Physical Touch

by Hill, Sierra

  How appropriate that Adele’s “Someone Like You” was wafting softly through the speakers, her songbird voice singing something about “Regrets and mistakes, they’re memories made” as she had opened up the envelope, the one with the George Washington High School insignia in the upper left hand corner. Her hands trembled and her memory was flooded with images from those formative years. Mostly images from those she had taken of her classmates. Photographs for the yearbook. Photos depicting all the fabulous fun everyone was having during their senior year. Homecoming. Spring Break. Prom. Sports competitions. Cheer squad. Graduation.

  All pictures of other people having fun.

  Many women panic over the impending social gathering ten years after the best years of their lives. They might worry about losing the twenty pounds they’d put on since high school, or about getting back into shape post-baby, or wanting a boob job before the big event.

  But not, Laney. Her panic didn’t stem from a concern over any physical imperfection, although she could do without the extra padding added to her toosh. No, her anxiety was born from the distinct possibility of coming face-to-face with the boy now man – that she had quietly crushed on throughout high school. The boy who was so far out of her league he should’ve been from another planet. The boy who stole her heart and carelessly tossed it away like it was his leftover lunch from the school cafeteria. The boy who, the night after graduation, took her virginity, thereby giving her the best night of her life and a dream of something she hoped would remain forever.

  Forever, however, ended three weeks later when Evan Stansfield enlisted in the Navy and married Tanya Jansen.

  It was silly, really, to think she ever had a chance with Evan. How foolish she was to think that, because he was everything she wasn’t. Fierce. Wild. Funny. Outgoing. Incredibly gorgeous in his bad boy hotness. Every guy wanted to be his friend and every girl wanted him for herself. He was on the homecoming court three years running and was named Homecoming King their senior year. He dated only the most popular, sought after girls in school and was never lonesome for a date. Evan oozed charm and charisma, which seemed to pour out of every cell of his body, making him so damn likeable that no one could resist. Not even Laney.

  And yet for some reason, still unknown to Laney after all these years, Evan had wanted her, even for the briefest of moments.

  In an effort to begin saving for the future business she wanted to start after college, she’d taken a job at a local bar and grill her senior year. She knew, even then, that her career aspirations were to become a photographer and that she would someday open up her own studio. She loved to be behind the lens – capturing those rare and beautiful moments in the lives of others when they exuded happiness, joy and sometimes pain. She felt it and understood it and lived vicariously through it.

  However, she’d found out on her first day at Lucky Lucy’s Sports Bar, that she wasn’t cut out to be a waitress. It was a disaster. She spilled a bowl of minestrone soup on a patron’s lap, a business man who from the looks of it was not at all interested in hearing her pleading sobs of apology. She also broke a pitcher of beer when it slipped out of her hands and shattered on the already sticky and beer-splattered floor. She nearly broke out in hives when a group of college guys at one of her tables started shamelessly flirting with her, throwing out sexual innuendo and references that left her face blotchy and red.

  Running into the back of the kitchen, her eyes brimming over with hot, messy tears, she sank down on her knees and balled. There was no way she could continue trying to be something she wasn’t, where she had to be sociable and thick skinned. No, she was not suited to be a waitress, but better equipped to wash dishes, out of the way of others, back in the corners of the world where she could quietly go about her existence, invisible and out of sight.

  Laney was sitting on her butt, her back against the cold tiled wall, her head bent to her knees in misery, when she felt a hand placed gently on her shoulder. Her head jerked up in shock, a startled look appearing on her face. The look turned to bewilderment as she stared into the stormy blue eyes of Evan Stansfield.

  His eyes expressed concern. “Hey, are you okay?”

  Her insides went wonky and her flesh became clammy. Her body went from extreme cold to equator hot simultaneously. The distant sounds of the bar area, laughter, dishes clanking, music blaring, barely registered as she tried to wrap her head around the reason Evan was crouched next to her. She couldn’t quite grasp what he was saying to her, as if she were underwater. Everything was garbled and muffled. When she just sat there, for what probably was an eternity, her mouth gaping open at him, he let out a laugh.

  “Well, I know I’m a sight to behold, but you’re looking at me like I have two heads or something. Or do I have some spinach stuck in my teeth? Oh geez, do I have something nasty hanging from my nose?” He swatted a finger underneath his perfectly shaped nose.

  She giggled at the audacity of Evan’s self-deprecating humor. Could this gorgeous guy – this unattainable god of women, actually be trying to cheer her up? No Way!

  Evan kneeled at her side, handing her a dish towel to wipe her tears. She gladly accepted it, sniffling away her tears.

  She looked up sheepishly. “Um…thanks. You don’t have to, you know…try and make me feel better.”

  “Oh, well actually, I was just going to let you know Table Eight needed some more coffee,” he said, turning his head in the direction of the restaurant. Laney’s expression was one of mortification.

  Evan let out a loud, boisterous laugh.

  “I’m just kidding. But do you honestly think I wouldn’t be compelled to help out a pretty girl in distress?” His thumb came out to wipe away an errant tear that had trailed down along her chin. His touch had her flinching.

  “Whoa - jumpy much? Sorry…it’s supposed to be good luck to snag a tear before it rolls off someone’s face. So anyway, are you gonna tell me what has you sitting back here in the corner crying your eyes out?” His eyes made a quick detour to her chest where her gold name tag was pinned askew. “Laney?”

  The sound of her name coming from his beautiful mouth had created a memory to last a lifetime. She could die a happy girl now just from hearing those two syllables being spoken by the hot, kissable lips of one Evan Stansfield.

  He stood up then, offering his hand to pull her up next to him. Smoothing her hands down the backside of her mini-skirt, she caught his eyes watching her movements, scanning her up and down. When his eyes returned to meet hers, he shrugged, unconcerned at being caught.

  “What? So sue me. I’m not all that altruistic in my actions. A guy can’t resist looking at a perfect ass.” Then he gave her the most disarming, white toothed, wolfish smile she had ever seen. A smile that would have sent Little Red Riding Hood running for the hills.

  “And let me tell you,” he said conspiratorially, looking around the room as if he were in a spy movie. “If we weren’t out here in the kitchen area with ten pairs of eyes on us, you’d better be damn sure my hands would have replaced yours in a heartbeat.”

  Laney gasped. Not only had he suggested she was pretty, but he’d also very bluntly told her he wanted to touch her ass. Swallowing down a thrill she could only describe as erotic embarrassment, she felt her face flush, the blood rising from the tips of her toes, up through her belly and to her cheeks.

  Little did she know that it would not be the last time she would be enraptured by the smooth talking, blonde haired, blue eyed, knows-what-he-wants and how to get it, bad boy.

  Laney sighed and shook her head, clearing the memories from a lifetime ago. She was a different person back then – an innocent girl, full of unrealistic dreams of being loved always and forever the boy who stole her heart. Dreams that would never be fulfilled.

  Taking the silver embossed invite in both hands, she carefully and intentionally ripped it in half, tossing it, along with her memories, in the trash.

  a, Physical Touch