by Lori L. Otto
“You know your dad. You know he’d always rather be where his family is–especially if someone needs him.”
“Think about it. Please? It’s not like he’ll be a lot of trouble,” I tell her. “He’ll probably just be in bed, right? I have to finish that stupid book this weekend, anyway.”
“We’ll have to see how he feels. Definitely not if he has a fever. But it’s sweet of you to offer.”
“No problem, Mom.” I grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and hug my mother on the way out. “I’m going to bed.”
“It’s early,” she says.
“I’m gonna read.”
“Right. Okay, Livvy. Sleep well.”
“Love you, Mom. Tell Dad good night, okay?”
“I’ll send him down to tell you–”
“No, it’s okay, Mom. I need to read. If he comes down there, he’ll just start back in on his John the Savage theories about Brave New World. He doesn’t shut up about it.”
She looks at me with disapproval and shakes her head. “Alright, Liv.”
When I get home from school the following day, I immediately check on my brother. After spending the day at home with Dad, Trey’s fever has broken and he’s in much better spirits, playing with his robot and watching cartoons in the living room. I worry that I’ll end up having to go to to dinner with them after all, and start to go downstairs to get ready.
“Do you think you can give Jackson his bath tonight?” Dad asks, coming up from the basement with a laundry basket of clean sheets. “And make his bed?”
“You’re still going?” I ask, surprised.
“The doctor said it’s nothing, and he says he feels fine. He’s not running a fever, but I guess after sleeping soundly through the night, he couldn’t nap at all today, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to take him out.”
“Seriously? You stay home with him when he stubs his toe,” I tell him sarcastically.
“If you’re not comfortable watching him–”
“No, I am!” I tell him. “If you’re comfortable leaving him.”
“I know you’ll take care of him. And we’re just going down the street, so we can be back here in five minutes, if anything goes wrong. But I know you’ll be fine.”
“Absolutely,” I tell him, taking the sheets from him. As soon as my brother sees me going into his room with his bed linens, he drops what he’s doing and chases after me. He likes to pretend that his top sheet is a superhero cape, so we always tuck it into his shirt while we put the fitted sheet on his bed. It’s a good way to distract him from jumping on his bed, which always seems more tempting to him when his comforter isn’t on.
I fold the sheet in half and secure it beneath his pajama top, making sure there’s no fabric for him to trip over. He immediately starts running around the house, arms outstretched, buzzing past my parents.
“Oh, yeah, he’s really sick,” I tell my mom and dad sarcastically as they stand at his door to tell me goodbye.
“And a bonus,” Mom says, “he’s going to wear himself out doing that.”
“Just start his bath after you’re done in here–”
“I know, Dad,” I tell him, annoyed.
He nods, shutting up. “We’re five minutes away.”
“I know. We’ll be fine.”
Trey slams into my dad’s leg, wrapping his arms around it.
“You got me, little man,” he says, picking him up. “Be good for your sister.”
“Will you come tell me goodnight when you get home?”
“Of course, Jackson.” He kisses his cheek and leans him into Mom so she can do the same. “Go save some lives,” Dad tells him, holding him high over his head and ‘flying’ him over to the couch.
I have to chase him for a few minutes after they leave, eventually cornering him in the game room. He finally surrenders, lifting his arms up for me to pick him up.
“You’re getting too big for this, buddy,” I tell him as I strain to carry him up the stairs. “Mom spoils you.”
“No she doesn’t,” my brother retorts.
“Oh, okay,” I tease him, making an obvious motion to smell his hair. “You stink,” I tell him.
“Do not!” he says.
“Do too!” I argue playfully, setting him down in his bathroom. He tries to dart back out of the room, giggling, but I catch him and pull him back in, blocking the door with my body. “Bath,” I tell him, pointing to the warm basin of water. “Hand over the cape.”
