Quietly Noticed || Lams

First dates are always a little awkward anyway

Laurens|First Person

By the time Friday finally arrives I'm still worked up about the whole Hercules Ordeal. In fact, I'm so worked up that I draw a blank when Alex asks what we're doing for our date. I sit staring straight ahead in my car, wondering how I could possibly think this would go smoothly. I can feel Alex's gaze from the passenger seat as he reaches over and takes my hand.

"I'm sorry, Alex..." I pause to sigh. "It's just been a kind of long week, I wasn't even thinking." He squeezes my hand and leans a little closer.

"It's ok, John." I turn to look at him to see if he's sincere. I notice a small smile playing on his lips and decide I'd better try to relax or else it's not going to be a very fun night. "Let's just drive and make it up as we go, yeah?" I nod.

"Where do you want to go?" I ask, already putting the car into drive.

"I dunno... Somewhere neither of us has been."

"Albany?" I suggest and he nods. We crank up the radio as we start to drive, having no idea what the night will hold.

When we enter the city though, I start to drive with a little more purpose. I don't exactly know where I'm going, just that I seem to be a couple streets away from the heart of the city. The streets are lined with rundown, hole in the wall establishments and apartment buildings with creaky fire escapes.

"Still want to see a movie?" I ask, gesturing to a dingy, white brick building that displays movie posters out front. Alexander leans forward in his seat and squints at the posters.

"Look! They're playing The Wizard of Oz!" He squeals beside me and that's all he has to say before I'm pulling into the cracked parking lot and he's hopping out of the car like a child hyper on candy. He bounces on his toes as I lock the car and walk around to join him.

"Calm down." I chuckle lightly at his behavior. He blushes and looks down.

"Sorry, I really like old movies."

"I can tell." I laugh again and take his hand, causing him to look down at our fingers that lace together, then back up at me.

"I used to, uh, watch them with my mom... before she died." A sad smile appears on his face and I get the urge to kiss it away. I refrain though, settling on squeezing his hand.

"I'm sorry... about your mom, I mean." I look away from his eyes, I've never been too good at these kinds of things. I was never close with my family, making hard to relate with him.

"It's not your fault. Besides, I bet she's watching old movies with a big bowl of popcorn, wherever she is." He smiles a happier smile and looks at me with wide eyes. "Ready?" He asks,"The movie starts in a couple minutes."

"Sure." I say, finding it odd he could bounce from emotion to emotion just like that. He's never really talked about his family though, so I guess he's used to the whole tragic backstory. I drop his hand and wrap my arm around him instead. We walk up to the ticket booth and pay quickly so we'll have time to buy popcorn and a soda for Alex before walking into the theater and sitting in the back. He holds the popcorn in his lap, his soda in the cup holder on his right, me in the seat to his left. I keep my arm around him and he leans into me slightly, occasionally whispering to me about the movie that I'm too distracted by him to pay attention to. He swats my hand away when I reach over for a sip of his soda, but I pout and plant a kiss on his cheek until he lets me have some of his Pepsi.

When the movie is over we decide to just continue our way down the street on foot. We come across a cafe eventually, and because neither of us are too hungry we decide to get coffee and muffins and sit down to listen to the late night entertainment of mid-twenties indie guitarists who sing in raspy voices. He seems content though, never breaking contact with me until we're back in the car, and even then he holds my hand until we reach campus. I decide there's no harm in walking him to his dorm, seeing as the place is pretty empty.

I kiss him goodbye at his door, but he looks ready to pass out right then so I let him go to sleep without any further conversation. I turn and begin to walk back to my classroom so I can pick up an assignment I forgot to grade earlier in the week, when I get there though, there's a girl that looks slightly familiar talking to the dean down the hall. I walk quietly past them and duck into my room, hoping they'll leave before I do.

Before I can even shuffle my stack of papers though, there's a light knock on my slightly ajar door. I mutter a come in and the door inches open a little. Standing in the doorway is a girl with brown hair that poofs up in frizzy curls and red lips. "Professor John Laurens?" She asks, her voice low and seductive.

"That's me." I say, barely looking at her as I continue to organize my papers. "Who might you be?" I ask, giving her a look that she seems pleased with. I lean against my desk, my papers in a stack behind me.

"I'm Jasmine Cephas-Jones. I'm the new english professor." She flashes a smile, then: "Could I talk to you in private." She nods to the door.

"Be my guest," I say. She presses the door closed with open palms, then turns and goes to lean against one of the desks directly in front of mine. "What did you want to talk about?" I fold my arms over the my cheap, veneered desk.

"I met a friend of yours earlier this week. Hercules? I think that was his name." Her words are questioning, but her eyes are knowing. My heart falls to my stomach. So this must be the new "Professor Lady", as Herc put it. I guess she is kind of pretty, I can see why he was talking to her.

"Yeah, I'm friends with Hercules. What did he say?" I force the question out, though we both know where this is going, one of us is far more excited about the conversation though.

"He told me you were dating a student." She states it so plainly that it doesn't sound as threatening as I've built it up in my mind. It is though. It's such a big deal. I could lose my job right now, I could get Alexander's scholarship revoked. I would have to move and start all over, probably having to leave Alex in the process. That thought alone spurs on my next sentence.

"What do you want?" She tugs at a strand of curly hair and furrows her eyebrows innocently.

"I don't know what you mean."

"If you really wanted to you could have taken this straight to the dean already. But you didn't, and from what I can infer you're a manipulative person. So I'll ask you again. What do you want."

She smiles crookedly, almost like a smirk. "You're a smart man, John." She pushes herself from the desk and walks up to mine, plucking up a pen from the cup of writing utensils I have. She twists the cap and looks down at me without faltering in her gaze. I stare right back. "I want a favor. Not now, but I'll be needing something in the future and I need to know you'll be there, despite the circumstances."

I bite the inside of my cheek, knowing this could totally backfire on me. A favor doesn't seem too bad, but with people like Jasmine you can never really tell. She sets my pen on the desk and leans closer to my face, her manicured fingers tapping in a beat that reminds me of the tick tock of a clock, counting down my time to answer. "So?" She asks, her voice low and seductive again.

"I can do you a favor, so long as nobody knows about me and Alex."

She hums, nearly leaping back from the desk in one swift movement. Her hair bounces off her shoulders and it lands on her back, providing a clear view of her pierced ears, decorated with an assortment of small silver balls and studs. "It's Alex and me, Professor Laurens." She smiles a sweet smile you'd give to a small child who was just learning about proper grammar. She runs her fingers through her hair, pushing a couple of stringy pieces back before practically skipping to the door and disappearing down the hall.

I sigh and burry my head in my arms. What the hell did I just get myself into?

I'm tired and sick so this hasn't been proofread since I wrote I last month. Oh well...good thing I prewrite otherwise I wouldn't have anything to publish.
<3