End of the Innocence (16 page)

He looked perfect.

Brad’s grin faltered, then faded when I walked out. He stood up straight, looking dazed, his arms dropping to his sides. Shaken, rose petals fell to the parking lot. I glanced over my shoulder just to make sure there wasn’t a lunatic wielding a knife behind me.

Then it hit me; I looked hideous.

“Oh God, you hate it!” I choked, wheeling in panic back toward my house.

“Stop!” he called out in a voice that was way louder than I think either of us expected. The word echoed across the apartment complex, and we both ducked our heads and looked at each other like little kids who’d done something seriously wrong. “Get over here!” he whispered loudly enough for me to hear.

“You don’t like the way I look,” I repeated, not moving.

“Are you insane?” he said almost dropping the flowers. “I didn’t say that.” He walked over to me.

“Your face did,” I said miserably.

“Uh-huh, my face— Well, congratulations, you are officially off my list of possible Batmen. You suck at reading body language; you’d never figure out who the guilty party was. If you were Batman, you’d know that my face was trying to figure out how to make my eyeballs pop out of my head at the same time as rolling out my tongue like a carpet when I saw you.” I felt myself begin to blush. “You look… just wow,” he mumbled, too stunned for complete words, much less sentences.

“So, then, you do like it?” I asked, smiling; it was a little smile, ready to run for cover at the first sign of trouble.

“It is easily the second best look you’ve rocked so far,” he answered easily.

It took me half a second. “Wait! Second best? You liked the vest better?” He shook his head. “Then the way I normally dress?” Another shake of the head. “Uhm, so how is this second best?”

“Well, I think you look your hottest when you’re wearing nothing but a blanket, but that’s just my opinion.”

I felt every inch of my body blush. Another topic, quick, another topic or I’ll jump him, I thought desperately. The flowers—I latched onto the noun “roses” and swam away from imminent jumping on the boyfriend.

“Are those for me?” I asked, looking at the roses.

“They are, if you don’t think it’s too gay for me to give you flowers,” Brad added clumsily.

“How can we be too gay?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he whined. “I have no idea how to do this whole dating thing with another guy! Give me a break!”

“What would you do if I gave you flowers?” I asked him.

He thought about it for a moment. “Um, thank you and then wonder what I was supposed to do with them.”

“Yahtzee! We’d do exactly the same thing!” I said, laughing. I took the flowers and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

He kissed me back. “So now I hold the door open for you and stuff?” he asked, worried.

“How about we make it up as we go along?” I offered as we walked over to his car.

“Okay, cool,” he said as I opened my own door. I put the flowers in the backseat since I wasn’t going to walk around like I had won the Miss Foster Pageant all night. “So, are you hungry?” he asked once we were buckled up.

“What about Jennifer?”

“We have time,” he assured me as he flashed me his Tom Cruise, Everything is Peachy Keen smile.

As soon as we pulled on to East Avenue, my nervousness faded, and my brain began to work again. I looked over to him. “You are such a dork.”

He gave me a double take. “What did I do now?”

“You actually knocked on the door and then ran back to lean on your car just so you could look all pimp, didn’t you?” It was one of the few times I had ever seen
him
blush. “Oh my God, you did!” I burst out laughing.

“I was trying to set the scene,” he said, attempting some dignity and failing pretty spectacularly.

“I am dating a Grade A cheese ball!” I shouted out the window as we turned onto First Avenue.

“But seriously…,” he said, clearing his throat. “I did look cool, didn’t I?”

I almost started crying, I was laughing so hard.

Then Brad parked in front of Nancy’s, and I felt my stomach tighten. Before I could start thinking, he covered my hand with his and squeezed. “Trust me?”

I nodded.

He got out of the car and ran around to my side to open my door. “Then come with me,” he said, holding his hand out to me.

If one of you haters out there says one thing about me being a princess, I swear I will hunt you down and punch you in the face. I am not joking.

