Like You Like Me ✔

2

Connor texted me back a few minutes later saying he was down for a drive. Meanwhile, I proceeded to finish cleaning my room. Since my earlier transgressions had me on thin ice, I knew my room had to be cleaner than a nun's search history, if there was any chance of me leaving the house. Well, except for my signed Kobe Bryant jersey; I always kept that looking mint.

I went into full Mary Poppins mode, and half an hour later, the place was sparkling. My Steve Nash and Kobe posters glanced down from the wall with proud stares. I had done good. With everything looking nice, I called Mom upstairs for the regulation inspection. And after a few tense moments, she reluctantly admitted my room was clean.

Before she walked out, I offered to take everyone's laundry down to the basement. It was all a part of the strategy; cleaning my room and voluntarily doing other chores would make it easier to go out for a rip with Conner. Once the hampers were all downstairs, I came back upstairs and slowly approached the living room to make my proposal.

I cut straight to the chase and asked if I could go for a drive with Connor. And for the finishing move, I offered to pick up Lewis on my way back. Mom didn't have much ammo because my chores were done, and Dad, ever a man of few words, gave the final vote to greenlight my trip. I thanked them, grabbed the necessary items (key, phone, notebook) before heading to the car.

On my drive over to the MacNeil's, I kept staring at the red notebook on the dash. I had drenched ten of those pages with the Gatorade shower of my heart, and I believed Celia would take me back if she could just read what I wrote.

Over the summer, we ran into each other at the Bedford Mall; time felt like it stopped to a crawl as she walked towards me. For a solid three seconds, Celia managed to look at me like I wasn't a burning heap of dog turds--a straight-up miracle. Those three seconds told me I still had a shot if I played my cards right. And between Connor and me, a winning play was a definite possibility.

There was just one other thing, though: Connor had never really seen my journals. I'd told him about them once, but he just said it was cool and we moved on to another topic. None of the other guys had a clue that I liked spending some of my time writing.

The thought of them and the whole school finding out about my nerdy habit didn't vibe with me. But it was Connor; we were boys. He wouldn't put me on blast like that. So I shook the bad feeling off and got ready to show him what I'd written.

About fifteen minutes later, I pulled up at his house and waited for him to come out. When Connor hopped into the car wearing a blue hoodie and black Crocs, I gave him a routine chirping for his unforgivable choice of footwear. All Crocs aside, Connor was your average guy from the suburbs of Halifax. Both parents worked in the city, he had a younger sister, and they owned a dog. But that's where his suburbia-ness ended.

Connor might have been blond and blue-eyed, but he was really into all things Rap and Hip-Hop. Sometimes it felt like he was in some kind of BET (Black Entertainment Television) outreach program. Either that or he wanted to be Nova Scotia's answer to Eminem. However, the fried chicken on the waffle was that my boy was also a sneakerhead; which is why I was obligated to give him a hard time about those Crocs.

"Bro, bro, bro," Conner said, holding his hands up. "For the hundredth time, Crocs are about comfort, not style. Plus I only wear them at home, and when I'm hanging with you."

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, man," I grinned.

Connor shook his head, cracking a half-smile. He threw on some music with an assist from the AUX cable. We bobbed our heads to the beat until the winding roads brought us to the Macdonald Bridge; Connor turned the volume down. I knew what he was about to say since "drives" were code for "we need to talk."

"So what's up, DJ?" he asked. I could see the slight raise of his chin out of the corner of my eye.

"Celia," I exhaled.

"She DM you?"

It's now or never.

I shook my head. "Check the book on the dash."

He quickly reached for it as I made a left off the bridge, heading for the heart of downtown. Using his phone light, Connor started silently reading for what felt like forever. After a few minutes passed, I was about to say something when Connor broke the silence.

"No way, bro," he said in a tone that didn't give anything away.

I couldn't tell if he was surprised, concerned, upset or a combo of the three. So I said the only thing that felt appropriate: "What?"

Connor sighed. "Well, first thing's first--have you ever considered becoming a doctor? Because you've got the handwriting down."

I chuckled. "Be serious, man."

"Bro, I'm being Uggs wearing white girls gushing over pumpkin spice lattes serious. Like if some archaeologist found this in a cave, I guarantee you he'd think he just discovered the writings of some lost civ--bro, these are straight-up glyphs."

I shook my head, fighting back a smile. "Okay, but what about the content?"

"Well," he replied, "it sounds legit--like you really care about her. And I knew you wrote in your journals, but I had no idea my boy was a regular Shakespeare."

"I wouldn't go that far," I shrugged.

"It's good stuff, man. Just own it."

I grinned. "Okay, it's pretty good."

"My man," he put his hand out for a quick fist bump. "There's just one problem with it, besides your handwriting though."

"Lay off my handwriting, C," I raised my voice slightly. "Since when is yours better?"

"Bro, my penmanship is mint," he replied proudly.

"Oh, it's mint? For real?"

"For real; I'll prove it to you later; for now, let's focus on your tome."

"Come on, man. It's not that long."

"Pro-tip, bro," Connor said, "I wouldn't volunteer that information, especially not to Celia."

"Man, shut up. You knew what I meant."

"I'm just trying to help. So as previously stated, you've got a bit of a length issue."

"Yo, C. Don't think I can't punch you just because I'm driving."

"I was talking about your love novel, my guy--guess we're gonna have to work on that confidence as well."

"Look, man--"

"Chill, bro; I got you," Connor cut me off. "Let me break it down; chin up, my guy, don't frown. The lovely Celia Diaz has just spent the whole summer crawling through the desert of no love, so she's definitely thirsty. On a grassy green hill is you, DJ, my man, standing there looking like Michael B. Jordan's doppelgänger. Celia crawls over and asks you for a drink. But instead of a glass of water, you turn a firehose on; that's what this book is."

"Okay, Canterbury fails," I clapped back. "So what's the plan?"

He rubbed his hands together. "I thought you'd never ask."