“You wanna meet some of my friends?” I asked Emily, just making sure that she would be fine with that.
“Sure,” She inspected herself, “do I have anything in my teeth?”
“No,” I assured her, “but you do have wasabi on your upper lip.” Before she could wipe the made-up wasabi off, I swooped down and kissed her, right there on the sidewalk. It felt even better than usual, because we didn’t have to sneak off to a shadowy corner or anything to hide our kiss. Emily melted in my arms, kissing me back with an intense passion.
By the time we ended the kiss, Dre and Brittany were almost upon us. I waved them over just before they crossed the street to go somewhere else.
“What’s up, guys?” I bumped fists with Dre and hugged Brittany as we came together. “This is my girlfriend, Emily.” I put my hand on the small of her back and introduced her to the couple. I got a surprisingly large rush from being able to refer to Emily as ‘my girlfriend’.
“We’ve heard a lot about some mysterious college girl that Aaron had a crush on.” Dre mentioned as he shook her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet her.”
While Emily was talking to Brittany, Dre turned to me. “So what are y’all doin’?”
“We’re going to Smith’s and then we’re probably gonna go see a movie or something. What about you and Britt?”
“We’re goin’ to eat and then to the football game.”
“Awesome, dude.” We chatted for a few minutes until I sensed that Emily and Brittany’s conversation was reaching the point of no escape. I tried to cut it off subtly. “Hey, we don’t want to make you guys late for the game.”
“It was nice meeting you, Brittany. I hope we see each other more often.” Emily beamed at her.
We said our goodbyes and continued walking to Smith’s.
“I liked introducing you as my girlfriend.” I took Emily’s hand again.
“I liked it, too.” She squeezed my hand and laid her head on my shoulder for a second.
I opened the door and followed her into Smith’s. We were greeted with the smells of ice cream and freshly-baked cookies. I inhaled deeply before ordering a large hot-fudge sundae. Emily ordered the same thing. We sat down at a table near the window and dug in to our ice cream.
“I like that you got a sundae,” I commented, “most girls are like ‘I’ll have a scoop of nonfat, dairy-free sherbet.'”
Emily laughed at my grating imitation of a valley-girl voice. “I think you know me well enough now to know that that’s not my style.”
It was true; while Emily didn’t eat anywhere near as much as me, she ate a lot more than most girls of similar age and physique. I guess it made sense; she burned a lot of calories while working out for basketball.
“Mm.” I agreed through a mouthful of ice cream.
Emily took my hand again as we sat at the table. That simple act felt much better than it would with anyone else, mainly because just a few days ago, we thought that we wouldn’t be able to ever do anything like holding hands in public.
“I believe that you said something about seeing a movie?” Emily prompted.
“Indeed I did.” I smiled and pulled out my phone to check the showtimes at one of the local theaters. “Wanna see this?” I handed her my phone to show her a movie I was looking at.
“Absolutely! I love horror movies! But wait, you won’t be able to get in.”
“I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. We won’t have any problems, trust me.” I assured.
“Hmm… I sense you’ve snuck into R-rated movies before… Am I dating a criminal?” She teased.
I laughed and then leaned in as if I was telling her an important secret. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of misdemeanors I get up to. Sometimes, at fast-food restaurants, I ask for a water cup and then fill it up with lemonade.”
She gasped in fake horror. “No!”
“But I’ve got you beaten,” she added in a hushed voice, “sometimes, I illegally download music!”
“That’s it!” I cried, perhaps a little too loud. “We’re through! I can’t date a criminal like you, you- you- scoundrel!” I jumped up from the table, knocking over my chair and drawing stares from the other occupants of Smith’s.
Emily covered her mouth to hide her hysterical laughter at the awkwardness I had created, which had the hilarious effect of making it look like she was hiding tears.
“Thank you,” I took a huge bow, my face touching my knees because I bowed so low, “you’ve just had the inordinately immense pleasure of witnessing a performance by Aaron Moody.”
I led Emily out of the building, both of us fighting to hold in our laughter. Once we left and the door was shut, we both cracked up.
“Oh my god…” she panted, “that was so painfully awkward.”
“You’d better get used to it.” I boasted. “I can create awkwardness from seemingly nothing.”
I texted my mom an update before we went into the movie and found some seats in the middle of a row near the back. Despite Emily’s stated love of horror movies, she gripped my hand tightly and leaned up against me for the whole first half. About halfway in, though, she apparently decided that I was more interesting than the movie, which was fair: the movie was terrible. She moved even closer to me and started kissing my neck until I turned my head to face her.
“Is this movie not interesting enough for you?” I teased.
“Sort of, yeah.” She admitted, closing her eyes and waiting for me to kiss her with a small smile on her face.
I gladly obliged, kissing her as sensually as publicly acceptable. We kissed for a good portion of the rest of the movie, until I spoke up. “Em, what if someone asks us how the movie ends?” I whispered in mock-seriousness.
She laughed quietly. “I guess we’ll have to actually watch the rest, then.”
“Mm.” I agreed. We watched the rest of the movie pretty quietly, except for brief outbursts for making fun of the movie’s downfalls. Since the movie was so awful, we made a sort of competition out of making each other laugh by pointing out the movie’s fallacies.
After the movie, I drove Emily to her house and walked her to the door.
“I had a lot of fun, Aaron.” She beamed at me, her eyes glowing.
“I did, too.” I smiled back. “We have to do it again sometime.”
“I agree.” She looped her arms around my neck and gave me one last kiss.
I cupped her chin with one hand and caressed her soft cheek with the other. The cool October air was refreshing, but not chilly; there were crickets chirping in the nearby trees; the crescent moon provided some dim light to the surroundings; the smell of smoke from a nearby fireplace filled the air. I would have gladly stayed there all night, but I had to leave. I bid Emily “au revoir” and got into my car to drive home.
Leave a Reply