I took his hand, and he led me up the steps to the diner’s front door. There were no lights on, so I started to say something about it being closed. But he had asked me to trust him, so trust he got. He opened the door. The sound of the small bell over the doorway was a thousand times louder than normal with no one inside.

When we got inside, I could see a pale, flickering light coming from the far front corner. A mysterious smile on his face, Brad nodded in that direction and tugged me along. Gayle stood waiting for us, two menus held textbook style across her chest. A white tablecloth covered the table, and the lone candle in the middle cast a warm light that glimmered off the plates and the silverware set for two. “Your table is ready, gentlemen,” she said, winking at me. I literally had no words and couldn’t think enough to object when Brad helped me slip into the seat before he slid into the booth opposite me. His eyes sparkled mischievously as he watched me fumbling for words. Evidently, that was the right reaction if his grin was any indication. Gayle put the menus down in front of us. “If you’re willing, may I suggest the chef’s specialties tonight? Yes? Excellent. The first course will only be a moment.” As she walked away, another waiter appeared and put two glasses of soda in front of us.

“How did you…?” I began to ask, but he held up one finger, asking me to wait.

I heard the metallic clink of coins being dropped into a machine across the room. Gayle leaned a bit over the restored 1950s jukebox, pushing buttons. The music of Lifehouse began to play softly in the background.

He put down his finger. “You wanted a date,” he said, smiling. “You get a date.” He reached across the table and grabbed my hand.

“You never cease to amaze me,” I managed lamely, completely astounded by the green-eyed boy who had taken my heart.

“If I ever do, let me know,” he asked, tracing his fingers over the top of my hand. “I’ll step up my game.”

I shook my head. “Your game is pretty good right now, trust me.”

He gave me his Ferris Bueller know-it-all grin. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

Gayle reappeared carrying a plate of chili cheese fries that looked and smelled so perfect that I knew they had been handmade. She set the plate on the table and smiled at both of us. “Frites à mozzarella fromage et chili,” she announced; after bowing slightly, she backed away from the table.

“I love these fries!” I said, grabbing one, watching gleefully when the cheese stretched off the plate. He laughed as I cut the cheese with a bite and popped the fry into my mouth. “Oh my God!” I said as I chewed. “You have to try these!”

We devoured the entire plate before the song had even finished.

“This is the best….” I struggled to find words. “…I mean, you are….” I just shook my head and settled for, “Just wow.”

The music changed to Edwin McCain.

Brad slid out of the booth. “Come on,” he said, holding his hand out. “Dance with me.”

I mean it, guys: one princess joke and you’re dead.

We slow danced in the middle of the diner as he sang that he would be the biggest fan of my life in my ear. I had never felt so happy in my entire life. In fact, if you were to take all the happy moments of my life and add them up, they wouldn’t even equal the fries, much less this dance. He assured me he would be my crying shoulder, and I leaned into him as we swayed. His voice was deep and imperfect, but it expressed each emotion so perfectly that I knew I would never hear this song again without hearing his voice singing along with it.

I was eighteen years old, and I finally knew what the word “love” meant.

When the song ended, we sat down again and were surprised to find two perfect bacon cheeseburgers waiting for us. “You seriously thought of everything, didn’t you?”

He shrugged as he took a bite, but I could see the laughter in his eyes.

We finished the burgers in silence; both of us knew we couldn’t carry on a conversation with one of Gayle’s burgers sitting in all its tempting glory right in front of us. Like magic, as soon as we were finished, the second waiter materialized from the shadows to take our plates away. Once he had retreated, Gayle arrived, with the same Cheshire Cat grin on her face. “Are the gentlemen ready for dessert?”

“Oh God!” I puffed, wiping my mouth. “I am stuffed.”

Brad nodded. “Yeah, we’re ready.”

“I seriously don’t think I can eat anything else,” I said, trying and failing to stop her.

“You’ll want this,” he assured me with his Adam Levine grin that meant he had something else planned.

