Page 68 of On My Side
I lift my skirt a little to show a bit more of the stockings and stick my leg out, toe pointed. “Oh, these old things? They’re my potion-making stockings.”
“Are they magical, or are you?”
I meet his eyes, and his crooked smile has my belly feeling like jello. How dare he insinuate I’m magical when I’m pretty much the equivalent of three racoons in a witch’s costume! “It’s them,” I say definitively, pulling my leg back in and letting go of my skirt, the fabric falling around my legs. “Definitely the stockings.”
Ren makes his way to the couch and I go to the kitchen to get us wine glasses, which is how I discover I don’t own any wine glasses. God, I’m more of a loser than I thought, and I already thought I was a pretty big one. I usually drink my wine in a mug, so I grab two and re-enter the living room to Ren staring at the paused TV screen.
“Why don’t you pull upGilmore Girls?” I ask, reaching across him for the bottle of wine, and realizing I didn’t think to grab a bottle opener.
I hope I have one of those, I usually just buy cheap screw-top wine.
“Were you watchingScream?” he asks, eyes on the TV.
“Oh, yeah. Kinda my guilty pleasure…”
“Do you remember when you and Kat told Millie and I it was a funny movie and made us watch it, and I had nightmares for a year?”
I attempt to cover my responding laugh with my hand. “Oh, god. Did we? Are you sure it wasn’t Kat on her own?”
“Yup.” He points the TV remote menacingly at me. “You traumatized me.”
“I’m sorry,” I giggle. “I wasn’t the most… thoughtful teenager.”
“Yeah, you were an asshole,” he says dismissively, turning his attention back to the TV. “But so are all teenagers, so don’t beat yourself up over it too much. Nic punched me in the face and broke my nose on her seventeenth birthday because I tried to wake her up to surprise her, so she’s got you beat.”
I laugh nervously, teeth digging into my lip.
“Can we watch it?” Ren asks, turning his body to face me.
“Gilmore Girls?”
“No,Scream.”
I stare at him in confusion. “You want to watch the movie that traumatized you as a child?”
“Yes,” he says simply, folding his hands in his lap. “Call it what you want: exposure therapy, facing my fears. But I think it’s time. Plus, if I watch thisandGilmore Girls, you really can’t say no when I eventually ask you to watch Star Wars.” He looks at me pointedly.
I laugh before going to the kitchen, relieved when I find a bottle opener. “If you’re sure it won’t give you nightmares again…”
I’m joking, but whatifhe has nightmares? What if he wakes up sweaty and scared andaloneand I’m not there to…
There towhat, exactly?
Never mind.
When I return to the couch, Ren presses play on the remote and reaches into the bowl of candy I left on the coffee table. I sitnext to him, and try not to creepily leer at his hands while he rips open the Butterfinger wrapper. But I can’t help but track the way his long fingers move and flex, and the way his veins decorate his skin.
This “not being able to get myself off” thing is a true tragedy.
“Wait,” Ren says, pointing his candy bar at the TV as the movie plays, “is that Drew Barrymore? OfThe Drew Barrymore Showfame?”
I laugh and reach for my own candy bar. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Oh, I’m guessing you know her from E.T. since you’re a billion years old?”
I get on my knees and cover his mouth. “Lorenzo, the movie’s playing.”
His eyes widen comically, bouncing between my face and Drew Barrymore cooking popcorn on the screen.
