I Hated You First by Rachel John
Clay
So much about Saturday changed everything. My grandparents were… I didn’t know how to describe it. They were people I wanted to hang out with, mostly because for the first time ever, I felt like they were okay with me hanging around. I could go back and study every bit of our history and make tally marks of blame in different columns, but I think it came down to this: the ice had been broken.
“You were a big part of it,” I told Lauren late Sunday night on the phone as I was explaining my theory. The weekend of us was coming to a close, and I was afraid to let it go. Monday mornings were not traditionally known for awesomeness.
“I didn’t do anything except get you in trouble. Is that what it was? You did something your grandma didn’t approve of and realized it was going to be okay?”
“More like I realized what I’d been missing. They have secret personalities I never got to see. I don’t think they did it on purpose. It was just the generation of ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ I feel like I’ve finally been initiated into a secret club for grownups.”
“Well, I’m glad, Clay. I’m glad my nosiness about them didn’t end up being a complete disaster.”
“It didn’t.” I stifled a yawn. It was twelve-thirty, and I had left her apartment a half-hour ago. I’d been up since four.
In order to have time with her the rest of Sunday, I had woken up Parker at the crack of dawn and made him come over to inspect the piece of crap four-wheelers he’d left in my garage. And they were pieces of crap. Three of them had only needed a tune-up to be moderately worthless toys that were too old for most serious riders to be interested in. The other two? Their engines were shot and would need a complete rebuild. He had overpaid by every stretch of the imagination. Even with us doing all the work ourselves, we’d be lucky to break even on the whole project.
As if Lauren could read my mind, she asked. “How did it go with Parker today? You totally changed the subject when I asked earlier.”
“I know I did. Because I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Because of the ATVs?”
“Because of a lot of things. He pulled one of your long blonde hairs off my shoulder. It was clinging to my shirt. And he had questions about it.”
Lauren gasped. “No. How was it still there?”
“I rolled out of bed in what I’d worn the night before, which I guess included a little token from you.” Not that I could put all the blame on her. I was the one who liked to run my fingers through her hair.
“What did you tell Parker?”
“I made up this completely bogus story about my dryer going out and taking my clothes to a laundromat. Worst cover story ever. Especially after he offered to look at my dryer, and I said it was already fixed. Luckily, Parker’s a good enough friend he let me be. But now he knows I’m dating some mystery woman I don’t want to talk about.”
She sighed a melancholy sigh. “We should go to bed.”
“I know.”
But neither of us ended the call.
“Clay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m anxious.”
“About tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” But the way she said it told me she was anxious about every tomorrow.
“If you can’t do this, it’s okay, you know?” I hated that I felt like I had to keep saying that.
“Nope.” Lauren was quick to squash that train of thought, much to my relief. “No outs. I’m not giving you one. You’re not giving me one. You’re a part of my life, and you always have been. We’ve just tweaked things slightly.”
“‘We’ve just tweaked things slightly?’ Is that going into the speech you’ve prepared for your dad? I don’t think he’ll go with that logic.”
“Whatever. I don’t have anything prepared. I’m still dwelling on how to end this call with you.”
“Okay, explain.”
Lauren gave a nervous laugh. “Well, you were the one who said, ‘I like you’ first. And I’m not ready for the other four letter L word yet. Is there something in-between people say?”
I rubbed my forehead. This girl. The first rule of commitment issues: you didn’t talk about your commitment issues. Unless you were Lauren. “You already know I’m bad at Scrabble. Now you want me to come up with a four letter word that’s in between like and love?”
“It doesn’t have to be four letters or start with L. For example, don’t British people say, I fancy you? What about that?”
“I’m pretty sure they don’t say it at the end of phone calls. Ta ta, I fancy you.”
She snorted. “Okay, what then?”
“Lauren, you are beautiful and weird, and I really like you. And I hope tomorrow doesn’t end in your dad wanting to punch me. Now go to bed, sweetheart.” I hung up before she spent another thirty minutes crafting an appropriate response.