Hidden Valley (D. SWING)

XIII. Keep It Cool

I still smell of chlorine regardless of never stepping inside the pool. Today, I made my case to be the definition of spreading myself too thin. I've been ripping and running the streets since nine o'clock. The girls were dropped off, I spotted Evelyn beside the water for an hour or two. The party orchestrated by Dalvin is jumping off tonight and I don't even know what I'm wearing. Too many things ran around my mind on a rapid loop and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't cut it off the think about what's actively happening to me even if I tried. There's too much shit going on right now for me to live in the present.

"Am I boring you?"

Blinking out of my thoughts, I pull myself by the collar as I return to the conversation that temporarily became one sided on Cynthia's end. "No!" Her head tilts to the right. "Nah... No, I just was thinking about something."

"About what?" Cynthia's hand reaches out to pink a piece of lint from the collar of my shirt. "I've never seen your shirt so starchy," she giggles.

I look down at my shirt, smoothening it out and I find myself wondering if there is any other miscellaneous fabrics lingering. "That was Letty," I laugh with a subtle shaking of my head. As Cynthia's giggles silence, I realize that the mention of my best friend on a date with someone who nearly despises her isn't my bright idea.

Silences sits at our table.

My head falls back down to my plate. I poke around at my cheeseburger with my french fries, occasionally glancing up at my date as she stares into her lap. "Can I ask you something?" I hold my breath. Whenever she starts her question off with a question, something I don't even want to think about is going to come out of her mouth next. "Are you and Paulette like a..." Her hands motion for the words she can't say. "It's just that I know her and Ali are rocky right now and I don't want any more issues than we've already got."

No, what she doesn't want is to get kicked off of the dance team for creeping with her captain's supposed man. Good for her that Paulette isn't my girl. If she weren't her captain, Cynthia wouldn't have gave a dam anyway.

"Uh uhn," my head shakes profusely, "You ain't gotta' worry about that."

Cynthia twirls her straw in her milkshake glass. Her showing any kind of insecurity is something new to me. "So you two never..." As she trails off, her awaiting eyes lift from the blended chocolate ice cream and focus on me. The pink lipstick she wears matches the seats of booth we sit in, complimenting her honey-blonde ponytail.

"Hook up?"

Nodding, Cynthia refuses to fully ask the question as my mind falls back onto the couch of my memory, thinking back to my brief experience with Paulette. I hear her voice echoing in my head whenever the question is proposed. I wouldn't say anything if she didn't want me to... And she doesn't, so I won't.

My hands rested in the hem of her jeans though our lips haven't touched for the last minute and half that we've sat at this bench in front of the ocean. "This is bizarre," she finally says after our lips finally separated.

I gently pulled my hands from her pants, the hemming of her red lace panties poking out after my removal. "This?" Paulette stuffed the waistband back down, nodding as she remained silent. Her lack of a vocabulary is telling. She always has something to say. "Just say it." I knew she was holding something back from me.

Hesitantly, she scooted an inch away from me and, out of instinct, I replicated her actions. "It's..." She stopped herself, gathering her thoughts in full. "It's like... It's like when you're cooking a steak?" I frowned without an understanding of where she was taking me with the start of her statement. What was like a steak? "It's juicy and perfect on the outside... It tastes so good but... You feel like it's just a little bit too pink." She looked up at me from her bracelets with pleading eyes. "You get me?"