A Note for My Head Asking What My Heart Said

“So how was your daaaaate?” Naomi cooed, batting her eyes at her friend, who was sweeping up hair.

Zel raised an eyebrow, smiling, and shook her head. “It wasn’t a date.”

The older girl pouted and spun around in the chair she was sitting in. Loretta had decided to close the salon early so the ladies could “have a night to themselves to enjoy.” When she said that, Zel and Naomi exchanged glances and knew instantly what the other was thinking: new boyfriend. “Come on, Zel! What'd you do? Did you kiss? Did you fuck? Tell meeeeeeee!"

“Naomi!” she exclaimed, dropping the broom and almost knocking over a heat lamp. Blushing, she tossed the day’s trimmings into the garbage. “It was nothing like that. We just had coffee.”

Naomi sighed. “But that’s boring! I want juicy details!”

“There aren’t any,” Zel said flatly. “We had coffee and snacks, talked about things, and listened to bad music. The only interesting thing that happened was the waitress incessantly hitting on Alex.” She paused, frowning slightly at the floor. “And then he held my hand and kept smiling at me whenever she reappeared.” Zel caught the grin growing on Naomi’s face. “It’s wasn’t a date.”

She threw up her hands in defence. “Fine!” Naomi said in exasperation. “It wasn’t a date.” She leaned forward, swinging her feet. “But did you want it to be?”

Zel crossed her arms, leaning against a sink. “Why would I? I have no interest whatsoever in Alex.”

“Obviously you do, seeing as for all the shit he’s given you, you’re still talking to him.” Naomi hopped down from the chair and fluffed her hair experimentally. “So there’s gotta be some reason for it, unless you’ve finally gone bonkers.” She looked over her shoulder at her friend. “D’you think he’s cute?” Zel shrugged, lowering her gaze to her shoes. Naomi smirked. “Do you think he’s hot? Bangable even?”

“Alex has far too big of an ego for me to pay him any compliment, much less about his appearance,” she replied, heading into the back.

Naomi followed and leaned in the doorway as Zel searched through her purse for her keys. “I’ll take that as a yes.” The younger girl glared. “So what did you guys talk about?”

Zel shrugged. “Life,” she said, unable to think of any better way to phrase it. “Likes, dislikes, odd habits... high school, our respective alternatives to college.” She shrugged. “I talked a lot about my brother and sister. He seemed really interested in them.”

“Really? Why?”

She shrugged again as she shut off the lights and the two of them headed out the front door. “No idea. I hinted at asking, and he changed the subject.”

“Sounds like Gaskarth has a secret,” Naomi mused, huddling into her hoodie as they exited into the cold evening. She was surprised that it hadn’t started snowing already; the cold was late this year. “So hey, you’ve got something in common.”

Zel shot Naomi a dark look. “No, we don’t.”

Normally, Naomi knew better than to mess with Marizella Kolston’s No Face, not to mention the ‘don’t keep talking’ tone. But she felt the sudden impulse to push the subject; it might do Zel some good. “You’re going to have to tell him sometime,” she reminded as Zel locked up. “You’re going to have to tell them all sometime. Jack’s already asked me because he’s afraid to ask you.”

Pulling the key from the lock, Zel shook her head in dry amusement. “I would have never thought a six-foot-two twenty-year-old who jumps around wielding a twenty-pound blunt object wouldn’t have the guts to ask me a question,” she chuckled.

Naomi scoffed. “Twenty pounds? It’s not that big.” Zel blinked at her, and after a moment, her eyes widened; Zel snickered. “You didn’t hear me say that. Don’t tell him I said that.” She shook her head fervently, hair flying everywhere. “No no no! We’re talking about you and Alex, not me and Jack.”

“I resent being associated with him in the same way as you and Jack.” Her friend was giving her an expectant look, and she sighed. “I know I should, but I...”Don’t want to. “Don’t know if I can yet.”

