summer boy ~ tal fishman ✓

~18~

After he lets me go we sit on the couch. 'Why are spiders so scary?' he asks. He seems genuinely interested and worried. 'Well first, they look very scary with their hairy legs and eight eyes. And second, when I was young, my dad got bit by one and landed in the hospital. Thankfully he recovered but I have been scared for those bastards ever since', I say, my voice sounding softer and more insecure than usual. I'm talking faster than I usually do as well. Tal deserves an award if he understood anything about my last sentences.

'I will protect you from the nasty spiders', Tal says with a funny accent and a crooked smile. I smile slightly at his goofiness. He did understand. Wow. What award should I give him?

'Shall we start cooking? It's around 6.30 PM', I say after taking a deep breath and checking my phone for the time. Tal nods; 'Sounds good.' 'Let me get changed and we'll head to the store', I say, before walking upstairs.

I return pretty quickly and see Tal sitting on the couch, staring out of the window. I try not to stare at him staring out the window for too long and I cough. He stops staring immediately and looks at me. I'm just wearing light jeans and a white shirt, but he smiles after he checked me out. That sounded less creepy in my head. I don't know why he would smile, he hasn't got a good reason, but it's very cute. 

'Let's go then', he says. I grab the house keys so we can get in the house again when we come back, and put on a jacket. I open the door and take a deep breath of the evening air. I feel a bit better than a while ago. Still in shock a bit though. I'm still pretty quiet. I normally talk way too much. He follows me outside and closes the door behind him. 

We walk into the supermarket which has these automatic slide doors. They decide they don't want to open for me. I nearly bump into the glass door. I can hear Tal chuckle from behind me and when he walks up to the doors, they do open. 

'That's not fair.' I frown. 'What's not fair?' Tal asks, seemingly confused. 'The fact that the sliding doors won't open up for me just because I am short.' 'That's just as unfair as you being flexible and going through crowds easily', he replies.

'But you can reach high shelves and grab everything. I have to climb with zero athletic skills.' 'But think about cars, Jul. I mean, I can't possibly get into a Smart comfortably.' I squint my eyes at him and start naming perks of being tall, while Tal gave arguments why being short is more favorable.

'How did this escalate into a discussion about what's better? Being tall or short?' he suddenly asks. 'You started.' We both say at the same time. 

Then we look at each other. That was creepy. 'No you!' 'Stop copying me!' We keep talking in sync. I have no idea how. 'Guess what I'm gonna say', I say when he's quiet for a while. 'Okay, three two one... Purple flying cat-' 'Elephant standing on clouds,' we say at the same time. 'I was right about the part in the air,' Tal mumbles before we burst out laughing because of our ridiculous choices. 

'Shall we cook pasta?' Tal asks. 'Can you cook pasta?' I ask him. 'Not really, can you?' he asks me again. 'I'm a professional chef at a restaurant, haven't I told you?' I reply while raising an eyebrow. He laughs. 

'No you haven't told me yet. How are you going to combine that with your professional dancing lessons?' he asks me while searching for the pasta. 'Yes we'll cook pasta, but with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. And it is a very common combination, dancing and cooking', I say. 'Fine by me. Have you got an idea where everything is? And maybe you'll have to show me those skills. At the same time. A little pirouette while mixing the sauce?' He grins at me and twirls in the middle of the store. 

I laugh at how ridiculous it looks. He joins in.

'Maybe', I just say, when I'm done laughing. We don't have to search long for the ingredients for the pasta and we quickly head to the cash desk. After I paid for our ingredients we walk back home. 

At home, I boil some water for the pasta while Tal is cutting the tomatoes and mozzarella. While I am busy with the pasta, it feels like Tal is looking at me, but I catch myself doing the same to him a few times.

After the food, which was delicious, we decide to make Tal's bed so we don't have to do that late at night. After we made the bed, we decide to watch a movie on the couch downstairs. I turn off the lights so we can see a bit better. I put on my sweatpants again and he is wearing his sport shorts. 

While we are watching a movie, I feel I am getting tired. Tal apparently feels the same, because while I am laying on his shoulder, I feel his breathing getting slower and when I look up, I see he has fallen asleep. I have a free pass to check him out now! Yess...

Wait, that sounded a lot less creepy in my head as well. But I am still talking in my head now. To myself. Wait a minute. I need to stop being so weird. 

I look at his jawline and I trace his jaw with my finger. It's so sharp. I bet we could have cut our tomatoes with that. How does he still look handsome from this angle? The world is so unfair.

Wait. What if he wasn't sleeping this whole time? That would be so creepy for him! I mean, since I read a lot of books, I read that a lot. The girl checks out the guy because she thinks he's hot. (Tal is, so you can check that off the imaginary list for these scenes that doesn't exist.) 

Then, in that scene, all of a sudden, said guy opens his eyes and smiles and girl blushes and then he has this morning voice even though it's nighttime and then they kiss and become the cutest couple ever. They live happily ever after, the end. Sorry to spoil nearly every typical teen girl book for you.

Thankfully, Tal still seems asleep. Seems. I don't know for sure. I sigh. I am overthinking once more. Oh, how I love thinking about lots of things way too much. Not.

I probably should get some sleep. I turn off the TV and feel myself falling asleep on his chest. It's surprisingly very comfortable...