Dating: For the Block

by Stephanie Street

“Oh, my goodness. What is that?” Mia murmured in my ear.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea, but it looks messy.”

  “We’re having nachos!” Noah yelled with a grin. “Everybody pull up a chair.”

  Nachos? Was that what that was?

  At center court a round table had been set up. It was covered with plastic and sat on a huge brown tarp. On top of the table, Noah and Tierney had dumped out at least ten bags of torilla chips in a giant mound. On top of the chips were piled toppings of every kind. Tomatoes, nacho cheese, black beans, guacamole, sour cream, lettuce. The list went on. And it had been strategically placed so if you didn’t like one topping, you could eat around it. It looked crazy, but delicious.

  Chairs for each of us had been set up. There were five couples. Drew and Piper. Tierney and Noah. Mia and me. Luke and a junior girl named Melissa. And finally, Jared Castle and Piper’s best friend, Dannika. We’d invited Mateo and Will, but they couldn’t find dates. Losers.

  “And not just any nachos,” Tierney called out as we made our way to our seats. “Hand-cuffed nachos!”

  “Kinky!” Jared laughed, earning himself a smack from Dannika and a glare from Tierney.

  “Not kinky, Jared. Everybody sit down and Noah and I will go around and hand-cuff each of you to your neighbor on both sides and then we have to cooperate to eat,” Tierney explained.

  “Or not!” Noah interjected with a grin.

  “Just remember, we have to clean this up before we can play games,” Piper said, looking a little worried.

  “Calm down, babe,” Drew spoke softly with a smile.

  Everyone found their seats, sitting boy-girl-boy-girl. I was just glad I didn’t have to be hand-cuffed to Noah. As it was, I was linked to Mia and Dannika. Noah and Tierney were the last to sit down, clicking their hand-cuffs over their wrists with wide grins.

  “Okay,” Tierney called out. “Dig in.”

  “That was so the wrong thing to say,” Mia groaned as Luke and Jared both dove into the chips face first.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, because of course they did. But this wasn’t rocket science. Turning to Dannika who was attached to my left hand, I asked, “Are you right or left handed?”

  “Right,” she answered.

  “Perfect. You can have my left hand then.” I didn’t need it to eat, anyway.

  Danni smiled and reached into the nacho pile taking my left hand with her. I attempted to make my arm as light as possible. It was super weird when she lifted her hand to her mouth once she’d filled it with a chip. I had to work to keep my fingers out of her face.

  “That is so weird,” she giggled. Jared caught her attention at that point and I figured I should stop ignoring my date.

  “You’re right-handed, right?” I asked softly. Mia looked amazing tonight. There was something so sexy about a girl who was comfortable in her own skin. We were here to play basketball and while it was still a date, everyone had dressed accordingly in gym shorts and t-shirts with tennis shoes on their feet. Mia’s dark hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and her makeup looked fresh rather than caked on. Everything about her lured me in. Everything except the ‘stay-back’ expression on her face that had been there since I picked her up after dropping Mom off at the hospital with the promise that I’d pick her up in the morning. She’d stood over my shoulder while I set three different alarms.

  “Yeah,” she answered.

  “Me, too.”

  Deciding there was nothing to do but go for it, I reached into the nacho mess and picked the perfect chip. But then, when my hand was about halfway to my mouth, I paused. Mia, instead of letting her hand go along for the ride, wrapped her arm around mine, clasping her hand around my wrist. It was the first time she’d initiated any kind of physical contact with me since our kiss in her truck and it struck me stupid.

  What was happening to me? Mia holds my arm and suddenly I’m reduced to a melting lump of sentimental goo?

  Thankfully, she’d been talking to Drew on her other side while I was having my mental breakdown and didn’t notice.

  All around us, the other couples at the table were laughing. Jared and Luke were attempting to feed their dates, while Noah, who was left handed, and Tierney kept yanking on their joined arms keeping either of them from eating anything. Piper and Drew, of course, were being sickeningly sweet while Mia and I were on point being the awkward couple in the bunch. Even Jared and Dannika and Luke and his date were having more fun than Mia and I and we were supposed to be a couple.

