“Oh, wait a minute…” Carter said, smiling. “Looks like you have an admirer. Look to your left.”
I slowly turned around and spotted a guy in a black shirt and jeans smiling at me. He tilted his head to the side, as if he was trying to figure out the relationship between me and Carter.
I immediately scooted away and the guy smiled, shooting me a short wave.
“Go talk to him,” Carter said.
“Shhh! Stop talking to me! He might think we’re together…”
“He won’t if you go talk to him, Ari. Jesus…”
I hesitated, still looking at the guy, and the next thing I felt was Carter pushing me out of my seat.
“Go.” He shooed me away. “It’s not like you’re making me look appealing to anyone either.”
I shook my head at him and walked toward the guy in the black shirt, blushing as I stepped closer. He looked ten times better up close.
“Hi…” He smiled a set of perfect pearly whites.
“Hi…”
“I’m sorry for staring,” he said smoothly. “Did your boyfriend send you over here to tell me to stop?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Glad to hear that.” He smiled again and extended his hand. “I’m Chris.”
“Arizona.”
“Nice to meet you…” He gently caressed my knuckles with his fingers. “I’m actually only here to take a few of my drunk friends home, but…I’d love to call you tomorrow and maybe meet up somewhere this week? Somewhere quiet and private?”
I nodded, slightly speechless at the way his simple touch was making me feel.
“Can I have your number, Arizona?” He slowly let my hand go and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“It’s 555-9076…” I managed to pull my phone out without taking my eyes off his. “Yours?”
“The number that’s currently calling you.” He grinned as my phone rang with the unknown number. “I’ll definitely call you tomorrow.” He looked me up and down as he stepped back. “It was very nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you, too.” I stood rooted to the ground until he disappeared into the crowd, and then I made my way back over to the bench.
“So?” Carter signaled to the bartender to close his tab. “How’d it go?”
“Good, really good. We only spoke a few words to each other, but he’s going to call me tomorrow.” I felt like a giddy little girl. “I literally felt something when he touched me—something strong.”
“It’s a pretty bad sign if he’s already given you an STD.”
“You are so terrible!” I laughed. “Did you find any future victims while I was gone?”
“Within the span of two minutes? No, but I realized we need to get you a few more dates tonight if we’re going to guarantee that you get laid at some point this summer.” He set a tip on the counter and clasped my hand, pulling me through the crowd and outside. “We need to go to a few more bars.”
“What? Why? I just got a guy, a guy who has already promised to call me tomorrow and made me feel a genuine spark when he only touched my hand. Did you not hear any of what I said back there?”
“That was one guy, Ari.” He shook his head. “One. Who knows if he’ll really call you tomorrow? You trust him just because he said he would?”
“Well, yeah…”
“So, you’ll believe anything a complete stranger says to you?”
“There was a spark, Carter…A genuine he-is-definitely-going-to-call-me spark.”
“You need at least five other options.” He unlocked the doors to his car and motioned for me to get in. “That’s the biggest problem you have now. You need to actually date around and stop pinning all your hopes on the first guy that you supposedly feel a spark with.”
“I don’t always do that…I at least wait until he kisses me first.” I laughed. “I’m a pretty good judge of kisses, you know. I can tell a lot about a guy from the way he uses his mouth.”
“I’m sure you can.” He revved up the car and sped down a few blocks toward a more popular bar. “You have stars in your eyes right now over a potential phone call. I’d hate to see what you look like after you get kissed.”
“I’ll record it one day and send you the video.”
“Please don’t.” He looked over at me, laughing as he found a parking spot. “If it’s anything like you looked after meeting that guy in there, I never want to know. Now, get out of the car before you start staring into space, so I can show you how to get exactly what your * needs.”
“Really, though? Have I ever told you how deep you are?”
“No.” He smiled as he got out of the car. “But that’s only because you and I have never fucked…”
Fifth Grade
Dear Carter,
I don’t care what you say about Dawson Meade the 3rd. He will be my first kiss and he will NOT care about my braces. He will fall in love with me and ask me to be his girlfriend. And then you will be jealous because you will still not know what it fills like to be kissed.
I’ll let you know how it goes after school.
Sincerely kissed,
Arizona