My Brother's Best Friend

Lemme Get This Straight

"Amber, can I see your phone?" I asked as I sat on her bed. I'd just finished telling her about the whole no shirt on in front of Drew thing and I decided I should probably call my parents to let them know I was ok. I had after all, left out of nowhere without saying anything and I didn't bring my cell phone with me. It was nice to tell Amber about my problems and I told her EVERYTHING! Except about me and Drew kissing. I still didn't understand what had happened so how could I even begin to tell her about it? It was our secret anyway and somehow I didn't want to share it with ANYONE. It wasn't until I looked at the time on her phone that I realized how much time had passed. I dial the house number and hold my breath.
"Hello?" I say.
"Sky? Where the heck are you? Where'd you go?" It's Drew.
"I went to see Amber that's all." I tell him. I hadn't expected for him to answer the phone.
"And you couldn't TELL anyone? Everyone was worried sick about you! We didn't call Amber because we thought you guys weren't friends anymore."
"Well we are now."
"That's not the point Sky, you--"
"Could you please stop talking to me like you're my dad?"
"I will once you stop acting like a ten year-old!" I laugh out loud because it is almost too funny how one minute he can be the greatest guy in the world and then his mood changes like that.
"Oh, well you weren't calling me a ten year-old when you kissing me." I say into the phone before hanging up. I immediately regret it though because who happened to be listening? Amber.
"What?! You guys KISSED and you didn't TELL me?!" she exclaims.
"We didn't kiss Amber." I say to her. We kissed multiple times, I think in my head.
"How? When? Where?"
"Amber I just said that we DIDN'T!" I say keeping the lie up. "Anyway, I gotta go. According to Drew, everyone was worried. Later Am..."
"Bye. And I'm gonna find out whatever happened between you two." I ignore her and leave. I open the front door to her house and see that Joseph's car is parked in front. Only it's not Joseph in it, it's Drew. I roll my eyes. I'm tempted to start walking and pretend like I don't see him but I can't bring myself to do that so I walk angrily up ot the car.
"What do YOU want?" I say sounding like a brat.
"I just came here to give you a ride home." Drew says calmly.
"Are you sure you wanna drive a ten year-old home?" I want to know.
"I'm sorry I said that, I was just upset at you."
"For what?"
"Because you left without saying anything... I thought you were mad at me because of the um incident this morning..."
"I wasn't even thinking about that Drew... I just had a lot of stuff on my mind..."
"C'mon Sky... Let's go."
I get in the car and he turns up the volume on the stereo. Another one of Joseph's mixtapes is on but luckily it's one of his R&B/soft rock ones so the music is something I can actually live with. Ne-yo's Sexy Love is playing. The music distracts me from the awkwardness between us. I'm almost sure he's thinking about the whole topless incident.
"Uh, Drew where are we going?" I say realizing we're not heading home.
"Nowhere, I just thought we could drive around a bit so we could talk..."
"About what?!" I say shocked. Seriously, what was up with him?
"Wow Sky, do you not wanna talk to me that much?"
"It's not that... it's just... Nevermind, you start first. What do you wanna talk about?"
He shakes his head.
"I've decided I'm going to college in New York... We've vacationed there a lot and I've always wanted to live there so I'm going to leave the westcoast and try living there. UCLA is too close to here and I wanna experience somewhere different." he informs me.
"So you and Joseph are both leaving me? Neither one of you wanna go to college here in California?"
"Sky it's gonna be ok, he'll come to visit during the holidays and summer vacation."
"And you won't?"
"I don't know yet but I can see this subject is upsetting you so I'm just gonna stop talking about it."
"Thank you."
He turns the volume down and let's Rihanna's Willing to Wait plays in the background which I find funny that Joseph actually listens to. The car stops and I look up. We're at Steak & Shake. I hadn't even been paying attention to where he was driving. "What are we gonna eat or something? Like a date?" I ask trying to keep from smiling.
"No, I just didn't want to be driving while we talked about us..." he whispers. He leans over and I can feel his breath on my face. It's warm and smells like Skittles.
"Drew, we don't--"
"Sky, just let me talk." he says and so I shutup and listen.
"I've been in love with you since I was fifteen, I just never knew how to deal with it or tell you because you were so much younger than me and you were Joseph's little sister and I didn't want him to get mad at me." he blurts out. I'm speechless.
"I'm still in love with you now but your age is still a problem for me because I'm heading to college and you're just becoming a sophomore. I don't want to take advantage of you when you should be dating guys who are your own age and aren't screwed up like me." He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. I feel like sighing myself but I can't bring myself to make a sound... So we both just sit there in silence. "So lemme get this straight, you like me?" I finally say. He laughs. "Yep, I've been in love with you since the day I saw you in the snow three years ago..." I smile and he leans over to kiss me. I sit there kissing him back while in my head I remember that day, three years ago. The time, I played in the snow...