  Well, this just wouldn’t do.

  I couldn’t be out done by freaking Jared and Luke!

  The next time Mia brought her hand up to eat a nacho, I reached out and knocked it from her hand with our joined hands.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” she cried, her eyes wide.

  I shrugged. “Just trying to make things more interesting.” And to keep things fair, I did the exact same thing to Dannika on my left, making her giggle.

  Mia narrowed her eyes and I couldn’t tell if she was more irritated at me for keeping her from eating or because I was paying attention to Dannika at the same time. Whatever. I just wanted to have fun and not worry about Mia and her issues with me.

  I picked up a chip, loaded with sour cream and guacamole, and moved it toward my mouth. Just as it reached my lips, Mia jerked our joined hands and my nose filled with white and green goop.

  “Hahaha! Gross!” I laughed. I had to give it to her, that was perfect. “How am I going to get that out of my nose?”

  Mia giggled, her eyes dancing. “I have no idea, but that is funny.” She pointed to my face.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Oh, yeah? You think that’s funny?” I asked, lifting one brow.

  Mia giggled again, not at all hearing the threat in my voice. “So funny.”

  “Okay. I see how it is. I see how this is going to be.” And without warning I yanked my hand, the one that was cuffed to Dannika, and grabbed a handful of nacho deliciousness just before smashing it in Mia’s shocked face.

  “Oh. Oh. Oh. You are going down, Levitt,” Mia screamed once she’d found her voice. Jumping out of her seat and knocking it over behind her, Mia caught Drew and I both unawares as she reached with both hands for globs of nachos to throw at me.

  “No! No! We have to clean this all up!” I heard Piper call just before Drew smashed a handful of chips in her mouth. “Drew!” she garbled, eyes wide.

  He just laughed and it was on.

  It was a good thing the tarp Noah and Tierney put down on the gym floor was huge because the ensuing food fight was epic.

  All I cared about was that I’d gotten Mia to laugh. Any amount of green goop up my nose was worth it to hear that and by the time it was all over, every one of us was clutching our stomachs from laughing so hard.

  “I can’t believe you started a food fight, Grayson!” Piper cried through a laugh just before one last blob of crunched chips landed on my chest.

  “I can,” Noah laughed as he used the hem of his shirt to wipe cheese from Tierney’s forehead.

  “How are we going to play games like this?” Dannika asked, pointing to her nacho splotched shirt.

  Jared shrugged. “I have some clothes in my gym locker.”

  “We can shower in there real quick, too,” Luke pointed out. And he was going to need a shower. Melissa thought it would be funny to used nacho cheese like gel in his hair.

  Piper turned to Dannika and Mia. “I have some clothes in my locker, too.”

  “So do I,” Mia told her.

  “Okay, then. Let’s get this cleaned up and then we’ll all get washed and changed in the locker rooms.” Tierney clapped her hands once and jumped to her feet, her cheerleader tendencies overriding her nerd vibes for once.

  Once Noah removed all the hand-cuffs, we got to work. It took some doing, but we all took a side of the plastic sheet covering the table and rolled the nacho mess in it before setting the whole thing in a trash can that Jared had rolled ove
r from the edge of the gym. Next, Piper retrieved paper towels and a spray bottle of cleaning solution from the locker room and we all worked together to wipe down the chairs and the table legs, the only part of the table that had gotten dirty thanks to the plastic covering. Once the table and chairs were clean, we stacked them by the bleachers and worked together to roll up the rest of the mess in the tarp. Noah reassured us he would take it home and hose it off before his parents even knew the difference.

  “Everybody, to the locker rooms!” Piper called out, leading the charge.

  We’d had so much fun, it gave me the courage to pull Mia into my arms, guacamole and all. Her smile dimmed just a little but the light in her eyes did not.

  “Well, that was fun,” I said, dipping my face close her hers and rubbing my nacho smeared cheek across hers.

  “Gray!” she laughed, pushing me away but not so far I had to release her.

