One Night

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I ducked below the rack in front of me and watched as my mom pushed her cart down the aisle. I had never once seen her step foot into this store so it made no sense as to why she was here today.

Honestly, it was like she was tracking me or something. Was she?

I slowly began crawling in the opposite direction of her, keeping my neck craned to make sure she didn't change her course last minute.

Apparently that wasn't the best plan because a few seconds later I ran into one of the metal rods on the racks.

"Ouch," I mumbled, rubbing my head in the spot where it hit.

"Mac?"

For a second I thought my mom had caught me running away from her. My body seized up and I was pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a second.

Then I realized her voice wasn't as deep as the voice that belonged to whoever said my name.

I slowly looked up from my awkward position and saw Holt staring down at me with an amused expression on his face.

"I thought that was you. Then I saw you run into that rack and I knew for sure it was you. You have a knack for running into things," he chuckled.

My cheeks instantly heated up as he offered me his hand. I gingerly took it and did my best to avoid eye contact with him.

In my effort to do so, I saw my golden ticket hanging right there on his shirt.

"You work here?" I asked.

"Yeah. Usually just on the weekends, but they needed me to come in this evening for a few hours. I'm trying to get a head start on saving for college," he explained, running a hand through his perfectly messy hair.

"Wow. That's really cool. I'm not sure there are many kids that could say the same, much less say that they're going to college at all," I responded as I finally looked up at his face.

I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination or not, but his cheeks looked like they were tinted a little pink.

"Yeah," he nervously chuckled. "I gotta make sure I can take care of my family. With my dad gone and my mom taking care of my disabled brother almost full-time, I try to do what I can to help out."

I stood there for a moment, completely awestruck by how amazing he was. I already thought he was pretty amazing, but that was mostly on account of the many titles he held at school. However, I had never heard anything about his family life. And never once did I think it was anything far from perfect. Yet here he was. Spending his weekends working instead of hanging out with his friends.

"Sorry," he coughed, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. "I'm not sure why I told you all of that. It's not something I tend to share with everyone...Then again, you're not everyone."

A smile slowly crept on my face and I had to look away to keep him from seeing just how big of a crush I had on him. Certainly I deserved an award for being the biggest dork who ever crushed on the most popular guy in high school.

I had become so distracted by Holt that I almost forgot who I was hiding from.

"Shoot," I grumbled, as I ducked back down, pulling Holt with me.

"Uhh. Is there something I should know?" He asked, looking around us in search of whatever I was hiding from.

I pointed to my left, to the woman with the khaki pants, brown flats, and a light blue blouse. She had the exact same strawberry blonde hair as me, but sported far more frown lines than I ever hoped to have.

"Is that...your mom?" Holt asked looking between me and her.

"She thinks I'm doing an extra credit assignment with Jay and Nalia," I sighed, peeking through the clothes in front of me as she continued to read the nutritional facts on a box of blueberry flavored oatmeal.

"And instead you're?"

"Instead I'm here-"

I abruptly stopped once I remembered what my purpose here actually was. I was supposed to be stealing a name tag, not flirting with the workers! Although I wasn't sure I could count that first encounter I had with the worker as flirting.

I felt my phone begin to buzz in my pocket and knew that could only mean one thing; I was getting a call from Nalia or Jay. My time was up.

My fight or flight instinct, which normally told me to flee, was instead giving me a ridiculous fight plan.

"Mac?"

I didn't have time to consider the plan. Instead, I leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Holt's lips as my hand unclipped the name tag from his shirt.

I could've stayed there, kissing him for the rest of the night. His lips were soft and were surprisingly moving with mine.

I quickly pulled away, tucking the tag into my back pocket. I only briefly caught a glimpse of his shocked face before I jumped up and sprinted out of the store.

I was never going to be able to focus on anything other than Holt's lips ever again. Jay and Nalia were going to have a field day.

****

I pulled the tag out of my bag pocket and watched as Nalia and Jay cheered and danced in their seats.

"Come on Mac. Do the dance with us," Nalia nudged me in the shoulder as the tag dangled in front of us.

"I did a bad thing," I mumbled as the events of my time in Jason's began to resurface in my memory.

I put the tag back on my lap and tried not to have a complete panic attack.

"Oh. You'll be okay. I'm sure the workers get their tags for free anyway," Jay chuckled as he backed out of the parking lot and began driving to TJ Rush's house.

"It's not that. I kinda...Well, I sorta..." I looked up at Jay and Nalia then quickly mumbled, "kissedHoltGrange."

"I'm sorry," Nalia said, looking at me with her eyebrows scrunched together. "It kinda sounded like you just said you kissed Holt Grange which I know to be impossible considering you can't even have a conversation with him."

With a guilty look on my face, I held the tag up again, this time with the name facing the two in the front seat.

"HOLY SMOKES!!" Nalia exclaimed as Jay slammed on the brakes.

"Jay! You can't stop in the middle of the road!" I yelled, looking out of the windows to make sure no one was going to kill us.

"Relax Mac. We're the only ones on the road. Besides YOU KISSED HOLT AND THEN STOLE HIS TAG."

"Jay please just start driving again and I'll tell you both everything," I quickly replied, my cheeks heating up just at the memory of it all.

"Oh this is gonna be good," Nalia laughed.

And that's how I ended up spilling my guts to two of the craziest people I knew.