I Love You, Jerk Face

Chapter 5

As I sat smushed between Ryder and Grady in the backseat of the car I was berating myself for telling Grady he made me nervous. How could I have been so stupid? I asked, but I already knew the answer, it was all his fault. It was the way his cap sat on his head, the specks of red dirt clinging to his arms, the smell of grass coming from him, and those eyes of his as he watched her. I rubbed my hands on my thighs to keep from reaching out for his hand that was sitting just on the outside of his thigh; his pinky pressing against my leg.

"Daddy," I said suddenly, "can we get Chinese?" I leaned forward a bit and Grady's hand moved closer to my leg, his pinky and ring finger were now sitting on my exposed thigh.

"Of course pumpkin," he smiled at me in the rear view mirror as I settled back into the seat.

"You are such a daddy's girl," Ryder chuckled next to me.

"Shut up mama's boy," I smiled at him, but my smile faltered when I felt Grady's pinky start to draw circles on my thigh.

"Mom," he whine, still smiling at me.

"Ryder leave your sister alone," she sighed and we both started laughing.

"Denied," I said.

"Shut up Lyn," Ryder laughed.

Grady's pinky was still drawing circles on my skin, raising goose bumps in it's wake, so I put my hand on his with the intention of moving it away, but he had other ideas. His fingers interlocked with mine and he held my hand in between our legs. I tried to pull away, but quickly realized that I could not very well wrestle my hand away from his without alerting Ryder as to what was going on, so I stopped fighting, which earned me a little squeeze.

The little bursts of lighting shooting from his skin to mine were setting me on edge, I felt myself squeezing his hand back, trying to get them to stop, but they just intensified. I looked down at our hands and stared for a moment at the look of his tanned skin against my creamy pale skin; his thumb was rubbing across the top of my hand as he held onto me. His hand was so much bigger than mine, I felt myself thinking as my eyes traveled up the arm, that was also much bigger than mine, to the face of the boy who was making my stomach do flips. He was staring at the window, apparently oblivious to what he was doing to me, the only sign that he may have been feeling the same was his pulse pounding away on his neck. I wanted to press my fingers there and feel if his heart was beating as wildly as mine, but kept my other hand in my lap.

"We're here," my dad said as he turned off the car and got out.

Ryder was already sliding out of his side and I tried to turn to follow, but Grady's hand tightened against mine and he pulled me towards him, so that I slipped out behind him, our hands still interlocked. I looked up into his dark eyes, searching for some explanation, but he just smiled at me, his dimples flashing as he let go of me to shut the door and then he was walking away from me.

I leaned against the car for just a moment, trying to catch my breath, but my father was not going to let me.

"Come on pumpkin," he called from the door.

I pulled away from the car door and walked inside after them, the only seat available was next to Grady, which was probably done on purpose because we always shared our food. I scrunched my face up as I thought about that, we always shared food, always, because everything that I hated he loved and the things he hated I loved, we were complete opposites, although...no...not gonna think about him being perfect.

I slumped down in to the booth next to him and immediately regretted having to sit next to him. His right hand slipped around my left, again I tried to pull away, but my elbow hit the table. Every one looked up from their menus to look at me.

"Sorry," I said laughing nervously.

They all just dismissed me and went back to looking at the menus, I looked at Grady who was smiling as he read. As I stared at his right dimple I thought about the possibility that he was just messing with me, I mean I did confess, very stupidly, that he always made me nervous, this was all probably just a game. I kept telling myself that, but as his thumb started running across the top of my hand I stopped trying to convince myself; I let myself believe then that he wanted to be holding my hand.

"Grady why are you eating with your left hand?" Ryder asked, throwing a dumpling into his mouth.

"I eat better with chopsticks with my left," he shrugged, but I laughed.

"Chickens eat better with chopsticks than you do GG," he laughed at me then.

"Not all of can be as talented as you Ros," he said nodding towards my chopsticks, which were expertly holding a piece of chicken.

"That is true," I said before popping the chicken in my mouth. "Yummmy."

"What did you get? Grady asked.

"Sesame chicken," I said holding up another piece, "you wanna bite?"

"Yes," he said and I held up the piece for him. As his mouth moved over the chicken I realized how intimate this must look, I was feeding him for god sakes. I looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching and they weren't, but I already knew why. Grady and I were like this when eating; we shared food and that usually meant feeding each other.

"You wanna a bit of my broccoli and beef?" he asked holding his chopsticks out of me.

"Yea," I said before he fed it to me. We fed each other a few bites here and there throughout the mean and we exchanged food, he got my crab Rangoon, even though I liked them, and I got his egg roll...HA...I got his egg roll...I crack myself up.

Through the entire meal his hand was in mine, if he let go to grab something as soon as he was done using the hand it was back in mine. Towards the end I reached up with my left hand and met no resistance, I used the hand to grab my tea, take a drink, and then without thinking twice about it I put my hand back in his. I felt him look over at me when he realized what I had just done, so I looked up at him, just as surprised. He smiled at me before squeezing my hand and going back to eating.

Back in the car I was unsure of myself again because his hand was sitting on his leg, not touching me, but I wanted to feel the tingles even if it was just for a little bit longer, so I brushed my fingers over his hand lightly before putting my hand in his. I didn't look at him as I did it, or even after; I just stared straight ahead, but I could see him smiling out of the corner of my eye, so I smiled too.