“When are you seeing him again?” Zel stared blankly. Naomi nodded slowly. “You… are seeing him again… right?”

She shuffled her feet for a long moment. “...Tonight,” she mumbled, twitching her bangs out of her face. “We’re going to the movies. I... was going to ask if I could leave early...”

“And now you won’t have to!” Naomi finished excitedly, bouncing toward Zel’s car. “Now we’re going to your place, you’re going to drive me back to my apartment, and in between I’m going to plan out a sexy outfit for your date—and dammit, Zel, it is a date!”

Zel hugged her leather bomber jacket closer to her; it was too short and too light for this time of year. “I swear to god, Naomi, I’ll get back at you for this,” she grumbled to herself. Naomi had managed to talk her into a pair of tight, black skinny jeans, her heeled boots, and a slinky top that would be scandalous if the neckline didn’t fall just so. Zel had only managed to slip into her leather jacket because it was almost November and it was about as fitted as her jeans. And it matched the boots.

She’d been waiting outside the old drive-in for ten minutes before Alex showed up. He wasn’t late; Zel had just been nervously early. She wanted to get there before him, so she could get worrying about the meeting out of the way.

Alex, having spent their last meeting flirting and paying complete attention to her, had wanted to pick Zel up from her house for what he considered their second date. Normally he would have gotten at least a kiss on a first date, but considering their... history, he decided to play it cool. Alex thought he’d go traditional-gentleman and pick Zel up from her house, but when he called to get her address, she paused before chuckling. “Right, because I trust you driving,” she said, “Rian told me way too many stories about tour that involved the words ‘Oh god, Alex is driving’.”

When he pulled up to the theatre, strangely anxious about being on time, his jaw dropped upon finding Zel. She smiled as he pulled up beside her and rolled down the window. “Hot damn!” Alex burst out, eyes roving.

Zel blushed as she rolled her eyes. “Shut up,” she muttered, opening the passenger-side door.

“Oh, so you trust me to drive you into the place, but not from your house?” he commented, once he recovered from his initial shock. She didn’t look at all like the Zel he’d seen before; her clothes had always been so conservatively casual with the air that she didn’t much care how people thought of her. But this? This was impressive.

“If you manage to hit something in the hundred feet we have to go, I’ll have someone make you a medal.” Alex laughed as he pulled up to the ticket booth and paid. Zel settled back into the seat, stomach still churning nervously, but her mind clear. She was only dressed uplike a skank so there really should be nothing different from the other night.

They stopped near the front of the parking lot, not directly in front with the families, but nowhere near the back; there weren’t too many people around anyway. Alex killed the engine and looked over at Zel; she was staring straight ahead, blinking thoughtfully only on occasion. He grinned slightly. “You okay?”

Zel snapped her head around and stared at him a moment before clearing her throat and looking back at the huge screen. “Er, yeah,” she mumbled, curling a piece of hair behind her ear. “Fine.”

He nodded awkwardly and half-glared at the movie, playing the opening credits over a scene. This was not how Alex had planned the night going. True, their last date hadn’t gone as planned either, but Zel was a strange girl. After a few minutes, he got sick of the tense silence. “No, you’re not. What’s wrong?”

She kicked a boot up on the dashboard; he sounded put off, which Zel kind of expected down from boys when girls were obviously upset. She wasn’t crazy about the subject either. But what Naomi said kept running through her mind. “Was Wednesday a date?” she blurted out after a pause.

“Yes?” Alex replied, confused as to why she had to ask. Then it hit him. “…Did you not think it was?”

“No,” Zel admitted, not looking at him, “I thought...” She pulled at her hair idly. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Now Alex was disappointed. He thought he’d been doing really well. They continued watching the movie in silence, neither really paying too close attention and both desperately wondering what the other was thinking.

Chewing her lip, Zel brooded over an idea she suddenly got. She realised that this was the first date, arguably, that she’d been on in three years, and they were at a drive-in, sitting about as far from each other as they could be…

Be impulsive, the voice in her head goaded. You know he’s hot, and a decent guy most of the time. You don’t take chances!

