Chapter 35: ♤Chapter 27♤

The whole drive over to their house, I felt queasy and uncomfortable in my seat. And it’s not just because I could feel the fat on my torso spilling over the waistband of my jeans reminding me why I should’ve worn leggings instead, but the fluttery feeling in my stomach. Which means I was completely nervous and dreading this evening.

It’s not that I didn’t want to see him, it’s just gonna be awkward because I’m gonna be in his house so I won’t have a valid excuse to not talk to him. I know I’m being dramatic, but I’m not gonna just waltz in and give him a hug and act like I haven’t been taking the longer ways to class to avoid him in the halls. The awkward stage is gonna happen and he’s gonna give me those sad eyes again and ask me if I’m still mad. And I'm not mad, just annoyed.

When we got there my mom parked on the curb and I stared out the windshield at the snow falling lightly as she got herself and her stuff together.

The heavier snow fall had taken place this morning, leaving a good five inches or so of fresh snow on everything.

“Why you just sitting there?” she retorted, “Let’s go.” She undid her seatbelt and reached for the door handle.

I let out a loud breath when she got out and closed the car door behind her. It didn’t take long for me to get myself together. I gave myself a five second pep talk about the fact that it was just the four of us and I should be grateful for that at least.

It wouldn't been even better too if we weren’t so early. It was 3 p.m.. Like, why are we here? It’s too early.

We both made our way up the brick walkway, carefully, with snow sticking to our shoes and our hands clutching the containers of food. Another reason why winter isn’t my favorite time of year. I had to be stomping my foot every three steps.

Charlotte answered the door and broke into a large smile. I immediately noticed what she was wearing which were jeans, a cosy looking knitted sweater and black boots.

“Hi, Happy Thanksgiving!” My mom said excitedly. She reciprocated the greeting and they shared a short embrace.

“Oh, come in! Come in!” Charlotte still wore a large smile as she ushered us in and I struggled to believe it was real.

Not that she didn’t smile, just that she didn’t do it a lot. She must be really excited to meet my mom.

Which means she's super excited to talk about my closeness with her son, which is really the other way around.

She placed a hand on my back lightly as I came in after my mom. Then she leaned down to me and said, “I love your hair.”

And I couldn’t help but grin up at her. “Thank you.”

“Oh, let me take that,” Charlotte turned to me and reached for the container in my hand and I handed them to her without question.

For the next five minutes she helped us get settled. We got out of our coats, me taking the food from my mom so she could after I did, and hung them up while they spoke briefly about the weather condition.

Suddenly I heard, “Do you mind going up to get Christian?” Which caused me to freeze up.

I stuttered for a second before saying, “Can’t I like, shoot him a text or something?”

They both turned to look at me and I smiled sheepishly. Shrugging, I said, “I mean he could be doing something and it’s not dinner time yet.”

My mom made a face before saying, “Oh would you just go get him.”

They both turned, and with Charlotte leading the way they started for the kitchen. I heard my mom muttering something as they went then they both laughed lowly.

Once they were out of sight, I whined loudly, stomping my feet against the wooden floor and started for the staircase. I shook my arms back and forth wildly to show my discomfort for my current mission.

“Here I am just tryna mind my damn business,” I ranted as I climbed the stairs, stomping unnecessarily with each step, “And I gotta go all the way up there when I could’a just texted him, but okay.”

I ranted bitterly all the way up to the attic and contemplated pounding on the door while shouting, “Open the fucking door!” But I didn’t. Instead I stood there for a good five minutes, thinking about how I should go in, what I should say, and how long I was gonna stay in there, which I wanted to be no more than three seconds.

Rolling my eyes, I knocked on the door firmly and quickly found that it wasn’t closed. It slid open a little so I pushed it open and peeked inside hesitantly, “Christal?”

He was sitting at the edge of his bed, slipping his feet into a pair of laceless black shoes. I held back the urge to go at his neck for not answering me when I knocked, but that was partly because he was in a tank top and since he was leaning forward, I got a good look at the muscles in his shoulders and arms. A real good look.

My eyes drew to the tattoo on his upper back, creeping a little over his shoulder. I still haven’t asked him about it, but from here it looks like some sort of crest.

When he sat up, my eyes shot to his face. There wasn’t anything special about the look he gave me. His head was tilted back and his lips parted — it was a relaxed look. Nothing special about it. The one you gave to a person who poked your shoulder to get your attention. But regardless, my hand tightened on the doorknob and my breathing stuttered momentarily before I stopped breathing right after.

A second later, the corner of his lips pulled up and he cracked a small grin, “Hey.”

Just let me sit on you-

I looked down before I could finish that thought and said, “Your mom just asked me to come get you.” I nodded before turning, pulling the door after me as I did.

“Hold up.”

I made a face before sighing and backtracked slowly until I was facing him again.

“Yup?” I  asked, forcing a small smile.

His eyes narrowed and he raised his hand, his index finger curling as he gestured for me to come forward. So I took a couple slow steps into the room.

Then his gaze dropped to my hand briefly. His eyebrows raised when his eyes came back to mine and he said, “Drop the door knob.”

I did with a heavy sigh and crossed my arms. My eyes went to the left of the room and almost did a double take when I saw an open door.

He has a bathroom?

The door was the same wooden texture like the walls which is probably why I never saw it before.

Well that’s stupid.

I looked back at him when I saw he was getting up from the edge of the bed and stopped myself from leaning back on my heels and saying “woah” with my eyes wide.

Muscles.