  She’d called me Gray. Only my closest friends and my mom shortened my name like that. I liked hearing it from her.

  Grinning from ear to ear, I leaned down again, this time to plant a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Go get cleaned up. We have some schooling to do on the court.”

  Mia laughed as she jogged toward the locker room and I wondered if maybe I’d given her enough space. Maybe she was ready to talk about what was going on between us. And maybe, hopefully, she was ready for something more than fake.

  16

  Mia

  After a few rounds of HORSE and Lightening, we played a game. Jared and Luke wanted to play guys against girls, but we ended up splitting up via school yard picks with Piper and Luke as captains. Everyone immediately agreed to the captains like it was an arrangement they were used to. Piper, of course, chose Drew first and her team ended up being the two of them, Noah, Tierney, and Dannika. Grayson and I were on a team with Jared, Luke, and Melissa. We got slaughtered, but it was all in fun.

  At about ten, Dad came out of his office and called an end to our date. He looked sleepy and I wondered if he’d napped in his chair for awhile. Everyone offered their gratitude to him for letting us hang out in the gym and after hauling away the trash, went their separate ways.

  “Home by one, Mia,” Dad called out as Grayson and I climbed into his old Subaru.

  “I could just go home with him,” I offered before getting all the way in the car.

  Grayson shook his head. “No way. I thought we could go for shakes.”

  I debated. A part of me really wanted to spend more time with Grayson. I’d been thinking a lot about my talk with Piper, wondering how unjust I’d been in my judgement of Grayson, probably a lot. Tonight had been fun and I wanted to see what might happen next. But I was nervous too, wondering if I should just stick to my ‘no boys’ plan and not take the chance that there could be more.

  I nodded, getting the rest of the way in the car. “Sounds good.”

  Grayson smiled and pulled away from the school heading toward the part of town where a series of fast food restaurants lined both sides of the road. He drove straight to a place that wasn’t a chain restaurant, but was known for their shakes. Dad had taken me there a bunch of times when I came to Indiana to visit. I hadn’t been there since moving here, however.

  “Ooh. I haven’t had one of these shakes in forever,” I said, bouncing in my seat.

  “They’re the best in town.” Grayson bypassed the parking lot and pulled up to the drive-thru. “Do you know what kind you want?”

  “Double chocolate, of course,” I answered as though it was obvious and really, it was. Plain old chocolate would never do if double chocolate was an option.

  Grayson grinned again. In fact, he hadn’t stopped smiling since we’d gotten into the car. Cranking the window down manually, his car was so old, Grayson leaned out give the lady our orders through the speaker. Double chocolate for me, peanut butter for him.

  Grayson pulled forward and dug a debit card out of his pocket. After paying and handing me our shakes, which I placed in the cup holders on the console, he pulled back out on to the main road and headed back in the direction of my house. But instead of heading straight there, he detoured to a nearby park.

  “This is where we play ball all summer,” he said, pointing to a dark basketball court. A field of dead grass lay on one side, a set of playground equipment on the other. Grayson made no move to get out of the car.

  I picked up my shake and worked to get the thick liquid up the wide straw. “Oh, that is so good,” I moaned.

  Grayson sucked on his own straw in the seat beside me. “So good,” he agreed once he finally got a taste.

  The shake was cold, making me shiver. Grayson noticed and reached out to turn up the heat.

  “I’ll be glad for spring, won’t you?” he asked, holding his hand in front of the warm air.

  I nodded. “Spring is fine, but summer? Not so much.”

  Grayson laughed. “Yeah, the humidity is awful.”

  “For the weather alone, I was always glad to go back to California,” I told him between sips of my shake.

  “I bet. I mean, I’ve never been to California, but if there’s no humidity, I’m in.”

  I frowned at him. “You’ve never been to California?”

  He shook his head. “Why would I go to California?”

  “I don’t know, because it’s awesome. There are beaches and Disneyland and so much to do I can’t even list it all. Plus, the weather is amazing almost all the time and even if it’s hot, everyone has a pool-” I was rambling. “Anyway, it’s a fun place to go. You should try it sometime.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I will.”

