Sam Wilson

The Number.

Part Three

Eleanor woke up at seven. It was a Saturday morning and she felt in the area near her eyes, because she had cried the whole night. Sam's room was the adjacent one while Mrs. Wilson's room was downstairs.

She took a quick bath and she got into her comfiest tee shirt and pyajamas.

She got out of the room around seven thirty five. She found that Sam's room was open. She peeked in innocently. Sam was working out. He was shirtless. She blushed and quickly turned her face away.

"Eleanor?!" Sam called out to her.

Eleanor winced and walked into the room.

"I was wondering why your door was open."

"It is okay. Did you have a good sleep last night?" He asked showing his deepest concern.

"Yes."

There was a moment of awkwardness.

"When does Mrs. Wilson wake up?" She asked him.

He got down the elliptical and started with his push ups, "Around nine."

"I want to go to the hospital. Will you take me?"

"Yes I will. I had brought some sandwiches last night. We can heat them in the oven and eat them." He suggested.

"Okay, I will do it then."

They reached the hospital an hour hence. Eleanor was informed by the doctor that Grandma was still critical and would regain consciousness anytime this week. If she doesn't, they would have to try something else.

On the ride back home, the car was silent. When they were passing through Starbucks they saw Jonathan Samuels. Sam slammed the brakes.

"Okay kitty. Now is the time you make your move. Go in there, by a coffee, beside him, by two, and try to search for money in your purse. You don't have change, don't ask him for change. He will offer you on his own, brush your hand against his subtly and there you go."

"What are you talking about?" Eleanor grimaced.

Sam sighed and touched her chin to rotate her head towards the Starbucks cafe.

"Oh my God! No! I won't go there alone!" She shrieked.

"Come on! Try to talk to him. When he gives you a change,you tell him that you are buying that two coffees for you and me, who is waiting for you in the car. Come one you can do it!"

He got hold of her hair, removed the elastic band and settled it. He removed his leather jacket and gave it to her, "Wear it!"

"What? Why?"

"Eleanor!" He was dominating.

He was damn dominating.

She got out walked not-at-all confidently to the shop and entered it. She went straight to the corner where he was seated and ordered the two latte's.

"Eleanor?" Jonathan noticed her.

She looked at him, acting like she was surprised, "Oh! Jonathan, it is right?" She didn't know where this sassy behavior was coming from.

He shook her hand once again and initiated a conversation.

"Nice jacket!"

"Umm.. It is not mine. It belongs to Sam. He is in the car." She pointed out to him.

The two boys looked at each other through a few yards' distance and waved and smiled at each other.

"How is he getting along with Math?" Jonathan asked with a chuckle.

"Good... Well, he hates it no doubt." She replied.

"Are you two going out together or something?" He asked out of the blue.

"Ummm... I .... Well... We are just.... Friends... I mean- I -I am helping him with this -you know Math thing." She said.

He nodded his head.

" Are you free this Thursday?" He asked.

No. She is not free. She has a Physics Project coming up. And she can't stay awake late on a school night.

That very moment the latte's arrived.

"I am sorry, I have to go." Evelyn said with a wry smile.

"Wait!" Jonathan stopped her. Sam watched all of this from his car. It is working.

"Let's exchange numbers. If you are free, we will surely go out somewhere."

The exchange of numbers was quick. But since Eleanor had no cell of her own, she took Jonathan's number and promised him that she would surely call.

She came back, walking more confidently than she had before, and sat in the car. When Sam had passed through the Main Street, she screamed.

Sam winced.

She stopped after a second.

"I have never seen girl movies. The only movie that I had watched with my mother was Bride Wars which was like ages ago. You just screamed like when Liv, aka Kate Hudson finds out that box of ring." He said.

Eleanor smiled girlishly. Was she blushing? Yes she was.

" I got his number." She said after cooling down.

"Amazing. But you never call a guy. Why didn't you give him your number?" He asked crossly.

"Because I don't have my number."

He looked at her demurely.

She had got to be joking.

"I almost lived like an orphan in my house. Or rather my aunt's house."

It was seven in the evening. They had been on their math assignment since three hours at a stretch.

When the work was done, Eleanor sighed and her both arms went up for a cat- like stretch and she lay her back on the bed. Sam got up dramatically, took the fat pile of books and kept it melodramatically on the study table in the corner of his room like it was a bomb going to explode.

Eleanor giggled at his animation. She had never imagined a bad boy to be like him.

"So you are thinking of going out this Thursday?" He asked as he sat on the chair in the other corner of the room and watched her like a specimen under observation.

She lay amazingly still staring at the ceiling, "I think I will turn him down. I have a big Physics project coming in."

"Really?" He scoffed.

"What?" She asked him naively.

"I get you a boy, you have been drooling over for five years and then you just turn him down?!" He lamented.

She got up suddenly and asked him, "When will you give me my diary back?"

He smirked playfully, "Which diary?" He knew everything about that one diary that got both of them into this deal, and still he is teasing her.

"Please don't show that diary to anybody." She pleaded like a small tiny girl.

"What if I do? Wait! If you don't go out with him on Thursday, I will upload it on the Water Bridge official website." He jeered.

"No! Please! I will go out with him!"

"Why are you so scared?"

"I just don't want people to know. My favorite book has the quote: It is easier to floss with a barbed wire than admitting that you like someone in middle school."

"But you are in High School?"

"I know, but... Please promise me you won't show it to anybody?"

"I will do that based upon some conditions. My conditions."

"Where is it now?" She asked looking at him through her eyelashes.

"Somewhere in this house." He teased and left the room.