"So what did your parents say about me?" Blaine asked. I had been back from Thanksgiving for a couple days now. Blaine had come over to my house the moment I had said goodbye to Trevor and David. We were now snuggled under several blankets in the bed of his truck, looking at the stars.
I fiddled with the blanket, avoiding answering his question.
"Elise?" Blaine tilted my chin up. It was harder now that I was looking into his eyes.
"I...uh, didn't tell them." I mumbled. He had asked me every day if I had told my parents about us dating and every time I avoided the subject.
"I see." Blaine said. His voice was cold. He withdrew his arm from around my shoulder, the warmth it provided instantly gone. "Elise, are you ashamed of me?" His green eyes were so intense and I'm pretty sure he could see all the way into my cowardly soul. Although he wasn't yelling, I could tell he was getting upset and it was all my fault.
Crap. I'm a horrible person.
"No!" I said quickly. "I just don't know how to bring it up. I've never had a boyfriend before, remember? I don't know what I'm doing."
I could feel Blaine's anger start to ebb away.. "I suppose you have a point. I forget that you haven't had a boyfriend before." He sighed. I'm not mad at you anymore."
"I really am sorry." I said. "I'm not trying to hide you from them. I promise I'll tell them. I'm still learning here."
Blaine looked thoughtful for a moment and then grinned in the way that made my pulse race. "I guess I still have a lot to teach you then." The look on his face sent shivers of delight down my back. He was so sexy.
He pulled me back towards him and captured my lips with his. Kissing had very quickly become one of my favorite extracurricular activities. It stirred up all these crazy feelings and the longer we kissed, the more I wanted.
While we had obviously kissed before, Blaine had been respectful of my inexperience and didn't push any boundaries he thought I would be uncomfortable with. He had only given me short kisses. Tonight I could tell he was holding himself back and I realized that I wanted to to see what else I was missing.
Tentatively I opened my mouth a little more and I could feel Blaine's surprise. I nodded slightly, not wanting to ruin the moment and that was all the encouragement he needed.
Our kissing became more fervent and I finally understood why people liked to make out so much.
Oh,the magical things you can do with your tongue. And teeth.
When I was in high school I had a friend try to describe to me why making out was so enjoyable.
"So your tongues are touching? I had asked. "Ew. Gross."
He had just laughed at poor little naive me. "Trust me, there is nothing eww about it. I guarantee that one day you will like it."
"No way." I had said. "It sounds disgusting and unsanitary. I will never like that."
Well, I was wrong. There was nothing disgusting about it and I liked it. A lot.
We pulled apart, breathing heavily, our foreheads resting together. In our hazy kissing fog Blaine had pulled me onto his lap to where I was practically straddling him. His curly hair was disheveled from my hands and his lips swollen. His eyes were wide and bright. He let out a low whistle.
"Dang Elise. Lesson learned. And I don't think it was you who learned it."
I laughed, feeling smug, and leaned in eagerly for more but he stopped me.
"As much as I'd love to continue this, I think it would be better for me to get you home." Blaine said. He looked slightly pained as I shifted.
I sat back, a little puzzled. "Why?"
"Ah, well it involves me remaining a gentleman and not uh... ravishing my lady." Blaine said.
"Wha--oh. Oh." My eyes widened as the realization of Blaine's words sunk in. I blushed furiously.
Could you be any more dense Elise?
I hastily got off of him. He sat still for a bit while I gathered up the blankets and tried not to look at him too much. After a few minutes Blaine stood up and we got out of the truck bed and into the cab.
Blaine took my hand and kissed it. "For the record, I am really glad we're dating. I would hate to see you kissing another guy like that."
I chuckled. "Well considering that was my first time doing that, I doubt I'd start going around making out with random guys. I am definitely all yours."
Blaine glanced over at me and then back to the road, a small grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Good. That's what I like to hear."
I leaned back in the seat, knowing I had a silly grin on my face but I didn't care. I suddenly remembered something. "Can we swing by the grocery store before you take me home?"
"Sure." Blaine said, giving me a curious glance. He pulled into the Walmart parking lot. I hopped out.
"I'll just be a minute. I've got to grab something for my roommates."
"I can come with you." Blaine said.
"That's okay, I'll be really fast." I said, shutting the door.
A few minutes later I came back to the truck with a bag swinging from my arm.
"So what did you get?" Blaine asked as he started the car up again.
I grinned and showed him the bag. "Ice cream."
After I had explained about our roommate dating rules to Blaine (he had laughed and kissed me again) and he dropped me off, I burst through my front door.
"Hey girls." I said. The three of them were sitting in the living room and looked up when I came in. I held up the ice cream and grinned. "My debt is now paid."
A couple days later, I sat on my bed, staring at my phone like it was a bomb about to explode.
Tick. Tock.
"What are you waiting for?" Amber asked curiously. She was lounging on her bed reading a fashion magazine--or doing homework--as she called it.
"I'm telepathically telling my parents that their baby girl has a boyfriend. It's going quite well, they're thrilled." I said.
Amber laughed. I think you're making this a bigger deal than it needs to be." She slid off her bed and joined me. "Just casually slip it into the conversation."
"How do I do that?" I asked.
Amber used her fingers like a pretend phone. "Hey mom, how's it going?" She was talking in a silly high pitched voice.
"I do not sound like that." I protested.
Amber grinned and continued on in her "Elise" voice. "Oh I'm so glad that everything is going well for you. Me? Well I'm doing great, can't wait to see you for Christmas. My classes are going well, I feel really prepared for finals."
