A Little Something Different

September (Danny - Lea's friend)

Danny- Lea’s friend

“What’s up, buttercup?” I ask coming up behind Lea and patting her ass.

“Danno!” she cries turning around and hugging me long and hard. “I missed you so darn much.”

“Why did it take us weeks to have time to get together?”

“I have no idea.”

We take a seat on the nearest bench, both carefully avoiding the dried bird crap. We’re on our way to meet up with high school friends for dinner, but we have some time to waste before the meetup. Lea and I did a lot of theater together back then and I was thrilled to hear she was going to the same university as me. We’ve seen each other a few times since I graduated, but it’s always pleasant to have a little Lea time.

“So, how’s life?”

“Good,” she says, smiling wide.

“You look like 85 million dollars,” I tell her.

“This old thing?” she asks, swishing around the cardigan she got on super sale with me at Old Navy last winter.

I laugh.

“How about you? How’s the life of an upperclassmen?” she asks.

“Good. I don't know that junior year is going to be much different than all the other years. You know, new semester, new classes, all that crap,” I say, letting my eyes roam. “Oh my God!” I yell clutching her arm.

“What is it? A bug? A rat? A cockroach?”

“No,” I whisper, leaning close. “The boy of my dreams.” I take her head and turn her in the direction he’s walking.

“Gabe Cabrera is the boy of your dreams?” she asks.

“Oh, totally. He’s amazing. One of my housemates lived on the same floor as him freshman year and sometimes we end up at similar gatherings. One time he totally flirted with me,” I brag.

“Wow.”

“He’s so charming and one of those like sneak attack gay guys. Like you don’t know he’s gay and then he sneaks up on you, and GAY!”

“I didn’t know he was gay.”

“Oh, for sure,” I tell her. “One time he complimented my jeans.”

She looks like she’s taking this fact in. “In addition to the time he flirted with you?’

“Yes, I’m very lucky.”

“You obviously are.”

“Come on,” I say, pulling her up.

“But we’re meeting people…” she says pointing in the opposite direction.

“And we will, but first we should stalk Gabe for a little while. We have at least twenty minutes until we need to be at the restaurant.”

“Alright, let’s do it.”

He hasn’t gotten very far, just barely onto the sidewalk that leads off the quad towards the other end of campus.

“Tell me about Gabe,” she says as we walk. “He’s in my creative writing class.”

“Creative writing, be still my heart,” I say.

“Cute, right?” She threads her arm through mine and leans in closer.

“Totally. I thought he was majoring in something else, like teaching phys ed or something. And he's on the baseball team, or maybe he was on the baseball team? Anyway. I used to see him around all the time and then last semester he disappeared, fell right off the face of the earth, so I haven’t seen him in almost a year. I was starting to worry that he graduated or transferred or flunked out.”