“Maybe I am out of line but…,” he came closer to me and continued holding my hands. His face was so close to mine, I just kept staring into his eyes and thinking how beautiful he was. His tiny freckles on top of his perfect nose made him look cuter than anything that I could imagine. Before I even had time to realize what was happening he leaned forward and kissed me. Yes, a kiss, a nice no tongue, soft, long kiss that made my whole body shiver and my head spin so hard that I thought I would fall down.
“... but I’ve wanted to do this since the first time I saw you,” he finished his sentence after letting me go from the kiss. I looked at him, but both my body and mind were frozen. I couldn’t find it in me to say anything, I was so shocked, surprised and glad by what had just happened. I loved that kiss so much… I could easily say it was my favorite one.
The rest of the day was followed by a small make out session and some other talks about our lives. I found out that he was a dancer before, it was a big part of who he was. Too bad he did not have time for it now. And he found out about how much I enjoyed learning new languages - I even taught him a few swear words. It was nice to share my interests with him, we talked for hours, and he made me feel comfortable and safe. The only thing I didn’t like hearing was that he would continue trying to control his powers even though they made him sick. His idea was that eventually, they would normally work if only he knew what to perfect and what to let go of.
My non-date did, in fact, turn out to be a date, and it was amazing. I hadn’t felt that way in such a long time that I felt invincible at that moment. I felt as if nothing could stop me and nothing could bring us down because we had all the time in the world and this new, fascinating feeling to explore.
Chapter Six
You know how I kept saying it was not a date? Well, this time it was. Only a day after he kissed me he asked me out. He didn’t specify that it was a date, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out when he had asked me to wait for him to pick me up at around 7:30 pm.
This time I didn’t tell anyone. I know it was probably not such a good idea and I know how important honesty is in a friendship, but I think that sometimes it is okay to keep a little quiet when you don’t know how things will turn out. If the date went well, I would have told them right away.
I usually hated dating, I hated having to make small talk and to pretend that everything is perfect, I hated having to dress up and wear uncomfortable clothes just to impress somebody - so I did none of that.
I put on my skinny jeans and a hoodie, it was quite windy outside. I did my makeup as well as I could, and I put my hair in a ponytail. I didn’t want to spend all evening having my hair in my mouth which always happened with windy weather.
I didn’t know where we were going, it was going to be a surprise, I wasn’t much into surprises, but I was kind of excited about this particular one.
I was ready at 7 pm, and I had no idea what I would do for half an hour, I turned on my computer and started studying - even though it was the beginning of the year, we already had a bunch of assignments, ugh. My eyes wouldn’t get off the clock, I couldn’t focus on anything because I kept expecting him to ring the doorbell any second now. I turned off my computer and grabbed a soda from the fridge. I tried to calm down and pretend that I was actually super cool and laid back.
At 7:25 he rang the doorbell. I was so happy that he wasn’t late if there was one thing that I seriously hated in people it was when they were chronically late, is it that difficult to just show up on time for things? It wasn’t difficult for me.
“Hey there,” he said when I opened the door. His hair was styled like always. I was starting to think that he just had it like this naturally because it always seemed perfect. He was wearing a nice black buttoned shirt that was neither too tight nor too big on him, and you could notice he had quite the broad shoulders. That is a quality that I always find attractive in a male, I like to feel their broad shoulders when they hug me - it just feels comfortable and safe. I was also wearing a black hoodie, so in a way, we were matching.
“Hey, let me just grab my phone, and we can go.”
“Great,” he said while I went back to get my phone from the charger. I had already made a rule for myself that I would not be touching my phone all evening – I wanted it to be just us, no distractions.
When we went outside, I couldn’t help but notice he had quite a nice car. It wasn’t anything too expensive, but it was obviously well taken care of, clean and proper. I liked that, as I was quite the ordered person myself. I hated a mess, I wanted all my things to be as ordered as possible, maybe even alphabetically if possible. I couldn’t do anything if my room were messy - it just felt way too uncomfortable, like I couldn’t breathe in there.
For a second I thought he would open the door for me, but I was relieved to see that he didn’t. When guys did that it didn’t seem gentleman-like to me, it seemed a bit pretentious. I mean, I know how to open my own door...it’s really not that hard or heavy.
“Where are we going?” I was getting curious. I had just gotten in the car of a guy that I did not know very well.
“If I tell you now, you won’t get it, trust me, it’s good,” he said while driving. He seemed confident, so I decided to trust my instincts and let it go. Perhaps, letting him drive off with me in there might seem a bit strange to some people but I was way too naive, I trusted everybody.
The car ride was better than expected. We talked a bit, and there was no awkward silence, I played with the car radio trying to find any station that wasn’t too bad, and I was happy to find out that we liked similar music - that’s always a good thing when it comes to dating. And when you two actually sing along to the same song right at the beginning it feels like you are already more comfortable with each other than most people are. I usually hate singing in front of others but that time it just felt fine, I felt like he would not be judging me at all, we simply had fun together.