“This is really enough, you know.” I tried to reason with him, but it was no use. He had set this whole thing up, and we weren’t leaving until Vanna turned all the letters around. “So, any clues?” He just looked at me with that same smile. I sat back and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long, because Gayle came out holding a small chocolate cupcake with some whipped cream on top of it. Instead of a cherry, though, on top sat Brad’s class ring, polished and sparkling like new.

And I was speechless for the second time in an hour.

He removed the ring from its cakey throne and licked the whipped cream off. “So now you’ve had a real date,” he said, getting up out of the booth. A light tug on my hand was all Brad needed to propel me to my feet and face him. “We had our first dance,” he added, getting down on one knee. “And now I am going to ask you to be my boyfriend.” He took my hand. “That is, if you want to be.” And there was that smile again. “Kyle Stilleno, will you be my boyfriend?”

I felt my eyes start to sting as they teared up.

I just nodded since I was incapable of actually making any sounds resembling speech. He slipped the ring on my finger and pulled me into a hug. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear, and I had never believed it so much as I did right then and there.

Gayle and the waitstaff were clapping and offering congratulations, but I honestly couldn’t hear them over the sound of Brad’s voice in my ear telling me again and again that he loved me.

It was the first perfect moment I could ever recall having.

B
RAD

T
HE
person I was before I met Kyle would have tried to convince you that setting up our first date was more for him than for me. He would have assured you that it was a means to an end that led to me having sex with him. The guy I was before would have told you a lot of things, most of them flat-out lies.

The person I am now can tell you, watching him sneaking glances at that ring on his finger as we drove over to pick up Jennifer, made me so happy I could burst. Kyle’s such a good guy—no! a great guy—and up to this point he had never had one break in life. He had never had someone trip over themselves to go out with him or go through all the trouble of having someone cook all his favorite foods. He should have had that, but he hadn’t until tonight.

He had been worse than ugly; he had been invisible, one of the countless unknown people no one noticed as they wandered through high school on their own unnoticed missions in life.

As I held his other hand, I was so fucking glad I noticed.

“So it’s official, right?” I asked as we turned onto Jennifer’s street. “You’re my guy now?”

His smile could have warded off vampires, it was so bright. “Only if you’re mine.”

I laughed and glanced out at the street to check for traffic before I turned my attention back to him. “You know I am not just your boyfriend, right?” He was puzzled and looked like he had no idea what I meant. “I am 100 percent your love slave. I am now and will always be your bitch.” His mouth dropped half-open at my words. “I just want you to be sure where we stand. I am so in love with you that I would do anything you asked. Anything.”

I knew I had shared too much when he withdrew all the way to his side window for a moment. Next would be some self-deprecating statement he was going to treat like a joke but would actually be a pretty good sign of how he was really feeling.

“You’re just saying that ’cause of the blazer,” he tossed out.

I parked in front of Jennifer’s house and turned the car off. I leaned over until I could look him directly in the eyes and said, my voice raspy with emotion, “You do know you didn’t have to change a thing about the way you looked, right?” He blinked quickly but said nothing, which told me that was exactly what he had been thinking. “I am not going to lie and say you don’t look incredible in those clothes, but I was crazy about you before. I don’t want you thinking I want you to look or dress a certain way, because I don’t. I am turned on by Kyle, any kind of Kyle I can get. Dressed up, shaggy haired, blanket wearing, all Kyles are welcome.” I could see the relief in his eyes even though he would deny it if I asked him. “All you have to do is walk in the room, and I’m turned on, no matter how you’re dressed.”

“What did I do to deserve you?” he murmured, nearly breathless from keeping his feelings inside.

I wrapped my right arm around his shoulder, and he slid toward me. I kissed him and explained, “You charged in and saved me from the monster.”

“What monster?” he asked bewildered.

“Myself,” I answered. My phone rang just then and startled us both. I looked down and there was a text waiting.

Jennifer: Are you two making out in front of my house or am I being stalked by another two gay guys?

I showed Kyle the text, and we both started laughing our asses off.

Two minutes later Jennifer plunked down in the backseat. “You guys just going to sit out here all night or what?”

I jerked a thumb toward Kyle. “Blame him, he was getting all weepy.”