Zel opened her door and began to climb out. Nearly panicking, Alex asked, “Where are you going?”

She leaned back down to look at him, inadvertently and unwittingly giving him a view down her shirt. “Come on. I can’t see a thing from in here.” She swung the door shut and walked to the front of the car; realising, as she hoisted herself onto a knee on the hood of the car, that Alex hadn’t moved, Zel beckoned him out with a finger.

Confused, he climbed out of the car and hopped up beside her, tucking his hands behind his head as he leaned against the windshield. Well, this was an improvement at least. At least Zel was being slightly more responsive than before.

As they continued to watch, Zel found she couldn’t concentrate. Her gaze kept trailing down to their legs, hers crossed at the ankles and his with one knee bent, lying just far enough to not be touching, but still close enough for Zel to feel the heat radiating from Alex. And she was freezing, so the inclination to huddle closer and be a warmth-vampire was nigh irrepressible.

Noticing that she was shivering, Alex decided to kill two birds with stone and freed an arm to wrap it around her shoulder. Zel eyed him momentarily, raising an eyebrow. “At least you didn’t yawn,” she commented, scooting closer.

“Even I’m not that bad,” he chuckled.

“Sometimes.” Alex glared jokingly, and in response Zel laughed and leaned her head on his shoulder. He smiled almost unnoticeably and returned to watching the movie.

Once she wasn’t so nervous, Zel could actually pay attention to the plot. Only she discovered that the movie was terrible and really not worth watching. So her mind kept wandering, and it wandered into things that made her nervous again, like the potential expectations Alex might have for the end of this date, and the possibility of simply being used.

Shifting anxiously and uncrossing her arms, she tried not to look up at him, but she wanted to know if he was as ill at ease as she was or if, like usual, he wasn’t taking life too seriously. Zel kind of admired that quality of Alex; even when talking about his music career, he had a lackadaisical air. Eventually the curiosity became too great and murky green-brown eyes slid slowly up, starting at the flying pig necklace resting on his chest and going up to study his face.

Alex found it weird that he wasn’t cracking jokes and mocking the terrible acting like he normally would during a movie with this level of shittiness. He didn’t say much of anything, actually; he just kind of sat there, wondering why they were still there and what Zel was thinking. Alex glanced at her from the corner of his eye a few times.

God, she’s beautiful, he thought, idling watching the hero unconvincingly wrestle a gun away from someone. Why is she single? Why is she avoiding not being single?

He stole a glance at Zel again and blinked when he found that she was staring at him. Alex smiled questioningly, but Zel only blinked, head tilting slightly to one side. She leaned up towards him, hesitated when he moved closer, and pulled him by the neck so his lips pressed against hers.

After a moment of mild surprise—a very short moment—Alex turned onto his side and pulled Zel closer, deepening the kiss. She ran a hand up through his hair, losing the swirl of paranoid thoughts about his—and her own—motives for blithe surrealism and pressing against him for warmth, which seemed to spread through her whole body.

Alex, naturally, mistook this action and slipped his hand under her jacket, across her waist, and over the back of her jeans. Her eyes opened as another flood of adrenaline shot through her, but they closed again, revelling in the tingles that prickled her skin as he traced the edge of her shirt.

Zel felt almost giddy, like her head had floated away from her shoulders. Alex’s hair was much silkier than she would have guessed; she half-expected it to be fried from straightening it so often. The softness of his lips made it easy to ignore the slight scratch of his stubble against her face, as well as the gentle touch of his fingers on her stomach. As she fought back a contented sigh, his touch seemed to drift away.

Its sudden, firm reappearance on her breast sent a jolt of electricity through her body, making her eyes shoot open, and on impulse she shoved him away, sending him off the car and onto the asphalt. “…Ow,” Alex muttered, still out of sight. Zel winced. He sat up, giving her bewildered look. “You could have just moved my hand.”

