What has gotten into me?
Maybe his car cast a spell on me. The new car smell and powerful AC was a magical experience, but it wasn't great enough to make me get in Nick's personal space. I wiped the oil from his face--who am I? Certainly, not Maya Scott, the number one advocate of personal space.
"Have you eaten anything today? What type of save was that, Maya," I berated myself. I'd been so shocked by my own actions that I had said the first thing I could think of to diffuse the moment. But I was genuinely worried that he'd been working this long without anything to eat. I've officially been invaded by a body snatcher. It's the car it has to be.
As much as I didn't want to enjoy the car--I did. The drive was just so smooth, and it didn't scare people when I drove through the mall parking garage. I didn't have to use my phone speaker to listen to music, because it had an aux port, my ultimate weak spot. But explaining why I was suddenly driving a luxury vehicle was just as annoying as I thought.
"Hey, Maya, some Mercedes driving ass hat parked in your spot," James said as he raised the gate on the storefront windows. We were just opening so the mall was still empty. "Everyone in this whole damn mall knows those are our spots, I oughta key that suckers car. So where'd you end up parking?"
"I parked in the spot I always park in." I took a long sip from my large coffee, I'd gone to bed late again.
He wore a look of confusion as he unlocked the door. "What? No you didn't."
"I did." As I patiently waited for him to catch on, I began flipping on light switches and starting up the register.
"You're the Mercedes driving ass hat!" He exclaimed.
"Sadly," I said. "Please don't key the car. It's a loan."
A grin spread across his face. "That's a pretty nice loan. It wouldn't be from that private school cutie, would it?"
"His name is Nick, and yes it is." He joined me behind the front desk. "According to him my car is bound to explode any second."
He chuckled, fixing the collar of his polo shirt, "Well, anyone with eyes could have told you that."
I glared at him. "Not funny."
"So he's cute, rich," he bumped my shoulder, "and good with his hands. Are you interested?"
I breathed in a sharp breath through my teeth. "Let's stop while we're ahead, James."
He clapped his hands together. "You are interested!"
"Stop it." I walked into the break room to get away from him, but he followed me.
"Look at you, you're practically blushing!" I plopped down on the couch, I'm glad he's getting a kick out of this. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Jonathan about this."
I gasped. "Don't gossip to your husband about me."
He waved me off. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, we gossip about everyone. But I can't believe tough Maya finally has a crush on someone."
"Can you lay off?" I huffed.
"I could but that wouldn't be any fun," he whined.
"You're annoying me." He just smiled at me unphased by my statement.
In truth, I wasn't sure what my feelings for Nick were. He makes me feel all flustered and I have projectile word vomit when he's around. It's the color changing eyes, they lock me in, man, they lock me in.
Suddenly, my phone rang, breaking me from my thoughts of Nick's beautiful eyes. Tasha's smiling face lit up my phone screen. Good maybe she'd have some drama that would keep me my mind from wandering down a Nick rabbit hole.
"Hello," I answered.
"Hey, girl, what's up," Tasha said on the other end of the phone.
"Oh, nothing." Just obsessing over a boy, nothing important. "How about you? How was school?"
"Shitty," she answered honestly. I could hear her fingers tapping on the keys of her laptop. "I hate being alone, but luckily I got to leave early so I wouldn't be late for my internship."
"How is that by the way?" Her internship at Bella Magazine is all she's been able to talk about for weeks. She was so excited to quit her job at Schwarzkopf's department store she walked around with a grin on her face for an entire week.
"It's a dream," she sighed. "I love everything about it. They have a whole office of just make-up. A whole office! And their wardrobe floor is something I would die for."
"I'm glad you like it."
"Like more like love." She laughed. "Hey, do you remember that girl I hooked up with at Nick's party?" As she talked, I walked over to my living window and peeked through the blinds. Underneath the dull street lamps, I could see Nick bent over the open hood of my car.
"Vaguely," I replied quickly closing the blinds when Nick looked up towards the window.
"Well, I saw her again today."
I sat on my couch and pulled my quilt yellow and white over my legs. I might as well get comfortable, once Tasha started talking about her love life it was hard to get her to stop.
"And?" I asked waiting for her to go on.
"She's interning at Bella too," she said not sounding as excited as I expected.
"So are you going to try and ask her out? Or was it just a one night thing?"
"No..." She hesitated. "I think she might be straight."
"Okay, but she's obviously into you. Enough to hook up with you, anyway."
