Our Autumn Fire

Fourteen

    The heavy door of the sleek silver sedan shut with force as Andre rushed out of the driver seat and towards the passenger side where the door was slowly opening. He grabbed the handle and opened all the way to offer the girl inside his hand. “Allow me, madam.”

    “Oh, thank you, kind sir.” Alicia replied in the cutest southern accent she could muster and took his hand.

    He helped her out and spun her against the side of the warm vehicle. Leaning in close, he gave her a quick kiss.

    Alicia smiled, but she wanted to know why Andre had suddenly flipped from being distant to the ideal man she had dreamt about. “What was that for?”

    He tilted his head and replied, “I know I’ve been distracted lately, and I just wanted to make it up to you.” He gave her another quick peck before smiling and giving her a real kiss.

    When they had separated, Alicia looked into his deep blue ocean eyes and saw a look of love she had not seen for far too long. “I love you!” she wanted to scream. “Don’t ever leave me or treat me like that again!” she thought. But she couldn’t get over the suspicions that there was more to his over-eagerness to please her at that moment.

    Andre only noticed the green of her eyes that played off so well with the bright orange of her blouse, the pink of her lips that looked like the perfect shade of sunset, the jet black hair that was tied up in a simple but elegant French bun, the way her left eyebrow arched up slightly higher in the middle than her right, the weight of her hand in his, the sound of her quiet breathing… He pulled away without releasing his grip on her and led her to the ever familiar lobby of Balboa Botanical Gardens.

        *            *            *

    “Seriously? Does he always take this long?” Hayley put her hands on her hips and gave Wesley a look of exasperation.

    “He’s worse than ‘Ley!” Cassidy added with a teasing glance at the strawberry blonde.

    Wesley shrugged and made no attempt to defend his roommate. “This isn’t even that bad. You should see him when he doesn’t know which skinny tie would go best with his choice of skinny jeans for the day.”

    The girls giggled, and Elliot shouted from his room. “Hey, I heard that! It’s not easy to look as good as I do, you know!” He was switching out the buckle of his belt with one that he felt worked much better with the shoes he wanted to wear.

    “Well if you heard that, then you can hear this: We’re leaving you if you aren’t ready in thirty seconds!” Wesley knew that Elliot would miss the deadline, but he also knew that without a target cutoff, Elliot could easily spend another twenty minutes doing who knows what to imperceptibly beautify his look.

    “Aren’t you glad you took my advice and don’t have to deal with this regularly?” Hayley asked Cassidy.

    The quiet girl hit her friend’s arm. “What do you mean took your advice? You wanted me to hook up with him!”

    “Yeah, hook up, not get married!”

    Wesley cleared his throat. “Uh, girls I’m right here, you know.”

    Cassidy blushed but continued to reply to Hayley. “Whatever. I didn’t want to do that either, okay!”

    “Sure, you didn’t.” Hayley retorted with her tongue out.

    “Still here and still not wanting to hear any of this…” Wesley’s pleas went unheeded.

    “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Cassidy crossed her arms and pulled her head back in a sassy gesture.