Page 61 of Cocky Nerd
“Are you asking me to fake move-in withyou?”
“Nope.”
“I’m not going todrive.”
We both have our arms crossed over our chests, but he’s grinning and I’mpouting.
“What are you going to do if there’s a zombie apocalypse? Dance your way tosafety?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. That’s a pretty sweetimage.
“What if there’s a big earthquake, a tsunami warning, a hurricane headed for San Francisco, and mandatoryevacuations?”
“I’ll call you and ask you to pick me up because even if I could drive, I don’t have a car and neither doesCallie.”
“I would buy you acar.”
“A fakecar?”
“A Batmobile. Or a Prius. Probably aPrius.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t buy me acar.”
“I can. Have you ever tried driving acar?”
“Why do youcare?”
“I’ve already told you why I care. I don’t have time to argue about this, you need to get a license, it’s irresponsible not to. One day you’ll have a family and you need to be able to drive them around—and no you can’t put it off until you’ve danced the lead inGiselle.”
Oh shit. He wants a family soon. He’s not going to want to wait forme.
“If I were around when you were sixteen I would have given you driving lessons by force.Get into the driver’s seat.Now.”
There’s something about the tone of his voice, and the thought of being in a car alone with Johnny when I was sixteen that makes me unbuckle my seatbelt, get out of the car, and silently curse my nipples for suddenly standing at attention. Like, if I do crash this car, an airbag will be unnecessary because my nipples will prevent the rest of me from hittinganything.
When I get into the drivers seat, John is calmly belted-up next to me. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and twists in my direction. “Buckleup.”
“I am!Duh.”
“Now, adjust themirrors.”
“Yes. I know what to do, I’ve seen other people do it a million times, while selfishly and irresponsibly allowing them to drive meplaces.”
I adjust the seat and I adjust all the mirrors. I place my right foot on the brakepedal.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
I look over and see him staring at my protruding nipples. He licks his lips, shakes his head, and turns to face straight ahead. “Just drive.Slowly.”
“You really trust me to dothis?”
“There’s like half a square mile of flat open space and no one else around. Yes, I trust you.” He adjusts his jeans. Serves him right.Take that, John’spenis!
I take a deep breath. It’s really dumb that I’m even the least bit nervous, because there’s about a five percent chance that I’d accidentally ram my foot against the gas pedal, that the gas pedal would get stuck, and we’d crash into the side of the old brick warehouse that is so far away I wouldn’t even want to get out and walkthere.
“Hands at ten and twoo’clock.”