“You startled me,” she muttered, blushing in embarrassment. Alex hopped back onto the hood after brushing himself off and slid back next to her, stopping so close that she started back. “I’m sorry.”

His hand slid into her back pocket as his lips attached to her neck. “I’ll live.”

Zel’s head rolled back momentarily, but she snapped it up and firmly pushed his shoulder. “Alex, stop, I’m trying to watch the movie.”

He pulled back and gave her an incredulous, disbelieving look. “You and I both know this movie is a piece of shit,” he stated flatly, “And neither of us was paying attention in the first place.” She smiled sheepishly under his gaze and nodded admittingly. “So we can either sit here freezing our asses off bored as hell, or we can get in the car and go somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else,” Zel repeated dully, arching an eyebrow. “Would that somewhere else happen to be your bedroom?”

Alex shrugged, almost taken aback that she’d leapt to that. Hell, she hadn’t even thought Wednesday was a date. “If you want...” Her expression didn’t change, and after a moment he cracked up. “Hey, you said it.” Zel rolled her eyes, covering a smile, and settled back against the windshield.

“Or,” Alex continued after a moment, "We could go to my house, curl up on the couch, and watch a movie that's actually interesting." She blinked and turned her head to him curiously. "Well, I mean, it's warmer, softer than the hood of my car, I have movies that don't suck..."

"Okay." Zel scooted off the front of the car, shivering once she moved out of range of Alex's body heat, and hopped to her feet. "First, let's get your money back. Then we can get my car so I can follow you."

He saluted, rolling to his feet. "Aye, aye!" They both got into the car, and drove to the ticket booth again. As the cashier was refunding their tickets, Alex grinned over at Zel. "I like a woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to give orders about it."

She raised an eyebrow, smirking at him. "Don't push it, Gaskarth."

The pair drove to Zel's car, and Alex waited until she'd gotten all settled in before heading to his parents' house, carefully checking his rear-view mirror to make sure she was still with him. Somehow Zel felt less nervous going to Alex's house than sitting on his car, she realised as she parked. There was something seriously wrong with that.

Alex unlocked the front door and eased it open, pressing a finger to his lips as he stepped in. Zel smiled, amused by the prospect of having to be quiet sneaking into the house rather than out, but sad because she could guess why they were sneaking in.

And it turned out she was correct. "Alex?" a woman's voice called from down the hall. He froze, swearing under his breath. "I thought you had a date?"

He looked around the dim hallway and realised they were standing next to the basement door. "…I do!" he called back, pulling Zel down into his basement. Alex let go of her hand, somewhat reluctantly, and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that. I don't want my mom to know I can actually know nice girls. It'd ruin my reputation!"

Zel laughed and sat down on the couch, which was far more comfortable than its shabby appearance insinuated. "Is that true, or did you not get a chance to stash the embarrassing baby pictures?" she asked, grinning.

Alex rolled his eyes. "Oh, man, don't even get me started." He went to the DVD player and sift through the movies strewn about the floor. Zel smiled as she watched him search, muttering to himself and tossing the rejects over his shoulder.

He finally settled on "Saved!" and flopped onto the couch beside Zel, who smiled secretly. "Don't worry," she said casually, "I'll see those pictures soon enough." Alex shot her a wide-eyed look, and when she glanced over, Zel cracked up.

Both Alex and Zel were much more comfortable, laughing and making jokes about the plot and dialogue, and neither noticed that they were moving closer together until the very end of the movie when Alex looked down to find Zel curled up into his shoulder, fast asleep. He smiled, staring at her for a long moment before yawning and turning off the TV.

Careful not to wake her, he eased both of them down onto the couch and stretched out; Zel, in her sleep, adjusted to the new position and nuzzled into his shoulder. Yawning again, Alex wrapped his arms around her waist and shut his eyes.

Now that, in his opinion, was a good ending.