Arranged Fate

I sigh in relief as I look out the peep hole on the front door.

“It’s just my friend,” I tell Oliver who is next to me, ready to hide behind the door with a baseball bat. How we found my dad’s old baseball bat so quickly, I may never know. “Go wait in the kitchen. This won’t be long.”

Oliver nods, and noticeably relaxes. His shoulder brushes against mine lightly as he walks around me.

“Be quick. I’d like to finish this movie in this century please.” He jokes, winking at me over his shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen. I stare after him for a second, until the doorbell rings again and brings me back to earth.

I open the door quickly, making it seem like I had just rushed down the stairs. My close friend, Max, was standing outside with a small binder in his hand.

“Hey Max!” I say with a large smile on my face. “What are you doing here?”

“What? Is a friend not allowed to drop by at…” He pauses and looks at the watch that’s on his left wrist. “10 o’clock? Wow. I’m sorry; I didn’t realize that it was so late.” He says, reaching up to the back of his neck and scratching.

“It’s alright.” I say, looking him over curiously. His shirt was un-tucked on one side, his hair was a mess (unlike his usual perfectly gelled hair), and it looked like there was a brand new hickey on the side of his neck. Where the hell had he been and why did he leave to come here.

“So, um, here,” He says, handing me the small binder.

“What’s this?” I ask, taking it from him and opening it. “My attendance record,” I say with a sigh. Ever since Oliver had been here, my usually perfect attendance had stopped. Oliver would usually convince me to come home by 5th period or I wouldn’t go to school at all. And this was all just in the past five days.

“Mr. Breckner asked me to give it to you. Something about hearing it from a friend.”

“And since he’s your uncle, you had to listen to him,” I say, giving him a small smile. But Max wasn’t smiling at all.

“Annie,” He starts but I cut him off.

“I promise that nothing is wrong.” I tell him quickly. He closes his mouth and lets me continue. “I don’t know, Max. I just haven’t wanted to go to school lately. You can tell Mr. Breckner that I will be in school tomorrow and every day, all day, after that.”

Max hesitates and narrows his eyes at me. I’m sure he’s looking for a better explanation, but he isn’t going to get one and he knows it. He sighs.

“Now, get out of here. You were obviously busy,” I say, winking at him.

He chuckles humorously, “Oh, yeah. Rich dragged me down to some bar tonight. This one chick would not get off of me. I was so happy that I remembered I needed to bring that to you.” He said, his relief obvious on his face. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“See, this is why you don’t let Rich decide things.”

“Never again,” Max says, shaking his head as he turns around. “Goodnight, Annie!”

“Goodnight!” I call after him as he gets down to his car. I wait until he’s out of the driveway to close the door.

I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel two arms wrap around my waist.

“Miss Annie is ditching school?” Oliver chuckles in my ear. “Well, that doesn’t sound like her.”

“Shut up,” I smile, tossing the binder onto the small, decorative couch that was next to the entry way. I wiggle my way out of Oliver’s arms eventually and walk, quickly, into the living room. As soon as I sit on the couch, Oliver sits down right on top of me. “Oh my god,” I groan loudly. “You’re so heavy!”

“Hey!” Oliver says, sounding slightly offended.

“And your butt is so bony!” I yell, pushing him off of me and onto the ground between the couch and coffee table. He glares up at me with an evil look in his eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t do it.” I warn him.

He chuckles, sitting up. I thought he was going to stand up but instead, he grabs onto my arms and pulls me on top of him as he lays back on the floor. I lay there for a second, a scowl on my face.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” I tell him, putting a hand on each side of him and lifting up my head so I could look at him. Instead of seeing his usual smirk plastered across his face, I see that he is deep in thought. His eyes are staring at the ceiling and beginning to glaze over due to him not blinking. “Oliver?”

His eyes quickly move from the ceiling to look into mine. He blinks a couple times and clears his throat. But he doesn’t say anything.

“Are you okay?”

He smiles.

“I’m fine, Annie.” He tells me, grabbing onto my arms again and flipping us over in one swift moment. I don’t know how he managed to do it without slamming my head against the side of the coffee table but he did. It was safe to say that I was impressed.

Oliver’s usual smirk is back on his lips as he hovers over me. He crawls backwards a bit so his head is over my chest. I watch him closely as I prop myself upon my elbows.

“Oliver, what are you doing?”

He winks at me before pushing himself up and grabbing onto my waist. I burst out laughing as he starts dragging his fingers across my stomach in small, rapid strokes.

“Oliver!” I scream out between laughs. “Stop!”

I could just barely hear his small chuckle over my loud laughs. I kick my legs around, and end up getting them tangled with his. I can feel one side of my sweat pants slipping down to reveal my black lacey thong. Oliver’s hands had managed to push my sweater up so that it was just under my bra.

“Oliver,” I begged again, almost crying from laughing so much.

I heard him chuckle again as his hands stopped tickling me. I let my eyes fall shut as I tried to catch my breath. A small smile made its way onto my lips as Oliver’s hand wrapped around my waist and rested on the side of my stomach.

I felt him moving forward and then his forehead and nose were pressed against mine. I continued to leave my eyes closed and just enjoyed the moment. I never knew how much I liked Oliver being so close to me until this moment.

Oliver’s finger drew a few small circles into my skin. I didn’t realize that he was drawing them higher and higher until his hand was cupping my breast.

I was about to open my mouth and ask him what he was doing, but before I could, his lips crashed onto mine.

Butterflies fluttered around my stomach. My whole body felt like it was on fire. Fireworks were going off in my head. I could hear the angels singing.

Okay. Maybe that was a little overdramatic.

It felt so right. It was everything that I had dreamt of and more. I couldn’t believe that it was actually happening. I was really kissing Oliver. Oliver was really kissing me.

Oliver easily slipped his free arm under me and pulled me onto my side so that I was pressed against him, our legs still tangled together. I propped myself up on my elbow so that I was at a better angle to kiss him. My free arm found its way over his shoulder and I rested my hand lightly on the back of his neck.

Oliver gave my breast a small squeeze, causing me to smile against his lips. He takes his hand out from under my sweater and lightly presses his palm to the back of my neck, holding me in place.

I don’t know how long the kiss lasted. A few seconds. Maybe minutes. But it was all too soon when he pulled away from me.

“Whoa,” I say, my eyes still closes and my breath coming out rapidly. He really knew how to take my breath away.

“Whoa,” Oliver echoed, a smile to his voice. I let my eyes flutter open finally and my eyes were looking at his lips. He had a soft smile on his lips just as I had expected. I felt my lips tug into a small smile similar to his. I’d never seen him smile that way before and I wasn’t sure if I would ever see him smile the same way again. But I knew that I would never forget his smile, the way his forehead rested gently against mine, or the way I could feel him looking at me.

No moment could ever top this one.