Chris wasn’t ‘linebacker muscular’ but he had enough for you to look twice. Or thrice. Or maybe a hundred times. Thing is, he was more lean than he was muscular, fit would be the better word to describe it. He didn’t wear tight clothing or rip his shirt off every chance he got, thank God for that cause I don’t think my heart could take it. His clothes were loose fitting, but often he’d wear T-shirts that clung deliciously to his shoulders but even with his choice of comfortable clothing style, you could tell he was a pretty active guy.

And I can’t say I don’t notice, I’m not blind. If I see a hot guy, I look. Just like I always looked at him before we became friends.

It also makes it hard to breathe sometimes.

Like right now as I held his gaze as he walked toward me.

He stopped a couple feet in front of me and crossed his arms. He tilted his head when he said, “Why are you acting like I’m some kind of psycho?” My responding stare prompted him to keep going, “Why aren’t you talking to me? What did I do?” He demanded.

I kept my eyes on his for a silent moment before shrugging, “It doesn’t matter.” Then I turned away.

“No,” he said, then I felt his hand on my arm. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to him again and ended up blinking a couple more times when he kept pulling me, with his other hand grazing my hip, until we were standing toe-to-toe.

He didn’t seem to catch my stunned expression, or he just didn’t care too much. He kept going and my face burned as hot as it did where his fingers lightly massaged my hip. “Gimme a clue here, Ari,” he said lowly, “You’re killing me, smalls,” he added teasingly, then he smiled.

And I stared up at him, dumbfounded for a moment. It didn’t take too long for me to get it together and quickly said, “Okay, okay. Step away from me.”

His hands fell away and he held them up as he took exactly one step away, then folded them behind his back.

I took a deep breath before opening my mouth to start talking, only to close it as new wave of irritation washed over me. So with another breath, I finally said, “I got the sex talk because of you.”

“Ouu, damn,” he said lowly and I nodded, “I never got that,” he added and my jaw clenched as I held back the urge to reach up and wrap my fingers around his throat. He laughed suddenly and took another step back, “I’m kidding. Calm down. You’ve met my mom,” he said with a small grin, “I got that talk the first day I came home and told everybody a girl kissed my cheek.”

I figured “everybody” meant when his family was once whole.

Some of my irritation melted away at the sight of his reassuring smile and I crossed my arms as I gave him a look, “Oh really?” I retorted and he nodded, placing his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, “And when was that?”

He shrugged, “Third grade.” My eyebrows raised and he added, “Then I got another in sixth when I had my first kiss, and again when I got my first girlfriend. So believe me,” he gave me a look, “You’ll be fine.” He laughed lowly and made his way back to his bed.

My eyes went to his back again and it was definitely a crest. But I very much enjoy seeing the muscles in his back flex with every move.

I watched him reach for a grey hoodie on the edge of his bed and pulled it on.

“Well I don’t care how many times it happened to you,” I voiced and he turned to me, adjusting his sleeves with an amused look, “The point is, she acted as if anything even happened. It would’ve made sense if she’da caught me in some kind of action, but she didn’t, and it was so humiliating. She overreacts to every little th- what?” I reached up to touch the ends of my hair when he just kept staring.

He shook his head a little but smiled, “You um…” he gestured to me, walking over slowly, “You look nice.”

My heart flipped, “Oh,” I said lamely, my cheeks warming, “Thanks,” I looked down at myself involuntarily.

“And your hair is…” he reached out and I eyed his hand by the side of my head.

“Real?” I said teasingly.

He chuckled, dropping his hand, “That’s far from what I was gonna say.”

“What were you gonna say?”

He shrugged wordlessly, “I dunno, you didn’t give me time to think up and good enough adjective,” I choked on a laugh, reaching up to scratch the back of my neck, embarrassed but flattered all the same. “But I really like it.” He nodded. His hand lifted again, “May I?”

It took me a second to grasp onto what he was saying until I answered, “Sure,” but when his hand brushed my hair, I flinched to the side a little and held up my finger, “But if you mess up my hair, I swear I’ll cut you.”

“Okay,” he chuckled and I stood straight.

This was the first time Chris was seeing my real hair, as sad as it sounds. I’m just a very impatient person with little tolerance, so to stop myself from cutting all my hair off, I mostly do braids and crochet.

But holidays are special times. Special times when I decide to rock my natural hair after maybe an hour of getting it done up how I want to.

Usually when I did my hair I never let it out, but this time I did and had two short cornrows in the front of my hair to keep my bangs back. The rest of my hair framed the sides of my face and fell just above my shoulders. When I’d just done it it was a lot more curly and touched my shoulders but the cold air got to it. Most of the curls were gone now replaced by the more prominent kinks that never leave but I won’t be sad to tell him he can’t run his fingers through it without getting stuck.

He seemed to know better though and kept his inspection external. He gently twindled with my hair before fixing it and dropping his hand, “Not that you should listen to what I say, but you should wear it like that more often.”

I laughed dryly, “Yeah, no.”

“Why not?”

I eyed him then pointed to my hair, “First of all, you don’t have to do this, I do,” I dropped my hand, “And second, I have a huge forehead and if I’m gonna do my hair, it’ll be up in a bun most of the time. Then we have the days where it dries out completely and I have to soak it with water before my comb can even go halfway through,” I stopped when I saw that he was just staring, and shook my head, “But you’ll never understand.”

He smiled widely, “How ‘bout you tell me over dinner?”

I stared at him blankly before rolling my eyes and sighing loudly, feigning exasperation “Fine.”

He chuckled behind me as we left and I figured maybe dinner wouldn’t be so bad. With one problem being resolved and all.