I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t remember what it was. An unfamiliar feeling of reckless abandon replaced the usual calm and order flowing through my body. Iwantedto go with him. I wasn’t scared for my safety. There was no warning alarm in the back of my mind when I thought about leaving with him. But could I?
At my hesitation, there was something else that grew in his eyes as he looked at me. Hope, maybe? As if he felt my hesitation, a half smile broke out across his face. “Just a cookie?”
Was that…a flutter…in my stomach?
“Okay,” I said boldly before promptly losing some of my nerve. “But just a cookie. Then I have to study.”
He grinned and gave me a salute, his face lighting up with boyish charm. Back in the arena, I thought he might be in his mid-twenties, but there was a calm vibe about him that alluded to a maturity that now gave me late-twenties vibes.
He motioned toward his friends walking back toward us, each carrying hot dogs. “They rode with me, so if you want to hop in with us, I’ll drop them off, and then we can grab our cookies. Then I’ll drive you back to your car. Sound okay?”
I nodded, sucking in a breath. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks.”
Mike and Ryan graciously squished into the back seat of Duke’s white Toyota Tacoma amid lots of jokes and complaining. It had seen a few years, had a few minor dents, and the inside…looked lived in. Duke seemed a little embarrassed as he scooted fast food wrappers and bags aside to make space for me to sit.
“Dang kids,” he mumbled.
“If you’d just taken your fancy car, you wouldn’t have to worry. We’re not allowed to eat in that one,” came Ryan’s reply.
Duke ignored them, pulling out of the parking lot, and made his way toward State Street before heading east. He glanced over at me. “You doing alright?”
“I don’t see any shovels or duct tape. So far, so good.”
He grinned. “I told you, not on Fridays.”
“So did you all grow up together, then?” I turned sideways to speak to the guys in the backseat.
Ryan, the brown-haired friend, leaned forward in his seat. “Me and Duke grew up together, and in middle school, we allowed Mike to join the inner circle of awesome.”
“You guys were in the chess club,” Mike said, looking out the window.
“And the basketball team. Women like a well-rounded man.”
“You were that too.”
Ryan punched Mike in the arm.
Mike and Ryan razzed each other until we arrived at Ryan’s house on the outskirts of Salt Lake. With a wave, Ryan slipped into his house, a split-level home in a subdivision of new starter houses. Mike lived a few minutes away, in a similar neighborhood.
“See you at work on Monday, boss.” He said the words sarcastically while Duke shook his head.
He backed his truck out of the driveway, the sudden silence engulfing us, and I immediately missed the back and forth of Mike and Ryan in the backseat. They took all the pressure off of me to think of conversation. Jason had talked mostly about himself the five minutes we’d been alone on the car ride to the arena. Duke reached up and adjusted his hat. I watched as he placed his hands back on the wheel again, his forearms flexing in all the right ways.
Must think of something to say.
“I feel like we’re doing this backward,” I said.
He glanced over at me, eyebrows raised. “So you save your kiss for the end of the date? No imagination.”
“No. I don’t usually kiss on the first date.” Or date, period.
“There was one interesting word in that sentence.” Duke held up one finger, checking his rearview mirror as he eased his way back onto a main road.
“What?”
“Usually.”
I laughed. “Does seven minutes in heaven in the eighth grade count?”
