- Genevieve -
I'm never getting that drunk again. Aka till next time.
I bend over the fridge door staring at the wine bottle in my fridge repulsed by all alcohol.
"You told him you were gonna marry him yesterday," Mads tells me. If I could forget anything from last night I would choose that.
"I can't believe I did that, we've only known each other for less than a month," and we haven't addressed the kiss from last week. It's moving too fast and I can't stop it.
She moves to the coffee maker filling it with water, "You should've seen the look on every guy in there when he walked in. All of them moved at least five feet away from you."
I hear a knock at the door and shake away the thoughts of everything having to do with him.
"Sweetheart, you look terrible," gee thanks, Mom. She comes in with three bags and I help her carry them. Each one filled with groceries. "Wine, hot sauce, and coffee grounds, you guys are a mess."
Mads and I help her stalk the fridge and thank her for bringing everything. Another knock is heard at the door and I assume it's Nellie or Emma.
"Good morning Cherry, why do you look awful?"
I stare at him with an unamused expression against the door in my black hoodie and biker shorts, "Why are you here?" My hairs a mess and my curtain bangs are falling from the bun while I hopelessly try to pull them behind my ears.
"You forgot your jacket last night at Presley's."
"Thanks, bye-"
"Sweetheart, do you want me to wash the berries or just leave them in the plastic boxes?" I hear my mom call.
"I think we can just keep them in there Mel," Mads tells her.
"I want it to be efficient for you. I'll wash and cut them." She's a saint but right now the smirk on Castillo's face makes me wanna sigh.
"Is that your Mom Cherry? Introduce me to my future mother-in-law."
"I see you remember the conversation from last night."
"I guess you wish you didn't right?" He gives me a pitiful nod mocking me. Ugh.
I hear footsteps to the door silently praying it Mads but when has God ever answered my pleas, "Is this your mom?" He acts oblivious.
"I am!" She exclaims excitedly, "And you are?" She throws a look at me because she knows who he's a star basketball player but she has no idea why he's at my doorstep.
"Adrian Castillo, ma'am." Fake ass bitch.
"Oh, you're the basketball player, my boys love you!" I can practically read her mind, which is thinking does my daughter love you too. Absolutely not.
He chuckles acting like a true gentleman as my mom asks if he wants to come in. He politely declines and hands me my jacket before leaving.
"Wow, he's sexy." I shake my head at her and we clean the kitchen. Mads has a class and soon leaves while my mom and I make dinner.
She hands me the cheese to grate and asks, "So Adrian, why was he here? Boyfriend?"
"No, just a friend."
"If he was just a friend you wouldn't have looked at him that way."
"We haven't really put a label on it."
"Did you, do it, yet?" I would find this question completely insane if it were anyone else who asked but I've always told Mom everything. When it came to relationships I always fell kinda short in being honest with her and I want to change that.
"Nope, we kissed. Once. A week ago and yesterday I was so drunk I told him I was going to marry him." She starts laughing at me.
"Damn it, I owe Cass $15. She told me probably kissed him and I bet that you didn't." Cass is the devil's child. Satans spawn. Lovely but hellish at the same time.
"How'd you even know?"
"I was in the room when you were face-timing. You told her about a certain basketball player asking for your number, I thought it was some benchwarmer. I'm proud of you, team captain."
We finish off our angel hair pasta with parsley and slices of lemon serving it into two plates and Mom uncorks a bottle of Pinot Noir.
After dinner, she decides to leave and tells me to visit soon.
_________
"Truth, Dare, and Underwear. You choose a truth and a dare. From both, you choose one to complete. If you fail to complete with a satisfying outcome you will strip one piece of clothing accompanied by a chug of your least favorite alcoholic beverage. Don't let me down, soldiers."
By the end of the night, we're all in our underwear. Luke's finishing up a phone call after telling his dad he got a girl pregnant and needless to say, he flipped out.
Apparently, they don't have the best relationship but Luke hangs up mid-conversation and his phone is continuously blowing up.
"Wh-why is he taking his pants off?" Em whispers in my ears and I almost laugh at her flushed face which has been red ever since JJ removed his shirt. His dad's reaction passed the check but he's still removing his pants. I'm not even surprised.
"Pretty peaches Cherry," Adrian whispers in my ears. I roll my eyes at him, "You aren't going to compliment me?"
"Nothing to compliment," I shrug.
"We both know you're lying," he flashes me a pretty smile helping me off the floor and handing me my shorts.
We end up walking to the basketball courts, fully dressed, but Luke refuses to put his clothes back on like a child.
