Page 15 of Pretend to be Mine
“How so?”
“Well, things are different when you’re a guy, you know? You’re not taught to protect your virtue or whatever. I was pretty much dying to give it away. So I asked out a girl who I knew was a sure thing. I took her out, dinner and a movie. We didn’t watch much of the movie, though, as things were heating up between us. We ended up leaving the movie early and spending the rest of the night in my truck in the parking lot.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “Well, I think mine’s better.”
He smiles. “I don’t know. I leaned some things that night that I still use to this day,” he laughs and I playfully push against his shoulder.
The two of us eat and continue through the family photos. He asks questions about who’s in the photos and I answer them and add in little bits of information that may be useful. After we finish eating, I get up and start cleaning up the mess while he continues to flip through the albums. Once everything is all cleaned up, we take the books into the living room and sip on hot coffee while he asks more questions.
“When is your birthday?”
“March sixteenth. When’s yours?”
“October twenty-seventh. How long have we been together? I mean, do you want to date this back to the break-up, or is this new?”
Hmmm, I never thought about that. If I date it back to the break-up, my family will wonder why I’ve been sitting on this so long. “Let’s go with a few months. I don’t want them to think it’s super new and that it’ll never last, but I also can’t go back too far. I just saw my mom a couple months ago and she’ll wonder why I didn’t mention it then.”
“Okay, so what? Three months?”
I nod. “That sounds good.”
He goes back to flipping through the photos and I grab the remote and turn on the TV for some background noise. To my surprise, I find a baseball game and set the remote down. The pictures end up forgotten as the two of us focus more on the game than on the album. The Yankees are playing against the Cubs and, for once, we’re both rooting on the Cubs. I always tend to root for the underdogs.
The coffee gets switched out for beer, and as we drink, we get louder, cheering on the TV. Everything else seems forgotten as the two of us lose ourselves in the game. By the end, I’m exhausted from the constant ups and downs, and I fall back onto the couch. Ben does the same and he turns his head to look over at me.
“That was exciting.”
I laugh.
“What?”
I giggle more and shake my head.
“Tell me.”
“I just,” I say around giggles. “I pictured that’s what you looked like and said after your night in the movie parking lot.” My laughing picks up and he joins in, playfully shoving me to the side.
“That was a good one, but you’re an asshole.”
That only makes me laugh louder. I love the easiness between us. We’ve known each other less than a week and already it feels like we’re old friends. Something just clicks with us; it fills my heart with happiness knowing that we’ll always be close. Even if we do go our separate ways, I’ll know that I’ll always have a friend in Ben.
After we both calm down, he stands up to leave. “So, tomorrow? More studying all things Savannah?”
I walk over to the door with him. “Sounds good. I’ll take you out to dinner. One of my favorite spots. It’s on me.”
Ben shakes his head. “You’re not buying me dinner.”
“You paid last time, remember? And since we’re not really dating, it’s unfair for you to buy all the meals.”
He smiles but rolls his eyes. “Alright. It’s a date.” He grins and shoots me a wink as he opens the door and steps out.
I reach forward and turn the lock for the night. I stand on my tiptoes and peak through the glass along the top, watching him walk away. I turn and press my back to the door with a smile on my face. I don’t know how two people can be so much alike and yet still be adamant on not being together. Falling for him would be easy if I allowed myself to do so. Good thing I have self-control.