"Yeah, but I don't want to just be someone's experimental phase. I don't want to set myself up to get hurt."
I understand why she wouldn't want to catch feelings for someone just for them to pretend their relationship didn't happen later on. And I would also hate to see my friend get hurt. "What's her name?"
"Crystal," she said. "Isn't that so cute. I wish I had a cute name like that. She goes to East Chapel. "
"Tasha is a cute name," I assured her. "Why don't you ask Nia? Or Lavender? You said she goes to East Chapel right, maybe they would know."
"But what if she is gay, and she's not out yet. I can't risk outing her when she's not ready."
"Then why'd you tell me then?"
"Because who are you going to tell? You don't go there, and you're not a gossip." She was right, now if this were the other way around we might have a slight issue.
I sighed. "You're right, but do you like this girl?"
"I think so, she's nice and we get along. She's a great kisser," she said. "She has amazing style too. But there's just one more thing."
"Is it something worse than her being straight?"
"Yes and no," she answered vaguely. "It's just that....her parents own the magazine."
My jaw dropped. "They what?"
She rushed to say, "I know, I know. I would hook up with the girl whose parents own the magazine I've been obsessed with since I was a child, it's just my luck."
"Tasha, now you can't date her; it's a conflict of interest!" I warned her.
"Oh, calm down," she said. "It's not like that. It only happened one time and it was before I knew any of this."
"Okay, but play it smart. You worked really hard to get this internship."
"I will," she promised. "But Maya please don't tell anyone about this, especially not Nia or Lavender. I really don't want her business to get out there."
"If you don't want me to I won't." It's not like us not to tell Nia things, it made me feel kind of gross actually. But this wasn't my business to tell.
"Enough about me and my straight girl problems tell me about your day."
"It wasn't very exciting," I replied. "I went to work, I got pizza for lunch, and Nick came over to fix my car. He's still here, actually."
"I thought you said it wasn't very exciting. Nick's there."
"And he was here yesterday." And he'll be here tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.
"If I wasn't focusing on this straight girl right now, I would totally be into him. He is so fine." My fist balled into fists thinking of them together. That won't be happening--ever. "But since I'm not when are you going to make your move on him."
Caught off guard, I said, "Excuse me? Who said I was planning to?"
"So you're thinking about it?" She hummed, "I smell a romance coming along."
I rolled my eyes. "You and everyone else, apparently."
"Oh, I can't wait for you to be in love, Maya," I could practically see her grinning through the phone.
Suddenly, I heard a lot of commotion in the background. Tasha said, "Get out, Trey, she doesn't want to talk to you!" There seemed to be a struggle for her phone. "Trey, give me my phone back you dickhead!"
"Hey, Maya," his smooth voice came over the phone and my stomach turned.
"Hi, Trey," I said with little emotion.
"Have you missed me?"
"Not in the slightest," I replied honestly. "But don't you have a girlfriend, I heard you and Monique are back together?" Not that it made a lick of difference, I still wouldn't be with him.
He chuckled. "We're not serious."
I doubt she knew that. "Right. Can I get back to talking to my friend now?"
"Oh, you don't want to talk to me," he said trying to sound offended. "You know how much I love you. Why don't you give me a chance? Tasha, stop hitting me!"
"Well, Trey," I was going to try, once again, to explain why I would never be with him. "You have a girlfriend. You don't love me; you just want to sleep with me. We have nothing in common. You don't have a job..."
"I have a job," he jumped in to defend himself.
"Selling weed at the corner store is not a job. It's a good way to get arrested."
"Just let me take you out." And he persists.
"No."
"Come on, Ma--" suddenly his voice was ripped away from the phone. "Ah, Tasha, you stupid bi--" A loud smack sounded through the phone.
"Call me a bitch if you want to, and I swear Trey I'll beat your ass," said Tasha, getting her phone back. I heard her door slam as I assumed Trey left after her threat. "I'm sorry about that, Maya. I'm so glad you never fell for him."
"Like I would ever," I felt a headache begin to form just thinking about. We all have self-esteem issues every once in awhile, but I would genuinely have to hate myself to date a serial-cheater like Trey. I don't see how Monique puts up with it.
"I can't believe you're even from the same family." The rest of Tasha's family are nice upstanding citizens. Her mom's a nurse, her dad's an insurance agent, and her brothers (besides Trey) are great too.
"There's a bad apple in every bunch."
