Kevin and Aubrey: Part 6

THE REST OF THAT FIRST WEEK FOUND ME SITTING IN THE COLLEGE LIBRARY, waiting on a certain boy to skip class and come join me.

Isn’t it cute, how we thought we’d be able to actually “study” back then?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, we did get some work done, but it took a lot more time than it should have. We were both dragging it out, trying to find just a couple more minutes to spend with the other.

By Thursday night we’d both finished classes and our assigned homework, and he offered to take me out for a drink as payment for all my help. I obliged but only because he bribed me with a Starbucks Frappachino – one of those many evil things I can’t say no to.

We walk through the parking lot at a comfortable pace, and that’s when I finally took notice of his car.

I didn’t know anything about it other than it was new, it was shiny and I was afraid to touch it. I was used to cars that can take a few beatings. I worried about scratching the paint or slamming the door too hard.

And while I worried, I didn’t even notice him standing there with my door already open.

We drove in silence to the Starbucks up the street. Until then I’d been able to fill the awkward gap with mathematical equations and funny quotes from our teacher. Here? I had no material. Nothing. Not even my past experience with guys could save me, since all my exes were people I’d known for a while before we just decided that we hung out enough to call us “official”.

This Starbucks run? It was date-ish.

“You know, you really should let me take you out on a date, take you out to dinner for all your help,” Kevin said, suddenly breaking the silence.

I panicked.

I’d never – not ever ever ever in my life been asked on an official date. Plus I have this thing against people spending money on me (let’s not go there), so I said the first thing that came to me.

“NO!”

It wasn’t a shy, girly giggly type of an answer. It wasn’t a flirtation. It was me, being awkward and loudly warbling out all of my insecurity in one curt word.

He paused, momentarily stunned by my reaction. “No? You’re going to turn me down when I just asked you on a date?!”

“Yes. I mean no. I mean when you put it like that. . . yes I’ll go. But can I pay?” I pouted in his general direction.

“No. No you may not, and I’ll pick you up on Saturday.”

We parked the car and walked into Starbucks. Not two feet in the door I remembered that I left my wallet in the car. “I don’t want anything,” I whispered to him while he looked over the menu board.

He shifted his body closer, putting his hand on the small of my back. The shock of it was electrifying. Then he whispered, “Get something, baby,” near my ear and I about melted into the floor. I shook my head no. No, I was not about to let him buy me something. He’s the one that somehow wants to hang out with me, the scroungy girl that wears glasses. Shouldn’t I be the one paying for him?

He walked up to the counter and ordered for me anyway. We waited by the front for our drinks. I was still focused on the tingle left where his hand had briefly been.

Giddy.

That’s what I felt, was giddy. It was foreign to me. Like an, “I’m going to puke” feeling where you get hyper-aware of your body (do you feel that too?), just without the actual sickness. It was weird to hone in on someone so much. It was weird to watch the reruns of us over and over in my head each night. I was definitely not used to this.

Kevin turned to me, holding both of our drinks. “Do you want to stay in here or go outside?”

Before I could answer a man, dressed in dreadlocks, boots and a pirate hat walked by with a very familiar swagger. “Um. Jack Sparrow just walked past me.” Because you know, what else could you say at a time like that?

Our evening ended with a long conversation and a promise to pick me up at six on Saturday..

Gulp.

To be continued. . .