BOOTH BOY

The Doorstep Scene ...

He walks me back home.

After an almost embarrassingly revealing conversation, I feel scrubbed raw in some places. It does help that he seems almost equally as awkward about it.

He has both hands tucked into his pockets and hunched shoulders kept around his ears while he stares at his feet. I watch him skip over stones and then kick a few over occassionally myself. I hug myself again. It isn't necessarily cold. The air is almost pleasantly warm. He skips over another stone. I kick it. I guess I just feel vulnerable.

"You gonna say anything?"

He glances over, blonde hair falling into his eye.

I shrug and look off. The streetlights cast a soft yellow fliter over everything. I feel like we're walking home on the set of a 60's romance film. It looks that way.

When the silence sets over us a little too long, I huff and finally speak. "I'm just feeling like this is the perfect movie set up, you know?" I dare to glance over at him to gauge his reaction, my ears burning.

I have already told him so many other embarrassing things without blinking an eye and yet here, out in the open, walking the empty streets outside of the warm cocoon of  our booth, it suddenly seems riskier.

My pulse settles when I meet his gaze and he simply nods, a grin working it's way onto his face. In the past few hours I've memorized the way one side of his mouth lifts up before the other just as light seeps into his eyes and makes them sparkle with mischief. He'd get self conscious right about now, and there, he would run his fingers through his hair and look away sheepishly.

I smile softly. So predictable.

"Yeah I get what you mean. Boy walking pretty girl home is the oldest trick known to mankind."

Pretty girl.

I mean he's complimented me before. Sort of. He said he liked the way I sound. I have no idea what that means and he hadn't elaborated at all.

His words make me inherently warmer. I shiver with a suppressed squeal. Something in my stomach just kept falling and falling.

I take the next step forward and walk right into him. He places both hands on my shoulders and steadies me. "Hey? You cold?"

I shake my head but he's already shrugging out of his jacket. "Here."

He places it around my shoulders and because honestly I obviously can't get warm enough tonight, I push my arms through the armholes and let him adjust the collar.

His fingers are trembling.

He runs his hands down my arms down to my elbows. His eyebrows are creased together, "You alright now?"

I nod because I've lost the ability to speak. There's something lodged in my throat. No, not something. Words. Countless words and words and words.

Things I've wanted to say. Things I should have said. They were all there all at once.

Where would I start?

I like you, Colby? I think your eyes are beautiful? I've liked you ever since I've set eyes on you? I'm sorry about your Dad. They're all wrong about you.

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. He's looking at me so intensely, in that soul searching way of his. I look back. I don't know what my eyes are saying but his eyes drift down to my mouth and I must have said something right.

I wonder if he can see my thundering heart beating in my throat.

His hands slip further down my forearms and clamp around my wrists, and I wonder if he can feel my faltering pulse.

Each breath he exhales warms the tip of my nose.

Just as my face tilts forward and my eyes flutter shut, a bright light explodes behind my eyelids.

"Hey Bengsie! Asshole!"

Someone throws an empty Starbucks cup at us and it hits the pavement. My eyes snap open but he's already moved and is now standing a foot away, shouting after the white limo, "You're an asshole, Kent!". I turn around to watch the car disappear around the curb. The aforementioned Ezekiel Kent is leaning out of the window holding up both his middle fingers.

I don't want to look back at Colby. It would be too humiliating. Whatever magic had descended upon us has evaporated.

I keep my back to him even as he laughs to himself and then kicks the syrofoam cup. It hits the outside of my ankle. I have no choice. I plaster a smile on my face and turn around, tucking my hands into his pockets.

The edge of a serviette brushs my fingertips. I almost began blushing again as I recall the way I had grabbed it off the centre of the table and wrote my number on it before I slid it over to him. Colby had been watching me the whole time, amused.

Even as I look at him now, his face is twisted in amusement. "Come on."

That's all he had to say? He turns around and begins walking again, shoulders hunched, head down.

There's that falling feeling again. Not in a good way this time. This was a slow steady descent. Coming down from a high. A finger snap back to reality.

The reality where he's just the cute neighbour and I'm the awkward girl with a crush that will go nowhere. It doesn't hurt so much as it jolts me.

I am stuck where he left me, feet glued to the pavement as I watch his back retreat. He keeps walking and I stare after him getting further and further away, slipping right out of my hands.

Just when I think he'd go home without me, he turns around. "Aren't you coming?"

I run to catch up with him. When I get there, I just stare at him. He just stares back.

"We're on your street", he whispers.

I look around. We're indeed on my street, right outside my house.

"We're outside my house." It comes out breathy and for some reason I'm whispering too.

He nods and smiles. "My house is right there." He jerks his head towards the neighbouring house. The lights are all out.

"I know."

He smiles. Soft, unassuming, tender. "I know", he echoes.

I take a step back. "Bye, Colby."

The night is finally catching up with me. I'm  tired. I'm tired and he's so close and yet so far away. Whatever was keeping me going so far was beginning to seep out of me.

"Island Girl."

He raises his hand to his head in goodbye and then spins around, taking long strides down his walkway. I stay rooted where I am. He stops before he can open the front door and looks over at me. I hug myself again and when my fingers touch the cool leather, I jolt.

I still have his jacket.

"Colby wait!" He lets the doorknob go and turns around.

Before he can say anything, I sprint over, block heels clicking on the stone pathway. I shrug the jacket off mid run and push it into his arms before I stop running. The momentum sends  him slamming into the door, and I lean forward, kiss his cheek and whisper, "Call me."

Without looking at his face, I spin around and run all the way back to my house, through the front door, up the stairs and to my room and throw myself on my bed all in one breath. My lungs burn like a pyre and my legs feel like jell-o for weeks after but in a good way.

I was so sure he'd call me.