A Collection of ST Short Stories

Steve?!

"You know, I should've seen this coming from miles away," he said with a smile, as he made a motion with his arms, describing a vast distance. When he stretched his arms wide, the night sky seemed to stretch with them. Everything felt bigger and brighter, and completely unreal.

I leaned against the side of the car, about a foot or so distance in between us. "What do you mean? Of course you didn't see it coming, I wasn't being obvious," I said confidently, but as I finished that last word, his smile grew again. "Or was I..?"

He didn't reply this time, and I had a feeling he could see how embarrassed I had become, and my whole body began to radiate with warmth. After a moment, he walked closer to me, and put his hand softly on my cheek. I hesitated and just stared up at him, my eyes darting back and forth to each of his eyes, unable to focus and barely breathing. His eyes were closing as he craned his head down, and in response I closed my eyes. I waited for him to kiss me, and I felt the slightest brush of his lips on mine, and-

"Hey! Come on, bug! You've only got an hour!!"

STEVE-

SHIT. I can't believe I'm going to be late, I'm never late, and of course the only time I am late is because I was too caught up in a dream. The worst part of that mess, is that I'm pretty sure it was about Steve. No, I don't want to put any ideas in my head. I could just be thinking that because that was the voice I woke up to outside my door.

Steve and I always rode to school together, until he and Nancy started dating. I had no problem with driving myself at the time. I really like Nancy and we grew to be pretty close during the time they dated. Eventually that came to an end, and when it did, Steve couldn't really handle the drive to school alone anymore, so the carpool buddies were together again.

I shot up out of bed and rushed to the door, swinging it open to quickly tell Steve I wouldn't take long, but when I opened the door and our eyes met, I froze. My mouth is slightly open, but no words are coming out. I'll admit that I've been confused over the way I feel about Steve since we were kids, but this has never  happened.

He waved a hand in front of my face, "Hey, are you okay?? I don't mean to rush you or freak you out, but we are kind of running late, so we gotta get a move on," He said while doing small, quiet snapping gestures. His hair bounced when he snapped.

The concern on his face and the movement of his hair made me snap out of it, but I just couldn't think straight. "Yeah, sorry, gotta get ready, won't be long. Don't wait up!-" I slammed the door on accident, which finally brought me back into reality. I yanked the door back open, "-Wait, I mean-".

"Yeah yeah, I got it, I got it, I'll wait for you, just hurry," Steve said through stifled chuckles, shooing me into my room. I gave him a quick smile back and ran to my bathroom to start getting ready. I didn't close the door, so Steve followed me in, but sat in the chair I had in the corner of my room, and propped his feet up on my desk.

I was rushing trying to get myself ready and make sure I had everything I needed. After digging through all of my things and quadruple-checking my makeup, I decided I didn't have time for anything else and I needed to get changed. The way my room was set up, made it so I could get changed by my closet without being seen from where Steve was. Not that it would've been too big of a deal, I just try not to make it a habit, as it's kind of awkward changing in front of someone you don't know if you have feelings for, and you know they wouldn't feel the same.

I didn't mind Steve being in my room, because we were so young when we met, so we've seen each other at our bests and our worsts. Our parents met at work, and it just so happened that our families looked very similar. Our moms thought it would be nice to introduce us to each other, so that we each had someone our age to socialize with as toddlers. They never really expected anything other than socializing with their husbands' coworkers and their families. Little did they know that Steve and I would become inseparable.

Over time, our families grew apart, but stayed friendly, mainly because of Steve and I. Though the relationship between our parents swayed, we remained as strong as ever. Steve still comes in most mornings to say hello to my parents while he waits for me, just in case he doesn't bump into them any other time. Mom always tells him to give hugs to his mom from her, but I know he doesn't always do that. I'd like to visit his family every now and then, at least just to let them know we still think about them, but when Steve and I hang out, with no plans of going out, it's almost always at my house.

I was almost finished getting ready to go, when Steve put his head back and pretended to start snoring. "You've made yourself comfortable, I see?" I said while grabbing a pair of socks out of my drawer and balling them up.

Without opening his eyes, he responded, "As comfortable as always," he smacked his lips like a sleepy dog in a cartoon, "although I don't think you want me to be too comfortable because then you won't have a ride to sch-" I launched the pair of socks and hit him perfectly in the head.

He nearly knocked the chair backwards from his reaction. I must have really caught him off guard because his mouth dropped and he stared at me. I had no idea what his response would be, so the massive smile I had when I saw the socks smack into his head, had now faded into a somewhat worried expression. I couldn't tell if he was upset or if he was about to laugh.

Finally, he slowly stood up, picked up the pair of socks from off the ground, and without warning started after me. I immediately started running and laughing as I went. I made it down the stairs and into the living room, Steve dropped the socks before he caught me. A normal guy, with a normal girl that he might like, would scoop her up playfully, maybe toss her over his shoulder. Which sounds very romantic, however, Steve is not a normal guy, and we do not have a normal relationship. When he caught up to me, he grabbed my side with one arm and legs with his other, as if he were going for bridal way of carrying me, except he dropped me onto the couch before even having me in a full cradle. I plummeted down and landed on my back, perfectly fine, but I wasn't going to let him know that.

I stopped laughing very suddenly, and when he realized that, it was like all of the color drained from his face. He knelt down and put a hand on my shoulder, checking to see if I was okay. I played into this probably a little more than I should have, making faces and sounds of agony. He was about to go find my mom, when I stood up very straight and reassured him that I was okay.

"That's not funny," he said, standing up straight, while crossing his arms. "I don't know why you're laughing," he switched his weight to one leg.

"Oh, come on, I'm just messing with you."

"Well, it's not cool, man. I was worried that I actually hurt you."

His brown puppy dog eyes did it to me again. I knew I had probably taken it a bit too far, and I gave in. "Okay, I'm sorry. I went too far," I said and gave him a small smile. I reached out with both arms for a hug, keeping them very low to show that I felt bad for messing with him. He rolled his eyes, and with a small smile, he reached out in return.

He gave me a tight squeeze and then let go so he could grab all of his things, and some of mine, "Ready to go now? After you scared the crap out of me?" He said. I nodded and put my shoes on as fast as I could. We yelled goodbye to my mom as we both hurried out the door and into his car. Steve has always been so kind and caring, but something about today felt different. Here I go again, letting that dream invade my reality, just because the guy in my dream happened to look similar to Steve. I've really got to let it go, or it could cause some issues.