LOSING IT ALL //HAYLEY PARKER

12

~LOSING IT ALL~

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12| THE ACCIDENTAL KISS
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"I'M GOING DOWNTOWN to check out an apartment with an agent. Would you mind coming with me?" Dale deferentially asks me.

I raise my gaze up from Fear Of Flying, baffled. Standing rigidly in front of the living room's bay window, the afternoon sunlight frames his towering form into a silhouette.

"Me?" I squeak in a genuinely shocked voice, jabbing a finger to my chest above a very racing heart.

"Yes." He replies briskly.

Nodding in understanding, I jump up from my lolling position on the couch. "Let me grab my purse then." Trampling up the stairs, I quickly retrieve a purse from the Newel post in my room, and sheer off downstairs.

Dale is waiting by the doorway, but as I pass to meet him, Newt watching MTV on the television gives me a wary look. "When Jayden comes back, tell him I stepped out briefly." I say, winking at him.

He sticks out a middle finger at me, and when I catch Dale's puzzled expression, I'm quick to say. "You'll have to excuse him, he's a bit maudlin."

Outside, the warm autumn weather of an early October afternoon temperature is a mild 83 degrees. The trees lining the paved streets billows with dappled leaves of orange, yellow and red hues. Dale's gleaming black Mercedes isn't on the curbside but a new, olive green Volkswagen.

I pause and turn to cast a wary glance at him. "I failed to ask, what does your parents do again?"

He returns my wary gaze with a very confused one. "Why, is it because of the Volkswagen?" He makes a beeline for the car. "I thought it's causal."

"Causal?" I argue airily, watching him pull open the passenger's door with one hand, and with the other hand, he makes a sweeping arc. I stiffen taken aback by his display of gallantry.

"I guess it's not causal enough." He answers dully with an unexpected generous smile. Trudging slowly down the speckled walkway towards the car, I watch him with a curious intensity. A very smart way to be evasive.

Slipping into the car that stenches of leather and engine oil, Dale shuts the door, and deftly rounds the hood. Dusky, tawny skin, impeccable, dark curly hair, and a buff body that any guy would kill for. Why is he so perfect?

"What's your music preference?" He asks, switching the Volkswagen's engine purringly to life.

"Pop and classical musics." I answer, dutifully fastening my seatbelt. Dale hums. "Actually, you look more like a Jazz person."

I scoff. "I don't criticize music, but a Jazz person, seriously?" Dale cackles at that, painfully cute dimples flashing. "Hey, just kidding."

Turning on the radio, a slick Carmita Jiménez's song oozes from the stereo, Dale peers wide eyed at me and shakes his head. "You're in a bit of luck." He says, veering the car off into the cobbled street.

I watch the traffic jamming the highway as Dale wheels the vehicle into an alleyway. "What kind of apartment do you want to get?" I ask him after a while.

"I'm not sure. I always prefer a studio apartment to anything." He simply says. "The space and ventilation."

"I see..." I say, picking my nails. "Jayden said you could stay as long as you wish. I guess we've gone ahead of ourselves and bore you already." Dale laughs at that, low, rough and rippling vibrating against his barrel chest. "Far from it." He rasps. "You guys are so great, but the thing is privacy. I cherish being alone."

A eyebrows bends over in a faint frown. "Why. Why do you cherish being alone?"

Dale tilts to briefly glance at me. When his eyes meets mine and holds, those beautiful brown orbs strikes me as secretive and sad. Instead of responding, he clicks his tongue and returns his gaze fully to the road.

"Enjoying your own company without the urge to be around people is a topmost form of personal development." He says philosophically. "I enjoy my own company."

"I think it's a gateway to depression."

"Do you get depressed?" He gropes, his low, hollow voice garbled. I glance over at him, and the look he gives me makes my pulse to sputter. I one shoulder shrugged. "At some point everyone gets depressed."

I see him open his mouth to say something at the corner of my eye, but then he doesn't and instead focuses on navigating the Volkswagen through the road. I sit, quietly looking at the dappled branches of trees that passes outside the window, my mind floundering.

Easing onto the curbside in front of an old apartment building that is about 8-story high, Dale switches off the engine and pulls back the handbrake. "Here?" I ask incredulously, squinting at the tall building.

Fraying navy blue paint, constructed as a 4-sided building with an opening on one side, all the flats facing inwards. Sunlight seldomly reaches the inner yard, and all the stairways are external made of rusting iron steps leading up to a balcony that faces inwards.

"My humble opinion. I don't think this place is very conducive, and besides, it's far from campus." I say crisply.

"You think so?" Dale's voice is hushed, and very close to my ear. His warm, minty breath brushing against my cheek. My heart ratchets up, and I'm flinging myself against the door, my ribs banging into the metal door.

"Are you okay?" He asks, his mahogany eyes wide in bewilderment and concern as I wince at the pain that jabs at my side. I open my mouth to say something, and my vocals seizes. "Are you okay?" He asks again, his worry intensifying. I swallow hard against my suddenly dry throat and quickly nod my head.

The sudden raps against the window glass above my head startles me, and I jerk up, bumping into Dale's sturdy form, with my lips slightly brushes against his.

"Are you okay, Mr. Randall?" A coarse voice of a very concerned man quips outside the car.

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