Kissing Is the Easy Part

Chapter 44 The double date

Sean

I was still in a daze when Flora pulled onto my street.

"You are dropping me off already?" The dismay was hard to miss in my tone. The sun hadn't even set yet and I assumed we would at least have dinner together, and after our previous conversation I really didn't want to spend one minute away from her. I felt like we had to make up for lost time.

"Yeah, I don't want to be late for my next steamy date," Flora deadpanned and I groaned.

"Please don't joke about dating other people."

She raised her eyebrows. "Now even joking is off-limits? You are even more possessive the second time around." She smiled. "I still find it pretty sexy."

With a signature abrupt halt, she pulled her car to a stop in front of my house. "Actually, I'm not done with you yet. I just need you to use your car. I have this planned yesterday to remind you of the good times we had, in the hopes that you will like me more. It seems a little unnecessary now but we might as well go through with it."

I gazed at her puzzled.

She winked and smiled slyly like she was an undercover secret agent. "There's an envelope in the glove compartment. Take it."

"Okay..." I clicked it open and found a white envelope among the mass of speeding tickets and gum wrappers.

"Right. Don't open it until I'm gone. And here's the emergency number." She dug out a marker pen from her purse and scribbled a line of phone number on my forearm. "Don't dial unless it's an absolute emergency."

I looked at her in alarm. "This isn't going to get me arrested, is it?"

"Well, if you run fast enough..." she trailed off and laughed. "Kidding! Now get out."

She gave me a quick kiss and shoved me out of her car, then she sped away without further explanation. I was left in the dust gaping after her. I would never be able to follow up on Flora's spontaneous actions, I thought.

I tore open the envelope and found a note inside.

Where did we go the one time we cut class?

Was this some kind of treasure hunt? I was amused. Flora could manipulate me like a con-artist, but at heart she had a certain child-like innocence.

The place we went was the little garden near the school. Flora had come into my German class that day and faked a note from the principal, asking to see me right away. It was so obvious I just about died in my seat, and everyone else knew too because we were the newest couple. But Mrs. Kinston had bought it.

German was my weakest subject, and Flora thought she was doing me a favor. Instead of working harder, her way to deal with it was to skip it altogether.

"You have no motivation," she said, leading me away from school. Her hand was clasped tight in mine. "We need to find you a German mistress fast."

"You are so much work I can't even begin to think of a mistress, let alone a German-speaking one," I said.

Flora took it as a compliment and grinned. She led me to a broken fence behind the library and told me it was the only place to go without being noticed. I bet some other guy showed her that.

We had decided to take a walk in the botanic garden nearby, but neither of us was really concentrating on flowers. We found an isolated bench in the shades, hard to see if you didn't look carefully, and she lay on my lap as she propped her feet on one arm of the bench. It was one of the warmer days and the air was filled with the crisp scent of grass. The clouds up above were frozen still like they were painted on. My eyes skidded over a few fallen acorns under the tree and went back to her face.