“Is that why you called me and hung up?”
“You’re wearing a hoodie today,”I blurted, desperate to not talk about my spastic call. It was a dark grey hoodie with an open leather jacket over it. I pushed his hood down.“I like it.”
“It’s gonna rain.”He pulled the hood back up.“And you’re in no clothes.”He eyed my outfit.
“It’s not raining and I’m wearing clothes,”I told him. And then a raindrop fell. And another. I looked at the sky, only to get a droprightinmy eye.“Okay, so maybe it’s starting to rain a little—”I cut off as it started pouring. Dennis laughed as I threwboth arms over my head.I touched my eyeliner with one hand while trying to save my hair with the other.
“I forgot your hair is curly.”Dennisliftedadripping curl.
“It’s already waving?”I held up another lock to see my natural waves were setting in.
“It’s pretty.”
“Thanks. Stop touching it. It’ll poof up.”I gently took the lock back to protect my hair as much as possible. “Dennis,” I stepped backat his mischievous grin, “you better not.” I managed to go a foot before he was ruffling my hair. I fought to freedom and kicked a huge puddle at his feet, then took off running and laughing, ignoring the downpour that was soaking through my clothes. I spun around to see he was nowhere in sight. “Ha! Loser. Who’s faster now?” I turned back and shrieked; he was an inch from me. He caught my waist as I twisted and squealed, tousling my hair despite my attempts to break free.
“You’re killing my hair!”I wailed. I turned in his arms, trying to get my poor hair away from him, but he turned me back and caught my lips with a kiss. I deepened the kiss and reached up to grip his wet hair.
“There goes any chance you had with her,”aman’s voice floated toward us.
I broke the kiss to see some guy talking toBenji.“We’re not together,”I started, hoping they could hear me.
“Leave it.”Dennis took my cheek and kissed me again. I smiled into the kiss, content beyond all reason.
“Hey new girl, you start in five minutes,” Alan’s voice was super close to us. Way too close. It was weird.
I reluctantly broke the kiss again.“Okay, just a second.”I kissed Dennis one last time.“I gotta go. Are you coming inside?”
“I’ll be back later. I have stuff to do,”hesaid. I tilted my head.“What? I haven’t seen you all day. I wanted to say hi.”
“Oh. Okay.”I smiled, relieved that he wasn’t mad at me after all.“Look at you, being all sweet and shit.”I ruffled his hair as payback.
“Don’t, it’s gonna frizz!”he mocked,knocking my hand away.
“You’re so annoying.”I hit his arm as he laughed.“I’m going to work.” I turned to walk inside, then remembered something halfway there.“Wait, Dennis!”I ran after him.“I almost forgot. I got you something,”I started, pulling out the lighter.“I dunno if you’ll want it‘cause you seem so attached to the one you already have, but this made me think of you and I wanted to get it.”I held it out.
“You got this for me?”Heflipped it over, taking in the coffin shape, the grey and black stake, and the illusion of bloodyfluid.
“Do you like it? I really hope you like it. I wanted to—”
He cut me off with a sweet kiss and pulled away, his lips turning up in a faint smile.“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,”I said timidly, hoping he wouldn’t notice the sudden shyness.
“You’re so cute when you do that.”
“Shutup!”
“Go to work before you get in trouble.”
“Kay. See you later?”
He nodded and we went our separate ways. I pushed the drenched hair from my face and tried to blink away my runningmakeup. I’d completely forgotten about the rain, which was weird, because we’d been in it the entire time. I reached the door and turned to see if Dennis was gone yet.
He was at the edge of the parking lot near a large trashcan. He pulled the old lighter from his pocket, looked it over, and dropped it in the trash. Then he flicked on the new one and walked away. I bit my lip, trying to control a giddy smile before going inside. Sean and Alan both stared as I entered the bar.
“Is it that bad?”I asked, running a hand through my soaked curls.
“Opposite. You have that sexy girl in the rain thing going on,” Alansaid.
