I’d Let You.” I just kinda told myself to zone out and watch them, but not, y’know?

“Then, they told me to come out and I did, and they told me that they liked it, and me – they said my voice had this low, raw sound to it that they liked. Then they asked me what the song was about, like how I’d gotten the inspiration for it and everything. So, then I told them how it’s about my best friend, and that it’s about how we’ve been such good friends for so long, and that I’d pretty much do anything and go anywhere with her. I’d let her take me anywhere and I’d follow with no complaint.

“They said she sounded like a cool kid, and that she must be great if I wrote such a raw song about it. Then we talked business and they typed up a form and we all signed it, and then I said goodbye and left.”

Later, when I had finished using the bathroom and was about to leave, I went looking for Ray, who was in his room. I stepped inside, closing the door softly behind me.

“You never told me it was about me,” I said.

“I know,” he said, nodding his head. He stood up from his bed, where he had been sitting, and took a few steps in my direction. I, in turn, took a few toward him. “I didn’t know if I ever would. No use if it never got big.”

“It will,” I said, and I winked at him. “I don’t care how many people I have to follow and blackmail, it’ll be on the radio somewhere. Kids are going to fawn over your musical talent, and wish for your guitar skills. They’ll drive hours to come to your shows and not even care that they’re at bars and clubs and that they have to get those dreaded xs written on their hands. Girls are going to hang out and stalk you by your car or van or bus, or whatever, and they’ll follow your every word on Twitter, and cry over your music videos, and ask you to marry them, and you’ll say yes, and next thing you know you’ll have yourself your own Ali King.”

“Julian,” he said, taking a step closer. “Please, please, stop.”

“You know how I ramble when I’m nervous.”

“Oh, you’re nervous?”

“Extremely so,” I mumble. He’s a foot or so away now. He’s also smiling, chuckling even, as he watches me.

His fingers find mine, and he holds on. “Why? It’s only me.”

“Yeah, but you, mister, are someone who makes me nervous.”

“Oh, really?” He said, smiling even wider. “Good to know.”

Then he ducked his head again, his mouth hovering over mine for a moment, watching my face. I looked up into his blue eyes, watching, waiting, nerves shaking against each other. Finally, I just reached up, taking initiative and pressing my lips to his.

I knew he’d let me.