Page 64 of My So-Called Perfect Life
She grabs her bag off the table near the door and slings it across her body. “Then I’m ready.”
She locks the door and taking her hand in mine, we head down the hall to the stairs of her building. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
I shake my head. “Nope, it’s a surprise.”
She laughs. “Everything with you is a surprise.”.
“That’s how I like it,” I tell her as we exit the door to her building onto the sidewalk. The air is thick and humid, almost stifling. “I need to keep you guessing.”
Truth is, while I may not know her all that well, there is one thing I do know, Danielle is a bit of a control freak. She’s methodical and structured. It didn’t take me long to figure out after spending a morning making her breakfast in her apartment. Her refrigerator is arranged by food groups. Her pots and pans are in size order, the lids stacked neatly beside them. She stocks her cabinet with boxes and cans stacked from smallest to tallest, with all labels facing out. Her bookshelves are alphabetized. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things but I’d like to show her that there’s more to life. That things can be fun even when you don’t plan every moment of it.
She looked a little embarrassed and unsure when I told her she has the most organized kitchen I’ve seen so I let it go and didn’t ask too many questions. When another opportunity presents itself, I’ll bring it up.
Amigos is only about a ten-minute ride downtown and we chat idly about our days as we hop on the subway a few blocks from Danielle’s.
“How about a game?” she asks as the train pulls from the stop.
“Sure.” I wrap my hand around one of the silver subway poles, steadying myself. “What do you have in mind?”
The train jolts and the momentum propels Danielle forward, pressing her into the side of my body. Her eyes sparkle as she looks up. “This or that?”
Goosebumps rise under my fingertips as I wrap my free hand around her mid-section. My thumb glides over the pebbled skin loving the feeling of her softness. “I’ve never played before.”
“It’s easy.” She grins and leans into me. “Summer or Winter?”
The train hits a rough patch and we’re bobbled around for a moment. When all goes calm, or as calm as it can be on a train, I answer, “Summer.”
She cocks her head to the side. “Yeah? How come?”
“Nothing in particular,” I say after some thought. “I just prefer it, I guess. My birthday is the last day of summer, too.”
She smiles as if she’s just learned her own little secret. “Good to know.”
“Do I get to ask now?” I tickle her side a bit until she lets out a giggle. “Is it my turn?”
I want to know more about the innerworkings of Danielle’s mind. I want to know about the sweet girl, who makes me laugh, who isn’t afraid to be herself, who has me looking at life through different glasses. If I could crawl inside her head, I would. Just so I could pick apart the way she thinks in such order. I think I’m fascinated with it. Or maybe, I just want to break her out of her mold and show her how much fun she can have in life by just enjoying things as they come. It’s probably more of the latter.
“Adventure or consistency?”
She tips her head. “Hats off to you,” she says. “Diving deep right out of the gate. I guess I should’ve expected that with you, huh?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I nod. “Yeah, you probably should have.”
She takes a deep breath and exhales. The movement drawing my attention down to her impressive cleavage for a moment. Can’t say I’m disappointed with the slight distraction. “Consistency is always going to be my answer, but that isn’t to say I don’t like adventure. I like having fun and doing new things. I just usually like to have a plan in place for it. Time to prepare and all.”
“How well do you fair with surprises?” I ask. “Does it bother you not knowing where we’re going?”
She steps to the side letting a couple walk past us as the next stop is announced. “Not really,” she answers as she saddles back in against me. “The only thing I don’t know is where we’re going or what we’re doing, but the date itself wasn’t a surprise. I was ready for it.”
“So, adventure doesn’t bother you?”
Her smile brightens as she shakes her head. “Not at all. I like trying new things and going out.”
The train slows as the next stop approaches and I pull Danielle toward the doors of the car. “Well good, then you should have a ton of fun tonight.”
The doors open and we shuffle off the train and head to the stairs. “What are we doing?” she asks as we walk through a crowd of people all heading the same direction.
“Going to my friend’s bar,” I say as we hit the sidewalk.
