Remember When #featured #AllStars

Chapter 10

...ALMOST

There was never a longer Tuesday in my entire life. Lisa didn't settle my nerves any with the way she kept talking about it all day long. She was confident that Trip and I were going to be spending most of our study session groping each other on the couch. I wasn't so sure.

I'd avoided talking to him at lunch and made sure he didn't get the chance to walk me down to English. I couldn't escape him during class, but I kept the conversation to a minimum.

It seems stupid now, but I didn't want to do anything that would jinx our plans for the afternoon. I thought if I said or did the wrong thing, Trip would realize I was a total dork and wouldn't want to partner up with me for the thing after all. All I needed to do was get through that one afternoon with him in order to show him how indispensible I'd be as an assignment buddy. Then I could relax knowing that by then, he'd realize how much he needed me, if for no other reason than that he wanted a good grade.

By the time school let out, I had already decided that I was good to go. This was confirmed when Trip actually showed up to meet me on the front steps. In front of everyone, he plucked me out of the crowd and put his hand at the small of my back for the walk down to his car.

Let me tell you, it felt amazing to be seen with him. I hoped everyone noticed it. Maybe rumors would get started that we were carrying on some sort of secret relationship. People would say things like, "I heard that Trip Wilmington dumped Tess Valletti for Layla Warren."

And if anyone actually had the balls to ever ask me outright, I'd only give them the satisfaction of a mysterious smile while saying something classy like, "I never kiss and tell, dahling."

While I was picturing who was going to play me in the movie version of my life story (Alyssa Milano, maybe?), Trip unlocked the passenger door of his Bronco and held it open until I got inside. I thought it was so cool how he did that. Maybe it was a common thing to do where he came from, but in Norman, the guys were always too aloof to treat any of us like actual ladies. God, didn't they realize how easy it was to impress us?

Trip cruised over to his side of the truck and slid himself behind the wheel. As he put the key in the ignition, I made the decision that whatever song was playing on the radio at that moment would be burned forever into my brain as "our song".

He turned the key... and New Kids on the Block came blaring out of the speakers singing "The Right Stuff".

Okay, fine. The next song would be the one.

"What the hell is this crap?" Trip asked as he popped a Guns N' Roses tape into the cassette player.

I watched as he loosened his tie over his head and unbuttoned his blue Oxford so that it hung open casually over his thin, white T-shirt, stretched taut over the contours of his chest. He shifted over to fix his hair in the rearview mirror, his arm pressed against mine as he leaned across the center console. I could feel the heat of the day just emanating off of him and smell the crisp, clean scent of his skin just inches from my own body.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, even to this very day, is why I completely fall apart whenever I hear even a single note from "Paradise City".

I was trying to play it cool- tapping my hands against my knees to the music, looking absently out the window- but I was actually a trembling mess inside. I mean shit! I was riding shotgun in Trip's truck! For the second time in less than a week! But this time, I had him all to myself for the next two, maybe three, hours. How the hell was I going to hold it together all that time?

I grabbed my purse off the floor and started rifling through it, looking for nothing in particular except a way to occupy my hands.

"Damn, you're fidgety."