Road Trip [#Wattys2015]

Chapter 8

The crowd couldn't get enough of Jackson and we couldn't either. He was now doing his third or fourth song and they were all on the dance floor or in front of the stage looking at him with dazzled eyes. But we were sitting at a table and Sidney was running out of subjects to make small talk with. We had already told her about our school, our favorite lessons, our families -where Maia avoided even mentioning her father and the hers position he had put her in and finally our love lives or more specifically my love life.

"So Tom, is there any special lady in your life?" It took me just a second to tell her no but she didn't let me off that easy. "Really? Not even a fling? What are the girls in your school, blind?" I dismissed her statement with an awkward laugh but Maia looked bothered by it. I understood her frustration since I always hated being the third wheel so I put her out of her misery by getting up and offer Sidney to come with me to the bar for a refill.

We were walking towards the bar all across the room when the song changed from "Please Don't Stop the Music" to "Wonder wall" and Sidney froze in the middle of the dance floor.

"I love that song!" her arms reached out for mine, "Dance with me?"

"Oh, uh I don't know I-" I stumbled.

"Let me guess, you don't dance?" She raised her eyebrow at me as if I was the world's worst cliché, which at that moment I was. And the answer to her question was yes; I don't, can't and have never danced with a girl once in my whole entire pathetic existence.

"Oh, come on." She pulled me by my arms and placed them on her waist and then just a second later she wrapped hers around my neck.

"I don't know how to dance." I said as she expected me to move and I swallowed something that feelt like my pride.

"Me neither." She shacked her head. "But in the movies, it looks kinda like this." She pressed her whole body against mine up to the point they were perfectly aligned. Then she led my feet while taking one step back and one step front. I followed her footsteps and it really did look like what they do in the movies.

"And maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me." Jackson sung and she closed her eyes in enjoyment.

"I love that lyric." She said.

"Of course you do." I replied and her eyes snapped open.

"What the hell does that mean?" She didn't look insulted and that's good because she shouldn't be. Her voice held nothing but curiosity behind it.

"Every girl likes this song because the guy is asking the girl to save him. It is the 'Damsel in Reverse' phenomenon." She looked like she needed more explanation so I elaborated on my statement braking down on of my favorite theories.

"The 'Damsel in Reverse' phenomenon..." I picked up where I left off "is basically how a woman can have the ability to save the man even though the opposite is portrayed in most Marvel and DC comics. Letting the girl see that you know that makes you look more appealing to her due to your non-sexist opinions which is what the Oasis singer did with that lyric and why I was sure you were going to like it."

"Do you always explain stuff so much?" She laughed and I knobbed. "That was an interesting theory though" she continued "I never thought of it that way. I always thought that every girl swooned over this track because it talks about being saved without out any physical powers but with emotions such as love." She said and I found myself second guessing my theory.

"Wow that was..." I searched for the right word "...something." She gave me one of the brightest smiles I've ever seen but then it disappeared without any trace.

"I only have two rules Tom." She began. "Never date younger guys and never ask a guy out." She told me and I wasn't sure what to do with that.

"So, since I'm about to break the first one" she explained and I thought of the one about never dating younger guys. "Could you show some mercy and give me a hand with the second one?" And the smile returned to both our face this time.

"Sidney Roach." I say and she seems happy I remembered her last name. "Are you asking me to ask you out?" I made it harder for her, it was her turn to swallow her pride.

"Yes you idiot, now are you gonna do it or not?"

"Will you go out with me?" I answered her question with a question.

"Hmmm, let me think." She looked away pretending to think.

"Okay, well the offer stands firm for five more seconds. After that you're gonna have to do it yourself." I joked back enjoying the fact that we could joke with each other.

"Alright, alright! Yes I will." She laughed and I smiled.

"How about tomorrow?" I said as if there were any other options.

"Okay, what time?" She asked and I remembered that we were going to go to the store with Jackson tomorrow, so maybe we could do that earlier in the morning and I could go out with her in the afternoon and we could leave at night.

"Is six okay?" She knobbed and told me about this great place we could go to eat and then she left for the hotel room and I returned to my table where I am surprised to find a guy sitting across Maia, I would have told him off because he looked like he was in his middle twenties and Maia was just fifteen, but then I noticed that Jackson was also there talking to him so I guessed he was one off his other admirers because he left as soon as I approached the table and was long gone before I could sit down.

"Before we leave, I gotta go to the bathroom." Maia informed us as we were deciding where to go next.

"Dude!" Jackson said as soon as she left. "Did you ask her out? Tell me you asked her out." He said and my reply sounded more like bragging than replying: "I asked her out and she said yes." Jackson high fived me without a second thought.

"But how are you gonna pull it off, you live like five hours away." He asked, I had thought of that but I had decided that I wouldn't let distance ruin my relationship. Especially with a hot older girl.

"I think we're a bit ahead of ourselves. I'll just see how the date goes and then worry about pulling it off."

As soon as Maia returned to the table we planned out the rest of our day, after all it was only noon. We were going to go up to our hotel room and hang there for a while. Later we were going to explore the city a little more and I couldn't help but think that today was just the opening act to tomorrow.

We walked in the hotel doors and Sidney smiled at me as I passed by the reception. We locked ourselves in our hotel room again and I thought about how this day kept getting better and better. And so was this two-day vacation, and so was my life.