I flung the door open and thanked the good Lord I’d finished getting dressed because there in all his awesomeness stood Chay in jeans that rode low on his hips and a T-shirt that showed just enough bicep to make my mouth water.
He ran his tongue over his lower lip. “Your dad said I could come up but that he’d pull me out by my ear if I stayed more than ten seconds. I’m just supposed to tell you breakfast is ready.” He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, causing them to dip lower on his hips. I almost groaned out loud.
Good Lord, thank you for making the eighth wonder of the world and for letting him be my boyfriend.
“Okay, I’m ready.” Grabbing my hand, he pulled me in for a quick kiss. He tasted of spearmint; his mouth cool when my tongue dipped inside. I sighed and pulled back. “Let’s go eat,” I muttered, preferring the kiss to breakfast.
My family’s weekly tradition was that we had breakfast together every Saturday morning. Chay had breakfast with us most Saturdays since we’d been dating, which was an arrangement I loved. And like most Saturdays, or any other time Chay was over, my parents grilled him about everything. Everything. It was like they were ex-KGB and didn’t get the memo that the war had ended.
Where are you going to college? What are you going to study? How is school going? Milayna says you have a term paper due in English, what’s your topic? Are you playing baseball this spring? And on and on. But Chay was a good sport. He answered each and every tedious question without blinking an eye. I think he liked my parents as much as they liked him.
“Do you mind if I steal Milayna for the afternoon today?”
“Nope. Steal away,” my mom said.
“Just like that? You don’t even want to know where we’re going or what we’re doing? Just ‘steal away?’ I feel so loved.” I rolled my eyes.
“Nah, we know Chay will take good care of you. But out of curiosity, what are you going to do?” my dad asked.
“That’s better,” I muttered.
“Just the boring dinner and a movie date. I’m saving the kegger party for next weekend,” Chay said, straight faced.
My dad didn’t bat an eyelash. “Good to know.”
“I have to go.” Chay gave me a quick kiss before standing. “I have chores to do before I’m set loose for the day. Thank you for breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. It was delicious as usual.”
“That’s because my dad didn’t cook.”
“I can ground you, you know,” my dad told me with an over-exaggerated smile.
Chay laughed. “See ya, Benjamin,” he called to my brother. “I’ll see you at three?” He looked at me.
“Three’s good,” I said, walking him to the door where he could give me a proper kiss goodbye. The kind he would never give me in front of my parents.
***
Chay picked me up at three exactly. Snow fell from the gray sky, covering the sidewalks and trees. We were going to dinner at our favorite little café on the waterway. Gusts of wind blew so hard it made it difficult to walk in a straight line. It was freezing, the kind of wind that bites your skin. My hair swirled around, smacking me in the face. By the time we got to the café, our cheeks were red and our noses running from the cold. Inside was warm and dry. There was a fire burning in the old stone fireplace and we sat at a table as close to it as we could, warming ourselves and listening to the fire crackling. We ordered hot chocolate and warmed our hands on the mugs as we drank the rich, chocolaty awesomeness covered in whipped cream.
After our early dinner, we went to a movie. A nice, action-packed, bomb-exploding, limbs-flying, guts-protruding movie. Very romantic. It’d been Chay’s turn to pick. About halfway through the movie, I felt the first thump on the bottom of my seat. I ignored it. The person continued kicking my seat. After the eleventh or twelfth time, I looked over my shoulder to give them a dirty look. I saw a smiling face looking back at me.
“I thought that was you,” Xavier whispered.
“Hi.” I looked beside him to see who his date was. Not that I cared… much.
“Like the movie?”
I opened my mouth to answer when I heard, “Like the people around me to be quiet during the movie,” Chay said.
“Sorry, man. I’ll talk to you after, Milayna,” Xavier said and settled back in his seat, turning his gaze back to the screen.
“No, you won’t,” Chay grumbled under his breath. I elbowed him. He tossed a piece of popcorn at me, his eyes never leaving the blood and gore splattering across the gigantic screen he forced me to sit two feet from.
When the movie ended, I stood and reached for my coat on the back of the chair. It was gone. I turned to Chay. He usually held it for me to put on. He was that way, opening doors, holding the car door open for me to get in and out, and holding my coat for me to slip into. All the stuff you’d see men do for women in old movies, he did. He did everything but throw his coat over a mud puddle before I walked across it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did that. His dad had taught Chay how to treat a girl with respect. I loved that.