"Can you free-throw Laurence?" I always love when people use my last name it makes me feel like I'm on a sports team. I did tennis in high school but we never got the cool jerseys.
"I can try," I take the ball from him and give it a try but it bounces off the backboard.
He grabs the ball and comes around me positioning me with his hands around my waist slightly lifting my shirt at the hips and then moves to my hands pushing the ball with force while softly saying in my ear, "Like this."
We linger there for a few moments with his hands clasped around mine at the stomach watching the ball go in and he kisses my cheek. I can't help but smile over his sentiment until the sound of the ball coming down breaks us apart.
Our heads turn to everyone else on the other side mindless to what just happened between us.
"What the hell is going on in here?" We all freeze simultaneously but Emma gives out a yelp and Luke practically jumps ten feet in the air when all the lights turn on and Coach King walks through the doors past the group and towards Adrian and I.
"Castillo, I expect better from my team captain." Instead of looking ashamed or afraid, Adrian just signals him with a two-finger salute.
"We were just trying to impress these women, won't happen until the next time it happens."
He looks downright unamused. Adrian walks over to him with a hand around Coach's shoulder steering him to a corner but Coach whips his hand off comically.
By the end of the conversation, he's giving him a permissible nod and walks through a door to what I assume is his office. The light turns on and he takes one last glance and closes the entrance.
_________
The next two weeks are filled with back-to-back classes and weekends filled with unlimited studying. Mads has a huge interview for an internship and she's been hanging out with Luke a lot more getting ready for a business class test. The guys have had practice back to back since that night at the courts. Adrian and I still haven't made time to address our kiss which seems like it was an eternity ago. Only, I can't stop thinking about it like it was yesterday.
Today is the day before Halloween. This year Madison scored us tickets to the invite-only, extravagant costume required Halloween bash. It's located in a Haunted House and includes a makeshift corn maze outside of the city.
It's hosted by the football team every year and I know they're good friends of the guys. Adrian and Kendall Decker went to high school together. In the paper, they wrote about how two athletic champions were both bagged by UCC despite offers from Duke and Syracuse.
Who wants to be an underdog in the sea of champions when you can be the champion of underdogs.
For tonight's party, I have a devil costume and Mads the angel.
I tape the plastic covers on the books and line them in their sections before adding their barcodes to the back. When I'm done I line them up on the cart and move them to the back. It's hot in the back of the bookstore and I tie my hair with a ribbon I hastily grabbed on the way out of the apartment.
My curtain bangs don't hold and since I curled my hair they're even harder to manage. My wool coat and suede bell jeans which were meant to brave the cold wind outside are now useless in this heat bucket.
Edna's arthritis is acting up again and she swears the heat helps so I let it go. Can't let the poor woman freeze up. See what I did there? Never mind I don't think that was really a joke.
I hear the ring of the door and yell out, "I'll be there in a second!" The old hag left me with the double shift, alone, not that it mattered anyway, I'm always alone in here and not many people come in.
I hear footsteps as I'm finishing the last row of the shelf. "Sorry, I'll be right with you, can I help you find anything?"
I dust my hands off on my pants and look up to see Adrian. "Hey, what're you doing here?"
"I don't want another second to pass without me doing this," he says looking at me while my eyebrows scrunch up in confusion.
"Do wha-"
His lips enclose on mine in a euphoric dance of ecstasy. His mouth tastes of cigarettes and those bourbon-tinted lips wrapped around my own, tracing his fingers around my neck holding me close.
I feel warm, in the best way possible, and his hands are all over me. They rub circles on my waist as my thick sweater is lifted. My hands are on his cheeks keeping him in place so this moment never ends.
He lifts me from the waist onto the book cart which is surprisingly not that uncomfortable. My arms move around his neck as he positions his hands firmly on my hips. We pull apart for a brief second but are reunited in a split second, our heads tilted in the opposite direction.
He tears his lips away reluctantly, softly tracing my dimples with his finger, and then our noses move back and forth, ending with a peck more on my lips.
"That." Holy fuck.
"That was quite a sight, you got an older brother handsome? Widowed grandfather?" Edna, why?
I almost want to jump ten feet in the air but instead I lay my cheek against Adrian's giving a breathy laugh and he lets go, "I'll call you."
When he leaves I get off the cart, awkwardly smoothing out and adjusting my outfit before sheepishly looking at her.
"Am I fired?" My hands placed in front of my body.
She scoffs and grabs her mug which I know for a fact is filled with rum, "I was young and in love once. And if the customers got a sight of that the romance section would've gone wild."
"You geezer, you're pretty cool."
"Get back to work Twat." I love our lively banter.