The Valley

Chapter Five

Tony was forced to walk home from what would be his last ever pratice since he refused to get a summer job, and his parents refused to help pay his car insurance. The walk home would be a long one, but one he didn't mind taking.

On his long walk home, he decided to call Payton, for more reasons than one. Mostly, however, because he would have to pass her house to get to his, and thought that would be the perfect excuse to stop by and see her.

Payton, who was surprisingly awake, picked up the call immediately, glancing at the clock. It was barely eight-thirty a.m. "Tony, Tony, Tony, you're going to have to get up earlier than this if you're still dead set on getting back at me." Chuckling as the words came out of her mouth, she smiled the entire time.

"I wasn't trying to wake you up, I thought you would be up since you like to get up early for some apparent reason, I will never understand. I'm actually in your neighborhood and wanted to see if you wanted to hang out. Maybe get breakfast?" he countered in a cheerful voice, though nowhere near as chipper and outgoing as Payton, who had been up but wasn't even close to being ready.

"No, you're not. I bet you're still sitting on your couch, in your boxers playing Halo," she replied, hesitation in her voice. For although she didn't believe him, there was a part of her that wasn't certain. "Wait, where are you?"

"I don't know exactly, I'm like a block to the right of the church. I know you live close by," he said.

Payton was sitting in her bedroom, still in her PJs and not dressed nowhere near ready to be seen. She peeked her head out of the window. Based on what Tony was saying, she knew he was close—closer than she cared for him to be. Although she wouldn't dare to tell him, from her bedroom window on the third floor, Payton could see him walking.

"Yeah, about that. Just hang out by the church, I'm in the middle of something... I just have to finish up and I'll meet you there in twenty?" As panicky and nervous as she was, Payton sounded calm.

Tony, smiling as he walked, chuckled slightly. "Did I interrupt your personal time?" he asked, coming off casual as if it were an everyday question.

Payton paused for a moment, taking a second until she gathered what it was Tony had been getting at, then her reaction was anything but what Tony expected. "Ew, no, that's gross. I would never do that. That's disgusting."

"What? You would never do that? So, you would never let a guy...?" Tony went on to ask. Not to be overbearing, but actually curious, for he'd never heard a girl say something like that before.

"No. That's nasty. I would have sex. Like if I like the guy, I'll have sex with them, but that's it," she said without hesitation.

Tony, not thinking anything of it, said boldly, "What if a guy, your boyfriend or something, tried to go south of the border?" Using overture, his question came out direct, all while veiling his feelings. In his own way, without a doubt not the most kosher expression, Tony was trying to put himself out there.

"Absolutely not!" Payton shouted.

"I hope this doesn't cross any lines or is too personal," Tony said before Payton interrupted. "Too personal? I'm pretty sure we're past the point of things not being too personal."

Payton chuckled.

"Are you a virgin?" As the words came out of his mouth, he felt almost instant regret. It's a lose-lose, he began to think. On one hand, if she isn't, then everything that happens next, her thoughts are going to be, is he just trying to get into my pants? Does only like me because he thinks I'm "easy"? That would make every romantic gesture or something as simple as him confessing his feelings to her just a way to "get into her pants" instead of a genuine expression of emotional affection. All of his thoughts came crashing down at once.