When we got there, I could only see a field of flowers through the window. It was incredibly beautiful, I could see all kinds of colors and shapes on the field, it looked almost magical.
“Where are we?” I asked and undid my seatbelt. I was ready to jump out of the car and see this up close.
“A place where I often come when I am feeling low. It’s so pretty I don’t think anybody could feel bad here.” I liked what he just said, I liked that he appreciated the beauty of it because I sure did.
I got out of the car and so did he, afterward Troy made a gesture that signaled that I should follow him. We went up into the field, and when I looked down at my legs they were surrounded by the beautiful flowers, I tried not to step on them, but it was impossible - they were simply too many. When they walked a bit into the field, he stopped and sat down.
“This is where I sit. If you look around, the only things you could see around you are flowers and a clear sky - nothing else.” Luckily it was the end of summer so it would get dark around 9 and the sky was still super clear. The sun was starting to slightly set which made the scenery as beautiful as it could have been.
You know how people say that you can take the best pictures around sunset? It’s supposed to make people look their best. I don’t know if it was the sunset or not, but Troy sure was candy to my eyes. I found it hard to take my eyes off of him, luckily the view was amazing itself, so I had some distraction.
“You look great,” he looked at me and said. Aw, I thought it was kind of cute that he was saying that. Even though it was a typical date line I was glad he said it, it’s always nice to feel pretty.
“Thank you.” I smiled, and he grabbed my hand gently. We were sitting on the ground right next to each other, and the smell of flowers and fresh air made the moment so perfect. I loved that place, I was glad that he took me here and not to some closed up fancy restaurant. I can go to a restaurant any day (not that I have something against them). This place was special, I was sure that not many people knew about it and that was both sad and nice. Sad because i
t is very beautiful and many should be able to enjoy it, and nice because that way it isn’t crowded and remains untouched.
Holding his hand felt quite good, it is weird how his hand is so much bigger than mine yet they still fit perfectly well together. After a few seconds, he let me go and stood up.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to do something for you.” he said and looked at me.
“What?”
“Just promise you won’t try to stop me or anything,” well that didn’t sound too good.
“It’s hard to promise when you put it that way.” Honestly, it sounded slightly creepy.
“Come on, Lana, don’t you trust me by now.” he had a point, I knew what he could do so just the fact that I was there with him now despite knowing everything should have been enough of a sign that I do trust him.
“Alright, do it.” I agreed and stood up next to him.
“When things are light, it is not that difficult,” he said while I had no idea what he was referring to. I waited for something to happen, and he started looking at the field of flowers.
I was looking there as well, and something suddenly started moving on the ground right in front of us. I thought that it could be some animal, so I was startled for a second, and then I noticed something even weirder.
A couple of flowers were starting to lift up in the air. One by one, red, pink, yellow, blue all of the colors were lifted in the air, it looked like they were flying. They went higher and higher and eventually I could look up and see the flowers floating right above me instead of the clear sky - it looked like it was raining flowers or there were flower fireworks. It was incredibly beautiful - maybe the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
After a while in the air, the flowers started falling down around me, I felt like I was showering in them or I was feeling the snow of flowers fall right beside me. Troy was smiling because he could see the huge smile that I had on my face, it was so lovely what was happening around me right there, it was like some kind of a fairytale, and I was the princess surrounded by the magical flowers. They kept falling beside me, and I tried to touch them or grab them, I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing, it was so amazing. So many flowers were falling down, it felt like they would never end.
Eventually, they did, and I looked at Troy who seemed slightly tired, but nothing bad had happened even though he had just used his powers. Maybe I was wrong, and maybe he could actually control it. I went up, hugged him and gave him a kiss.
“That always works with the ladies,” he joked and kissed me back. His kisses were the best, so smooth and so perfect, not too much tongue like he’s trying to touch your tonsils and not too much pressure on the lips. Just a soft, perfect kiss.
“Yeah, I bet,” I said and continued kissing him. I wished that moment would last forever or that I could tape it so I could watch it a million times. The only problem was that I couldn’t tell anybody what had just happened so this meant that I would have to make up some story about how today went… if I were to even tell Amalie or Jacob.
“Thank you for coming out here today,” he said as we were eating some fruits that he had brought. He had taken care of the food part as well… again. Maybe next time I should be the one to bring food?
“Thank you for giving me such a great time,” I replied and ate a few grapes.
We found it a bit hard to stop kissing because the kisses were sweeter than any of the fruits around but eventually we got around to stopping and preparing to leave. Everything was great until we got in the car and he put on his seatbelt.