  Glancing over, I caught him staring out the window, seemingly deep in thought. I wished I could ask him what he was thinking about, but we were on unsteady ground. I had no idea what he would or wouldn’t be willing to confide in me.

  We both broke the silence between us at once.

  “How come you didn’t move with your mom?”

  “What are you going to do after graduation?”

  After a second we laughed.

  “You first,” he said.

  “No, you,” I insisted.

  He glanced at me with his head tilted. “What kind of gentleman would that make me? Ladies first.”

  His words warmed me even though I knew he was being a little silly. “Okay, then, I was just wondering what your plans were after graduation?”

  He didn’t answer right away, his attention suddenly riveted by the darkness outside the windshield. But then he sighed, setting the rest of his shake back in the cup holder.

  “I don’t know. I guess I don’t really have a plan. It isn’t like there’s money for college or anything.”

  Wow.

  That must really suck. I hadn’t thought about his situation like that before. It was never a question that my parents were paying for my college. Mom told me it was part of the divorce that they both had to contribute to a fund until I turned eighteen. She told me I could go pretty much anywhere. Or at least to a state school. I’d always planned to go to USC in California, but there were some great schools in Indiana as well. Dad had graduated from Indiana University back in the day and I knew he’d love it if I decided to be a Hoosier.

  “I’m sorry.” What else was there to say?

  Grayson shrugged. “It is what it is. Mom didn’t even finish her degree until a couple of years ago. She’s still paying her student loans. She qualified for some grants, but she still had to get loans.” He stared out the window some more before turning to me. “I hate the idea of starting out my life in debt so I think I’ll just get a job and try to take classes on a pay-as-you-go plan and live with mom until she kicks me out.”

  That made me smile. “Like she’d do that.”

  Grayson grinned. “I don’t know, you haven’t seen how mad she gets when I forget to put the milk away.”

  I nudged his shoulder to let him know I knew he was teasing before asking the question that had been burning a hole in my heart since Grayso
n had first told me about his dad leaving when he was just a baby. I mean, just because he left, that didn’t mean he wasn’t still responsible, right? What about child support?

  “What about your dad? Will he help you?”

  Every trace of humor disappeared once I asked, making me feel guilty for giving into my curiosity.

  “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.” I put my hand on his arm.

  Grayson shook his head. “No, it’s okay.” He sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I just don’t talk about him much.” I could hear the words he’d left off that statement….Like ever.

  “I’m sorry.” Grayson’s dad was a jerk who’d hurt him. I wanted to find the guy and pound on him, tell him what a great son he had and that he was the one missing out, not Grayson.

  He shrugged. “It’s alright. I told you, he left when I was just a baby. It’s just been Mom and me.”

  “He’s never helped out at all? You don’t see him?” I couldn’t imagine that. Even though my parents didn’t love each other anymore, I never questioned either of their love for me.

  “Nope,” he answered. “I guess he’s sent a few cards with money over the years, but nothing that was really helpful.”

  Jeez.

  “And I don’t even care for my sake, but I hate that my mom has to work so hard. School was horrible. She was always gone. Always tired. And now she picks up shifts so she can pay off her loans.” Grayson sighed. Dropping his head into his hand, he rubbed his temple. “It makes me so mad at him.”

  He was hurting. It was so plain on his face, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for his hand resting on his thigh between us.

  “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough, but it was all I had.

  He squeezed my hand in his. “He wants to see me.”

  “What?”

  His mirthless laugh filled the car. “Yeah. I haven’t seen him face to face since I was four months old and he thinks he can just call me up and I’ll come running. That’s messed up.”

  “It really is. Wow. So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he sighed. “Mom thinks I should do it. Just hear him out at least this once. I don’t get it though. Who does that? Who just leaves their kid and doesn’t look back? He’s been back. He’s been back several times. I’ve seen the pictures on my aunt’s Instagram of him at my grandparents house.” He turned to look at me, his eyes full of pain. “They live an hour away.”