Tasha and I talked for another hour before she left to do her skincare routine. I don't understand the need for anything other than soap and moisturizer, but she says that all ten of her products are important.
I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. Closing my eyes, I tried my best to force myself to go to sleep, since I had to work in the morning again. I've been spoiling myself with mid-day naps, and now I'm paying the price for it.
Outside my window, I heard the clinking of Nick's tools. I can't believe he's still here. I wrapped myself in a blanket that laid across my bed and slipped on a pair of slippers and walked into the living room. It didn't look like I was going to sleep anytime, and he didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, so I might as well go and keep him company.
The parking lot was quiet, except for the sounds of Nick and chirping crickets. Due to the early fall chill Nick had put on a hooded navy jacket.
"Shouldn't you be going home?" I asked as I came up behind him. It was getting close to midnight, but Nick was still working under the hood of my car. He pulled a towel from his back pocket and wiped his hands.
"Probably," he said, looking down at me.
"Are you not tired?" He's been working on my car all afternoon. He came over right after school, and I've only seen him take one break. I appreciate the dedication, but it must be tiring.
"No, I have insomnia, so I don't sleep very well," he explained. "Or much at all."
"Oh," I said understanding. I wrapped my blanket tighter around myself. "That explains all the energy drinks."
"Partially." I've had so many foster siblings, but I've never felt such an overwhelming need to make sure that someone was okay. It worries me that he doesn't sleep well, or at all, or that he went hours only having energy drinks and no food.
"I could ask you the same thing, aren't you tired?" he asked.
"I can't sleep," I told him. "My sleep schedule has been off since the move."
"Is something bothering you?"
"No, nothing's bothering me."
"You should sit in the car it's cold outside," he advised me. I shuffled over to one of the unlocked car doors, and slid in the passenger seat cracking the window so I could still talk to him.
"I saw you watching a movie when I came in earlier. Why didn't you have the sound on?"
"I usually don't watch them with the sound on," I responded. I didn't think he had noticed.
"Why?"
"Well, when I was in foster care my foster mother would only let us watch TV after she went to bed, but we couldn't have the sound on or we would wake her up. By the time we got to watch TV it was late and all the good shows were off so the only thing that was on were cheesy movies. Initially, it sucked. But for my eighth birthday somebody got me a portable CD player and then I could listen to music and watch the movie at the same time. "
"But how do you know what's happening?"
"Subtitles," I shrugged. "But I prefer to watch them without. I let the music tell the story."
He looked at me strangely. "But what if the music doesn't fit the story?"
"Then it creates a new one." I rested my head on the seat. "I know it sounds weird, but a good soundtrack ca make even the worst movie good. Like those Fast and Furious movies, if you took all the music from them would it still be good? No. It would just be a bunch of guys racing down the street and stealing money."
"I like those movies," he said after a second.
"I'm not surprised by that."
He shrugged, smiling. "They're good."
"That's debatable," I said not wanting to say how pointless I found them. We're all entitled to our own opinions, I guess.
"You know, you're funny," he said.
"I try." I found myself crossing my fingers and silently hoping that he would also say that I'm cute, but no such luck.
"I've got a lot done so far, but I still have a long way to go," He said to me drinking from his water bottle. "I just hope I can get it done in time for the application deadline."
"What's this school again?" I remember him mentioning it, but I didn't know much else.
"Kennedy Automotive Institute, it's in Georgetown, a few towns over," he explained.
"I'm going to community college there." I don't know why I felt the need to tell him that.
"If I get in maybe we could carpool," he suggested.
"Maybe," I said ignoring the nervous dip in my stomach. "Why that school? You could go anywhere." I know if I had his money, I would.
"It's a great school and close by," said Nick. "It's extremely hard to get into. A single class is only fifty people."
"Wow." All I had to do was apply and I knew I was in. "That has to be stressful. Do you have a plan B?"
"Not really," he sighed. "I am applying to other schools, but I don't want to go to any of them."
"I hope you get in." Mostly for my own benefit, how was I supposed to look at him if he lived somewhere far away?
He smiled. "Me too. Are you going to sit out here with me all night?"
"If you want me too," I said. "I don't want to distract you or anything." I hoped he wanted me to stay. I'd be bored upstairs by myself.
"No," he answered quickly. "No, you're not distracting me at all I want you to stay."
"Okay." I folded my legs in my seat to get more comfortable. I might be here for awhile.