“Do you see this?” Troy asked and pointed at the back of the car. I looked out the window, and I noticed some car parked a few meters down.
“Yes?” I didn’t think it was weird.
“Nobody comes out here,” he said and started up the car really fast.
“Maybe someone found out about it.”
“At this time of day, no way.” after he said that we noticed that the car behind us also started up. As he started driving, we tried to observe if the car would continue driving right behind us - and it did. The car itself was very weird, its license plate was just a word - ISTDN. No number or anything which can be quite common around here because of the many rich neighborhoods. It was strange, it looked a bit like a pickup truck except it was very big, and all the windows were dark. The night was setting in so I couldn’t even see the driver as I was looking back.
At first, it wasn’t that strange, but after a few minutes of driving, we noticed that they wouldn’t stop following us. Troy took a weird turn just to check if they would continue and they did.
“What is going on?” I was starting to panic.
“I think they’re following me again,” he said while looking nervously in the rear-view mirror.
“Again?!” I was officially panicking.
“The bad people I told you about… I think those are them,” he was driving way faster than he should have been at that point, I felt like he could easily lose control of the car.
“Stop the car, you’re driving really fast!” I wanted to get off, I was scared, and I wanted to know what on Earth was happening.
“I can’t stop the car, they’ll get me.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know, ok? I just know that they are after me, I guess they must have found out what I can do.”
“Just stop the car, okay?” I wanted to seriously get off, I couldn’t deal with that.
Troy stopped, and I got out as fast as I could. I looked back at the car that was following us, they stopped as well.
“What do you want?” I shouted at them which was probably a terrible idea.
A bunch of men in suits came out and started walking towards us without saying anything. They looked scary and not because of their appearance but because of the way that they were being. Quiet, mysterious and scary.
Ok, at that moment I was so scared I could have peed my pants. Troy came up towards me and tried to pull me back.
“You can’t stay here, we have to keep going.” he said and tried to pull me back in the car.
“No, I’d like to see what they can say to me, I haven’t done anything, and neither have you.”
“This isn’t the police, Lana!” he really wanted me to get back in that car.
As the men kept coming toward us one of them was about to take something out of his pocket. Maybe Troy thought it was a gun, so he didn’t even hesitate before taking action. He stood up right in front of me and in less than a few seconds I could see the men being pushed back towards their car, he pushed them with his mind. Some of them probably got hurt as the push seemed stronger than anything I had seen before.
“What are you doing?” I said as he grabbed my hand. I noticed that his ears were starting to bleed. Before I knew it he was looking all pale and lifeless again, he almost fell into my arms, but I helped him get back in the car. I took the driver seat and started up the car, there was no time to see if the people were okay, all I knew is that I couldn’t let him die.
“No hospital,” he said right before he passed out. I was wondering whether I should listen to him or not. He had a pulse, and this had happened many times before so I thought that he would probably be fine without going to the doctor. I drove him to my apartment and put him on a bed. He seemed so sick it made me feel bad for him. I wanted to magically help him and make him feel okay, but all I could do was sit next to him and wait.
I was doing the dishes when I heard a noise coming from the living room. I had put him to sleep on my couch, and I imagined he had woken up. It was around 2 hours after I had taken him under my roof. Going into the kitchen I saw him sitting at the edge of the couch with his hands on his face, it seemed like he was in pain. I walked toward him, and he looked up to me as I sat next to him on the leather couch.
“I know it can be really uncomfortable to sleep on,” I said and touched his shoulder. His shoulders felt so great, I could tell that he was either worki
ng out or he just had some great genes.
“I don’t mind,” he looked at me and smiled. “Thank you so much for not taking me to a hospital,” he added and grabbed my hand. Before I could answer, he was already leaning in for a kiss. I didn’t pull back, I leaned in as well, and we were locked in a kiss again. It was just as amazing as all the previous ones. At one point it got hot, I felt his hand going up and down my back, it was very sensual. I loved it a lot when guys touched my back and even though he didn’t know that he was doing it as if he did.
For a second I considered that maybe everything was happening way too fast, but I did not seem to care. I just went with it because after all that we had gone through today, all the romance and the insane chase, I just wanted to feel normal and calm for a bit.
After a few seconds, the kissing was a lot, way more than it normally should be, I could tell that this was going in a direction that I would normally consider a fifth date material but not now. I felt safe with him, and I wanted this just as much as he did - maybe even more - he was in fact amazingly attractive.
As he was kissing me, I started feeling his hand going lower. It was going dangerously close to my ass, I knew he wanted to grab it, everyone always said that I had an amazing ass considering how skinny I was. Before actually grabbing it I guess he realized as well where this was going, so he stopped, looked at me and asked:
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely,” I was. I had no doubts whatsoever about how much I wanted it right there and then.
The Campus Jock: A College Bad Boy Romance Page 23