He yawns as he pulls the sheet from his clothes, and takes off his pajamas. He’s no trouble for me in the bathtub, and the addition of a little of my mom’s lavender bubble bath seems to have a calming affect on him. He goes to bed on his own after I put his sheet and comforter back on the bed. I grab his robot and take it to him, tucking it under the covers.
As I lean in to kiss him on the cheek, someone knocks on the door.
“Who’s that?” my brother asks, sitting up quickly.
“I don’t know, Trey,” I tell him as I wander out of his room and down the hall. “I’ll find out.”
“Don’t answer it,” he cautions me. “Daddy says not to answer the door if we’re not ‘specting someone.”
I roll my eyes as I walk into the foyer. Not wanting whoever it is to know that anyone’s home in case I don’t recognize the person through the peephole, I tiptoe to the door. Two familiar–albeit distorted–people greet me. My best friend and her boyfriend are making faces.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask them as I open the door, welcoming them in.
“Who is it, Livvy?”
“It’s Finn and Camille,” I tell my brother.
“Finn?” he yells. My brother looks up to Finn like he’s his own brother. We consider ourselves cousins. My uncle is married to his aunt, so although the relationship is distant, we are always thrown together at family functions. We all go to the same private school, too.
“Trey just went down for the night,” I tell them, “and it’s your job now, Finn, to calm him back down again.”
“Whatever,” Finn says. “Steven told us you’d be home babysitting. We thought we’d stop by and keep you company.” He makes a beeline into my brother’s room to say hi.
“So in other words, my dad didn’t think I could handle this? Figures.”
“Your dad is so overprotective,” Camille says. She’s a few months younger than me, but has been dating Finn for about a year. Since I skipped a grade, he and I are now in many of the same classes.
“I know,” I say, shaking my head. “Were you just hanging out tonight?”
“Yeah. Both of our parents are being homebodies tonight, so we’re a little displaced,” she explains, shrugging her shoulders.
“So you came here to make out?” I ask her quietly. “Ummm, no. If I can’t, you can’t.”
“Livvy!” she pleads.
“No way! You’re crazy.”
“You have the guest bedroom,” she tries to reason with me.
“Nope,” I laugh as I sit back down on the couch.
“You’re just jealous,” she says spitefully. I glare at her, studying her expression and realizing she’s kidding.
“It’s Finn,” I tell her. “Not jealous.”
She sits next to me on the couch and checks over her shoulder to see if Finn’s around. “I think tomorrow’s the day,” she whispers.
“For–” My eyes widen as I realize what she’s implying. “Really?”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t look at me when she admits this. “His dad’s going to Chicago and Gabby will be at his Mom’s this weekend. We’ll have the whole apartment to ourselves.”
“Wow. I can’t believe you’re actually gonna do it.”
“I love him,” she says. “And he loves me.”
“I know. I’m happy for you.” She’s younger than me and I haven’t even been out on a date yet! “You’re sure you’re ready?”
“Definitely,” she says quickly.
Finn’s foots
teps interrupt our conversation. He sits on the other side of Camille and puts his arm around her. “He says he needs someone to read to him, Liv,” he tells me. “Have fun with that.”
“Thanks, Finn,” I murmur sarcastically as I return to my brother’s room. “I hope you like Brave New World,” I say to Trey, plopping down on his clean bed. He hands me his favorite children’s book instead. After one read-through, he’s fast asleep.
When I return to the living room, Camille and Finn are lying down on the couch, kissing. “I guess you can continue to do that, but I’m going to be in here reading,” I tell them, only moderately annoyed. They both sit up quickly.
“You’re so lame, Livvy,” Finn says, joking with me.
“Shut up.” I throw my book at him, hitting him in the chest.
“I love this book,” he says, opening it up to a page and beginning to read out loud. “Cliff did a better job of writing the story than this Huxley dude.”
“Cliff?” I ask.
“The notes guy,” he explains.
It figures he’s only read the Cliff’s Notes on the classic book. “At least start where I left off,” I tell him. “Where the bookmark is.”
