Page 48 of Our Moon
“If this is really forever, then one day I might be a baker named ‘Baker.’ Told you it was lame,” she says so quickly I can barely make out the words.
I’m stunned silent. Ally having my last name? Allyson Baker. Allyson Marie Baker. Mrs. Chase Baker. Now who is the lame one?
“Say something?” she asks nervously.
“Allyson Baker,” I say. “I like the sound of that.”
“Really?” she looks up at me.
“Hell, yeah,” I nod. “Someday, Ally. Someday you will have my name, and I’ll give you everything you could ever dream of.”
She smiles at me. “Just give me you.You’reeverything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“I promise,” I say as I lean in to give her a quick kiss. Then I jump to my feet and reach out my hand for her to take.
“What are you doing?” she asks, giggling.
I pull my phone out of my pants pocket and scroll through the songs until I come to the playlist I made for tonight. I press play and put it in my shirt pocket so we can still hear it, then I pull her in close. I mirror our positions from that night in her bedroom and she quickly catches on.
“I love this song,” she says as “Easy to Love You” by Theory of a Deadman starts playing.
I start singing the words to her, about moonlight and wishing she will never leave because she’s all that I’ll ever need. When I look into her eyes, they’re full of tears. I frown.
“They’re happy tears, baby.” She rests her head back on my chest, and I continue singing to her.
Yeah, I made a playlist of love songs just for our date tonight. I’m not ashamed. I hold Ally in my arms, and we dance through all ten songs, right there under our moon and its stars.
***
It’s a few days before Ally’s graduation and I have finally come up with a plan. I’m meeting her outside of her house tonight after practice to share it with her. She’ll either love it, or it’ll totally freak her out. It really could go either way and with Ally, you just never know. She’s always surprising me.
Like the other day when I gave her an early graduation/birthday gift, a necklace with matching earrings. The gemstone was alexandrite, the less common birthstone for June. She whisper-yelled at me for spending so much money when I was trying to save up to get out of my mother’s apartment. Then, because she loved the jewelry so much, we made out for an hour in the dark in her backyard. In that case, she loved itandshe totally freaked out.
I was about to find out what response I was going to get since we just wrapped up our last song and started putting our instruments up.
“Just a few more days left,” I say to Alex, referring to his graduation on Saturday.
“Thank God. It’s ridiculous that they even require attendance this week.”
“Can’t you just skip that shit?” Joey asks.
“No. If any seniors miss a day this week they don’t walk on Saturday.”
“Can they do that?” I ask. I don’t remember that rule from when I graduated. Shit, I was probably the reason they came up with that rule with the way my attendance record was as a senior.
“Yeah. We’d still get our diploma and all, but we wouldn’t be able to participate in the ceremony.”
“And mom would freak the fuck out if that happened,” Trevor adds, and Alex nods.
“Crazy,” Joey says, shaking his head. I think some days he regrets dropping out, but other days he loves the freedom too much. Plus, I know he needs the money from his day job, and he couldn’t get that while going to school, too.
“Yeah, but just three more days, and it’s all over. I can’t wait. No more ‘Alex, time to wake up,’ or ‘Alex, it’s a school night.’ Or my favorite, ‘Alex, don’t forget to do your homework.’” The guys and I laugh at his damn near perfect impersonation of his mother.
“Okay, well, I will see you guys tomorrow for dinner,” I say as I pass out fist bumps. “See you Thursday, Joe.”
“Later, man.”
I leave the garage and head down the driveway to my car. I shouldn’t have been so eager to get out of there, because I still have to wait for them to leave before I sneak back up. I start my car and fiddle around with the radio for a little bit, waiting to see them to exit the garage so I can pull off and know it’ll be safe to come back. On nights when I’m meeting Ally, I drive around the corner after Joey leaves and walk back.
