David leaned his head against my chest. I hoped he wouldn’t hear my heart beating out of control. I hoped he wouldn’t discover how both scared and enormously hopeful I was, despite my calm demeanor on the surface.
He whisked the pumpkin batter fast but not fast enough. I let my palm land on top of his.
“I got this,” I said. “Pour in the butterscotch.”
“Okay,” he said.
He was so adorably nervous. I was the older one in the scenario and was the one who kept creating new adventures and activities for this, our second date.
I wanted it to last forever.
We played miniature golf, enjoyed a picnic out by the lake, walked up and down the aisles of the nearby supermarket, and hovered close together in the world’s smallest kitchen, making one of my yummy originals: pumpkin butterscotch oatmeal cookies. With all that cinnamon and spice floating through the air, I could actually smell desire. I wanted to kiss this boy so much. He finished unloading the golden morsels, then helped me drop the cookie batter onto the baking sheets.
“Twelve minutes,” I said, when I pushed close the oven door. “Twelve minutes, and then we’ll check.”
“All right,” David said. “What do you want to do until then?”
What did I want to do? I think we both knew. We had been spending time together since 9 AM. He was so dreamily cute, so impossibly sweet.
“We could watch a movie,” I said. “Have you ever seen Poltergeist?” It was one week away from Halloween, after all.
“That would be great,” David said.
“Sweet. Let’s do it.”
But neither of us moved. We stood there in the hot, claustrophobic kitchen, staring at each other. He crossed his arms awkwardly and looked down. I took a step toward him and grabbed his gray vest.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“What do you think I’m doing?”
I pulled him up to me, leaned my head down, and kissed him softly on his lips. I planned to kiss him for only a second or two, but as soon as our lips touched, he was the one determined not to pull away. I brought my hands to his hips, and he wrapped his arms around my neck.
We pulled away, and, his eyes still closed, he revealed a smile I’ve never seen before or since: a smile that revealed that a boy I liked had found everything he’d been looking for, in one brief, perfect moment.
I took his hand, and he followed me over to the living room couch. I put on Poltergeist and turned the sound on the speakers all the way up.
I love that film. It’s tense, terrifying, a horror classic.
But we didn’t watch much of it. David and I… were busy.
brianrowebooks.com 