The phone jangled endlessly, awaking me from sleepy land. "R, get that, will you?"
"Your phone," she answered and pulled the covers up over her head.
I blindly fumbled for the phone and held it to my ear. "Hello?"
"Um, is this Ocean?" a vaguely familiar male voice asked.
"Yeah," I said warily, fearing the voice belinged to a telemarketer or someone of the like.
"Hey, this is Lance!"
My eyes opened all the way. "Hey, what's up?"
Rainbow opened one eye to look at me. "Lance?" she mouthed.
I nodded as Lance answered, "I was wondering if you wanted to eat lunch with me today."
"Lunch?" I asked, utterly lost in confusion.
"yeah-it's like one o'clock," Lance replied.
"Oh my gosh! Are you serious?"
"Yup."
"Oh geez."
"What's wrong?"
"I didn't realize we had slept that late!"
"Oh. Well, do you want breakfast then?" Lance offered.
"I'd love that," I said.
"I'll come pick you up in about an hour okay?"
"Yeah."
As soon as I hung up the phone, I bolted out of bed and into the shower. When I got out, Rainbow was sitting up and sleepily looking at me. "What's going on?
"I'm going to lunch with Lance!" I exclaimed a little too gleefully. "I have *nothing* to wear!"
"Wear something comfy," Rainbow suggested with a yawn.
I finally decided on a pair of the same type of pants I wore the day before, a light blue t-shirt I had gotten from my dad and a big blue hooded sweatshirt that had a bunch of religions on it. I put my hair up in a messy bun.
"Do I look okay?" I asked, doing a full twirl.
"Perfect," Rainbow said. "Remember-you have rehearsal at four thirty. This is your opening night, don't forget."
I took a deep breath. "Right."
Someone knocked on the door.
I clapped my hand over my mouth. "Oh my gosh!"
"Calm down, O. I'll get it," Rainbow said, getting out of bed and opening the door. "Hey Lance!"
Lance grinned. "Hey Rain. Is Ocean around?"
"Yup, she's right here," Rainbow said, stepping aside to reveal me, who was shaking until I caught a sight of Lance's smiling face. My knees became solid and I was no longer a quivering bundle of nerves as Rainbow nudged me forward.
"Ready to go?" Lance asked.
I nodded. "Yup."
"Alrighty then-I'll see you two later," Rainbow said and shut the door behind us.
Once we got into Lance's car, I asked where we were going.
"Umm...where do you wanna go?" Lance asked.
"Doesn't matter to me, but IHOP *does* sound good," I suggested.
"IHOP it is then!" Lance glanced over at me, a smile playing on his lips.
"What are *you* smiling about?" I asked.
"I'm not smiling!" Lance protested indignantly, a huge smile breaking out across his face.
"Don't lie to me, Lance! What are you smiling about?" I repeated.
"Nothing, nothing...just felt like smiling, that's all," Lance replied as he parked the car in the parking lot outside of the IHOP.
After we had ordered our food, Lance rested his chin on his folded hands and looked me in the eyes. "So, tell me more about you."
"Um, well, I love alternative music, I love writing, the beach, acting, Ryan Phillippe, stuff like yoga and spirituality, philiosophy...what about you?" I asked.
"You already know tons about me. I wanna hear more about you. You like acting-are you in any kind of theater group?"
"Yeah, actually I am. Opening night for one of our plays is tonight," I said.
"Really? What play is it?"
"Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I've loved Shakespeare ever since we read R and J in my freshman AP English class," I said with a wistful smile.
"Really? What part are you playing?"
"Juliet," I answered quietly, feeling butterflies in my stomach due to the thought of kissing Craig who was playing Romeo. Not butterflies in a good way-in a nervous way...I hadn't ever really kissed a guy until doing this play with Craig.
"Juliet, huh? Can we come see it?"
"You mean like Justin, JC, Chris, Joey and you?" I stammered.
Lance nodded. "Yeah."
I shrugged. "Sure, why not?"
By now our food had come and we began eating and discussing various things between bites of food. I had never felt this relaxed and comfortable around a guy ever before. I wondered what Lance would think if he knew I had virtually never been kissed before-Craig didn't count. He was strictly business. The fact that I had never been kissed seemed to turn all the guys that had shown interest in me away. In high school, it crushed me every single time, but i became used to the fact that I would always be alone. Would my secret turn Lance away too?'
We finished our meal, paid and slowly strolled outside laughing and talking. Sitting in the car, Lance studied my face intently for a second and broke out into a grin. "You've got whipped cream on your face."
"Where?" I began patting my face, searching for the dollop of white cream.
Lance leaned over and gently wiped the goo off my face, our heads close together. We just stared into each other's eyes for the longest time. He was moving closer and I wanted to be closer too, but I panicked and pulled away. What if he knew I'd never been kissed? Would he be able to tell? "Oh wow, look at the time. It's almost four thirty. I've gotta get to rehearsal.: |
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