Not much reading gets done while they are at my house, and after my parents get home, my friends leave. I go downstairs to try to finish the chapter I had been reading, but instead can’t help but think about the fact that my friends are going to have sex tomorrow.
And that thought leaves me to wonder how long I’ll have to wait for my first time.
Over the next few weeks, Jon meets me at the Art Room and we continue our brief ritual of slowly walking home together. I wish I lived farther away from the school; two blocks isn’t enough, but the idea of us going out on a real date–alone–makes me excited and nervous at the same time.
The Thursday before our planned dinner, I have to wait for him to show up.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says with a stressed smile. His backpack is slung over his shoulder and he’s got bags under his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just worried about the tests on Saturday.”
“What tests?”
“The SATs?” It’s obvious he expects me to know this already, but I hadn’t realized they were coming up so soon.
“That’s Saturday?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Aren’t you coming to my house on Saturday?”
“Yeah, that evening, right? Your dad said at seven. Right?”
“But you have to take the tests that day?”
“Yeah. Oh, Liv, I’ll be fine. I’ll be much better once they’re behind me. Don’t worry, it’s fine.” He takes my hand, but does something different this week. He weaves his fingers between mine and rubs my palm with his thumb. My stomach flutters in delight, which just makes me even more conflicted. “Just seeing you here makes all that stress go away.”
I pull on his arm and stop him from walking any further, pausing in the middle of the sidewalk. I sigh aloud, but say words I don’t really mean anyway. “If you want to wait a week, it’s okay with me. I understand.” I don’t look him in the eyes, not wanting him to accept my offer.
“Hell, no,” he says. “That’s my light at the end of the tunnel, Liv. I get these tests out of the way, and I get to spend an entire evening with you.”
“And my parents.”
“Hopefully not for the whole evening. You don’t think they’ll let us have any time to ourselves? Maybe we could go on a four block walk,” he says, joking with me.
“I don’t know. You never know with my dad.”
“Livvy, I’m gonna make your dad like me. I promise you. That’s my goal right now–to convince your dad I’m good enough to go out with you, and to convince him to trust you with me... even alone.”
I try to hide my incredibly giddy smile by biting my thumbnail, but I don’t think it’s working. He takes a few steps toward me, and, instinctively, I walk backwards slowly until my back is against the brick wall of the studio building. I can’t bring myself to look away from him. He removes my hand from my mouth, holding it against his chest while he leans in closer.
“This probably isn’t a good start,” he says quietly, his eyes glancing down to my lips and back to my mesmerized stare again.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to kiss you, Livvy. I don’t think your dad would like that,” he whispers, moving closer.
“But I would,” I breathe softly, my voice pleading.
He lets go of both of my hands and inhales deeply, considering it but leaning back slightly with the intake of air. My eyes falter in rejection, but not a second later, his index fingers lift my chin up, his thumbs stroke my jawline, and his lips are warm and soft against mine. I can hear my heart beating loudly in my ears. Feeling light-headed, I close my eyes and I have to clutch his t-shirt to maintain my posture, even though there’s an entire building holding the weight of my body. He pulls back sooner than I want him to. My fingers brush against his bare stomach beneath the shirt that I have raveled in my fists. He puts his hands on top of mine, gently releasing the fingers from their grasp.
“You’re cold,” he says as he envelops my hands in his and rubs them together slowly in an attempt to warm them.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him quickly.
“Don’t apologize.” He shakes his head at me as he guides my still-cold hands to his waist, beneath the shirt. He flinches a little at the contact of my full palms against his skin.
“You’re hot,” I tell him as I press my hands against him, noticing the heat radiating off of his body.
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” he tells me, and in the moment, it takes me a second to realize what I’d just said to him.
“Ha,” I respond, embarrassed. “So clever. But seriously, you feel really hot. Are you feeling okay?”
