Paper Airplane

40

                “You don’t say.”

                Unable to help myself, I pressed my forehead against his shoulder as I continued laughing.  I always looked back on it as the most humiliating thing in the entire world, something only someone as stupid and clumsy and unlucky as me would do.  But I’m seeing it in a different light now, honestly, and it made me happy.  Giddy, I guess.  I couldn’t help but laugh.  I think if I didn’t I’d probably start crying about it, which would be worse.

                “So go on,” Harry said then, shrugging his shoulder a little so that I’d return to him.  “What happened after you, you know, disappeared without a word?”

                “I quickly retreated to the safety of the car, got ahold of my brother, and then we went back to his place.”

                “Did Brady say anything when he finally joined you?”

                I had to think about it for a moment before it came to me.  I chuckled.  “I specifically remember him saying, after spending half the ride back in complete silence, ‘You dumped your smoothie on Harry, you know.’”

                This sent the boy in question buckling over, wrapping an arm around his stomach, with laughter.  When he was sitting straight up again, he glanced at me before proceeding to laugh again. 

                I nodded solemnly, understanding his amusement.  “Yeah.  He said you told him that you didn’t think I was aware of what I’d done or that I’d hurt myself.  It seems like right from the start I, uh, gave you a great first impression.”

                In response, he turned and pressed his forehead against the side of my head.  I closed my eyes at the contact, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.  His curls tickled the right side of my face and some of my forehead, but I didn’t mind at all.  “You really did,” he said softly.

                Do it, you coward.  Right now.  Tell him right now.

                “And then there was the second impression, which was, you know, great as well,” I went on. 

                At first he didn’t respond, and he didn’t move.  But eventually, I felt him exhale slowly, and I wondered if he was wishing I’d say something as much as I was.  Wishful thinking on my part; I pushed the idea aside.  He lifted his head eventually and cleared his throat, adjusting his position so that his body was angled toward me, and I considered doing the same so that it’d be easier to speak to each other.

                “The second impression being that football game?” he asked, a small smile tugging at his uniquely blinding pink lips. 

                I nodded.  “Yeah.  I have a really nice scar from that day.  Louis has a surprisingly rock-hard body.”

                Harry raised his brows.

                “But you already knew that,” I teased, smirking.

                He made a face at me, but then his face because serious and he reached forward to do that thing that all the guys do in all the good movies.  He tucked that strand of my hair behind my ear and then dropped his hand dejectedly like he wished there were more reasons he could touch my hair or my face or even my own hand.  He stared openly, and we fell into a silence that was so loaded it was hardly silent at all.