I snorted.
"My social life is awesome. I actually have been spending a lot of time with a nice guy. He's great and he actually asked me out not too long ago. See?" Amber finished her fake Elise and parentals conversation and turned to me. "It's easy. You're already going to be updating your mom on life since you do it every couple weeks. Just slip it in and don't make it into a big deal okay?"
"You're right." I said, sitting up straight and squaring my shoulders. "I can do that.
Calm and casual. I got this.
I hit the call button and waited for my mom to pick up. Amber gave me a thumbs up and went back to her magazine.
"Mom's answering service. How may I direct your call?" My dad had answered my call. A fresh set of nerves washed over me. I had pumped myself up to tell my mom but there was no way I was brave enough to tell my dad. I'm pretty sure he still saw me as five years old and would somehow manage to pull out his shotgun over the phone.
"Hey dad, is mom there?" I asked. Please say yes!
"Yep, let me grab her for you." There was a bit of rustling. Whew.
"Hi Leesy. What a pleasant surprise." My mom said.
"Mom, I call you all the time." I said.
"True, but I just spoke to you the other day." Mom said.
Crap. How could I have forgotten that? I'm pretty sure I had already updated her too. Double crap.
"I had something I wanted to tell you." I said.
"Is everything alright?" Mom asked. I could hear dad mumble something in the background.
"Did you hear what your dad said?"
"No."
"Let me put you on speaker."
"You don't have to do-"
"Hey Leesy."
"Hi dad." I said weakly. This was starting to spin out of my control.
"Did you get that article I sent you for your English class?"
"Yes dad."
"Good, see if you can use it in your next paper."
"I will."
"What did you want to tell us sweetie?" My mom asked.
There's no way I'm getting off speaker phone. I should just bite the bullet and tell them.
"Uh...I just wanted to share some news with you." I said.
"You're not pregnant are you?" My dad asked.
Kill me now.
"Dad! No. Not even close." I knew my face was flaming red and Amber was now looking over at me with curiosity.
"Just checking." Dad said. "You sound so serious."
Great, Now this will just be super awkward.
"I'm not pregnant. I just wanted to tell you that I met a nice guy and-"
"A nice guy huh?" Dad started.
"Who is he?" Mom interrupted.
"His name is Blaine and we just started dating."
Silence and then.
"Where is he from? What does he do? When can we meet him? Does he need to come for Christmas? We should have him over. (I've got to clean my gun collection!) Don't you dare!" Both my parents fired question after question as well as having their own dialogue with each other.
I needed to end this.
"Oh man I totally lost track of the time. I have a study group in ten minutes so I gotta go." I fibbed.
"Okay, we'll talk more soon. Make good choices." My mom said.
"Especially about this boy." My dad added.
"Okay love you bye!" I hung up the phone and lightly banged it against my forehead. I risked a glance over at Amber. Her face was highly amused and I could tell that she was trying not to laugh.
"Well...that could have gone better." She commented. "But at least now they know."
True, but that didn't necessarily mean that it would be smooth sailing from here. The way I bungled my confession felt like a foreboding shadow. If I couldn't get something as simple as telling my parents I was dating someone, how would I handle them actually meeting him?
***********************************
"That bad huh?" Blaine asked. He had come over shortly after I had talked to my parents. We were sitting on the short couch and he was rubbing my shoulders.
I grimaced. "Not bad per say but definitely awkward. My dad asked if I was pregnant."
"What?" Blaine's face paled. "What did you say to give him that idea?"
"I told them I had some news to share and that was his first response." I said, nudging Blaine with my elbow. "He blew it way out of proportion."
"I don't know." Blaine mused. "Clearly something about you made him ask that. What secrets are you keeping from me?"
I looked up, astonished and ready to give him a piece of my mind. Then I saw the glint of amusement shining in his eyes so I decided to throw a pillow in his face instead. "Jerk."
Blaine laughed and held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm teasing. I know you're not hiding anything from me." He pulled me back against him and kissed the top of my head. "Forgive me?"
"Alright fine, you're forgiven." I grumbled.
"So since your parents know about us dating now, you should invite me for Christmas." Blaine said, running his fingers up and down my arms.
I shifted around, the thought of him meeting my family made me uncomfortable especially after that disaster of a phone call. Not to mention how stupidly embarrassing my brothers, dad and Pete would act, all in the name of "protecting" me. No, I just wasn't ready to bring a guy home.
"Elise?" Blaine asked.
"I think it's too soon." I blurted. " We've only been dating a couple of months." I could feel Blaine stiffen and knew he was disappointed in my answer.
"It's just that my family would make it into a big deal. My sister didn't introduce her now husband until they had been dating for almost a year and were really serious. I'm not ready yet." I turned to look at Blaine. His expression was unreadable. "Please don't be mad."
Blaine sighed. "I'm not mad, just disappointed."
"I know you don't like being at your mom's." I said.
"It's not just that. I wanted to spend the holiday break with my girlfriend."
"I'll still be your girlfriend after three weeks." I said.
"Three weeks is such a long time." Blaine mused and then, without warning, pulled me onto his lap.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Making up for all the time we'll have to spend apart." Blaine said as he brought me in for a kiss.
Leaving for home a few days later, I felt a little guilty as I said goodbye to Blaine. I knew that his break would be a lot less enjoyable than mine. Hopefully these next three weeks would go by really fast.