“Livvy, I’m flattered, but you don’t have to keep telling me–”
“Stop!” I’m laughing as I cut him off, pushing him away playfully, feeling firm muscles against my thumbs. He grabs my forearms to stop his backward motion, pulling me into him again. He wraps his arms around me as my fingers lightly scrape his back, looking for a place to settle. Embracing him fully feels too intimate, but letting my arms loosely hang leaves my fingertips touching the pockets of his jeans.
He clears his throat as a sweet, soft smile settles on his lips.
“I feel great, Livvy,” he says quietly. He holds on tighter with his left arm as he releases his right hand to move a long strand of hair from my eyes. He kisses me again. This one feels even closer, warmer, slower, fueled by more need, or hunger. I feel it too. He’s fully in control, and although he backs off momentarily, he angles his head to the left and continues. I can’t stop the grin from spreading across my face as my hands settle into his pockets. The tips of my fingers curiously and cautiously press against him, and a sudden hiss of air through his teeth takes him away from me for good. He lets go of me and pulls my hands out of his pockets slowly. He watches my reaction. The smile disappears instantly and my breathing falters; my stomach falls.
When I try to pull away from him, embarrassed, he holds on to my hands. He shakes his head at me with a tender expression, and I can tell he doesn’t mean to hurt my feelings.
“That feels great, Livvy, but let’s take things slow, okay? If I let you keep doing that, I’m not sure I’ll be able to contain myself.”
The smile returns, and it makes me feel good to know that he liked what I did. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He lets go of one hand and takes the other one, holding it tightly as he starts walking toward my house. “I can’t wait until our date.”
“I can’t wait until Saturday.” He smiles and nods. “Do you really think I’m hot?” I ask him, having never thought of myself like that. I’d been called pretty, cute, very put-together (and for that, I had my aunt Anna to thank), but never hot. That implied something mo
re. Like I was desirable or something.
“I do. I think you’re more than that, Liv, but yeah. You’re hot.” It feels like my body is melting. We release each other’s hands at the same time.
“Thanks.” We arrive at the street corner across from my house, where my brother’s lying on the grass, pointing out shapes in the clouds. Dad waves at us. I stop, hoping that Jon notices. He pauses, looking at me. “I wish I could kiss you again,” I whisper in his ear. His cheeks turn pink as he glances in my father’s direction, and I suddenly fear that he will grant me my wish. Afraid of Dad seeing that and changing his mind about letting me go out with Jon, I start to walk away from him.
“Hey,” he says as he touches my shoulder. I turn around and give him a warning glance, shaking my head. He leans toward me quickly, but keeps his feet planted at an acceptable distance. “Saturday,” he says only loud enough for me to hear.
I bite my lip, trying to hide the smile. “Okay.”
“Hi, Jack!” he yells from across the street. “Gotta run. The SAT’s are Saturday!”
“Good luck!” my dad returns. “And as always, thanks for walking her home.”
“My pleasure. Bye, Livvy.”
“Good luck,” I tell him. “But you won’t need it.”
When Saturday finally comes, storm clouds loom overhead all day, and finally decide to unleash their wrath around six o’clock. Trey is a bundle of energy, unable to play outside as he normally does on the weekends. He typically has t-ball games on Saturday mornings, but the lightning and threat of rain caused them to cancel all games last night.
“Can you calm him down?” I ask my dad as Trey plays loudly with his toy cars in the basement just outside my room. My nerves are shot and I’m incredibly anxious about tonight.
“That’s why I’m down here, Contessa,” he says.
“Dad, don’t call me that tonight, okay?”
He looks at me, taken aback. “I’ll try, Liv. Can I ask why?”
“Because it’s a dumb nickname.” He shifts his focus to the toys strewn across the floor.
“Dumb, huh?” he mutters. “Right. Hey, Jackson, let’s get this room picked up. We can take some of these to your bedroom, but the basement’s off-limits tonight,” he tells my brother. “Any other requests?” he asks me tersely.
