“You can sit here.”
“How gallant,” I remark, handing him my lemonade.
He takes it for me and I try to sit down like a lady, but I’m wearing a dress and holding an elephant ear, so it’s a challenge.
Once I’m settled in between Dirk’s legs, he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me back against him. “I like your panties,” he teases in my ear.
“Hey, I wanted to sit down politely, but not more than I wanted to keep this elephant ear on the plate. Can’t win ’em all.”
Dirk chuckles and I relax against him, ripping off a corner of my deep-fried, cinnamon-sugar-covered dough. I stuff it in my mouth, not at all like a lady, and look up at the darkening sky. “I love fireworks. I don’t know what it is about them, but it always makes me happy watching them.”
“Well, we’ll have to watch them again next weekend,” he tells me. “You doing anything for the Fourth?”
“I don’t have any plans yet,” I reply as I tear off another piece of my elephant ear and hold it up. “Want some?”
“Nah, you go ahead.” He misses a beat, then he says, “Well, we should hang out. My mom and her boyfriend are having a cookout, which will undoubtedly be lame and mostly attended by people who are disappointed in me, but she lives close enough that we could walk down to the fireworks after.”
He says that lightly enough, but without even needing to know why the people in his life would consider him disappointing, loyalty springs up inside me and I reject their dumb, mean opinions.
Like it’s a physical thing happening, I feel Dirk start to sink into a tiny fissure in my heart that Brant left. Protectiveness blossoms, and much to my relief, I get the sense that if I keep watering this relationship, it’ll keep growing. Maybe Dirk will be someone who accepts the love I wanna give him, and maybe he’ll give it back to me, too, instead of rejecting me like Brant did.
Despite my new, happier feelings of optimism about Dirk, the thought of Brant rejecting all I wanted to give him still brings a sting of tears to my eyes.
I blink it away and refocus my attention on the guy who might still have a place in my future rather than looking back at the past. Nothing new and better can happen back there.
“Do you like kids?” I ask, leaning my head back on Dirk’s shoulder.
“Kids?” he echoes, understandably confused. “Sure, I like kids. Why?”
“Just wondering,” I murmur, before popping another small piece of cinnamon-sugar-covered deliciousness into my mouth.
Since we’re still very much in the getting to know each other stage, after a few seconds, he says, “You said you babysit, right? Do you do that full-time, or…?”
“I used to babysit more, but I needed to get something a little less sporadic before college starts in the fall. I actually just started a new job as a receptionist at the yoga studio in town, so I’ll be doing that and babysitting. Between the two, hopefully I’ll start making enough to move out soon. This time next year I’d like to be in a place of my own. What about you? When you’re not busy jogging in front of my house without a shirt on, what is it you do for money?” I shoot back with a little smile.
“Maybe that is my job.” When I look back at him skeptically, he continues. “What, you don’t think people would pay me to jog by their houses shirtless? I’m starting to think you don’t have any faith in me at all,” he jokes.
I grin, ripping off another piece of elephant ear. “I figured that was more of a hobby than a money-making excursion.”
He chuckles. “Well, you figured right. I’m not doing anything terribly impressive right now, just a dishwasher, but with my roommates, it pays the bills.”
I nod my head, accepting that. “What do you think you want to do someday?”
Before he can answer, a wall erects itself in front of us, blocking the moonlight shining down on us and muffling the pleasant background noise of the families around us playing with sparklers and talking amongst themselves while we wait for the fireworks to start. My heart drops right out of my body as I look up at the imposing man standing there, glaring down at me while I eat an elephant ear and let someone else hold me in his arms.
With a pleasant tone that jogs me out of my shock and replaces it with confusion, Dirk says, “Hey, Brant. Didn’t expect to see you at the fireworks.”
Brant mildly glares at me but responds like he’s addressing Dirk. “Didn’t expect to see you, either.”
I frown, confused, and look back at Dirk. “You know him?”
Not bothering to let Dirk answer, Brant says, “Yes, he does.”