California Dreamin'

Not right now.

When he’s smiling in that lopsided way of his and his eyes are shining, making me blush harder than before.

I go to say something, something like thank you when I remember what he said. “Going to be?” I frown. “You said you’re going to be my boyfriend.”

He still has that smile on his face and he’s still staring at me like he was before. “Yeah.”

“Isn’t that a little arrogant?”

“I call it confidence.”

“You know –”

Just then we hear murmurs and whispered conversations.

It’s my parents. They’re walking toward the house, absorbed in each other.

I freeze for a second.

But only a second before I grab Brendan’s sweater and pull him toward me, toward the wall of his house, to a spot where we’re partially hidden by the rose bushes.

Oh God.

I knew it.

I knew this was a bad idea. Now we’ll get caught and my dad will really kill Brendan and all my fears will come true.

My chest is squeezing so hard that I almost crush all my candy with how tightly I’m holding the bag.

I don’t want to make any sounds and alert them that we’re here. But I think they’re going to come to know anyway because my heart won’t stop pounding.

It’s so freaking loud that I know my parents will hear it, his parents will hear it too, and all of them will find us.

Only they don’t.

They just… keep walking and disappear.

They disappear.

They’re gone.

They’re really, really gone. And I take my first real breath in ages.

Okay not ages. But still, it feels like it.

And then, I feel something else.

Something that I haven’t been paying attention to due to my mini freak out.

Brendan is really close to me. So close that I can feel his hot breaths on my cheeks. Not only that, I feel a couple of other things.

His eyes on me, for one.

I think all the while I was looking at my parents in terror, he was looking at me. He was staring at me with no care whatsoever, of being caught.

And not only that, he was touching me.

My hair, I mean.

“They’re gone,” he whispers and my toes curl inside my night slippers.

I know I’m being an idiot, not turning my face to look at him but I have to gather all my courage. I have to calm down all the buzzing in my stomach to be able to look at him.

To be able to meet his eyes when he’s playing with my hair.

Biting my lip, I somehow manage the feat and find him smiling. Although, this one is very small and very soft. Smaller and softer than all his other smiles.

“You’re touching me,” I whisper. “M-my hair.”

“I know.”

“You can’t touch me.”

“I can.” Then he grins. “Because you’re touching me too.”

I frown and when he looks down at something between us, I realize he’s right. I’m touching his sweater. I’m actually rubbing it between my fingers.

It’s as soft as I thought it would be. Softer, actually.

But I snap my hand back, feeling shy and embarrassed. This is the first time I’ve done something without realizing that I was doing it.

It’s crazy like all the stuff I feel about him.

“I didn’t…” I shake my head. “My dad will kill you.”

“I’m not scared of your dad,” he says with that confidence of his. “And if they’d found us, I would’ve protected you.”

Protected me.

Okay that, no one has ever said to me. Not that I need protection from my dad but still. No one has been brave enough to say that to me.

And that just makes me want to protect him even more. Because I can actually picture my dad being mean to him.

So I try to scare him some more. “You should be. He’s big.”

He shrugs, his finger curling a strand of my hair like he’s enjoying playing with it. “I’m big too. And I play ball. I go to the gym and everything.”

Well, he’s right. He is big and I think with time, he’s only going to get bigger.

I mean, he’s taller than all the guys in my class. I actually have to stretch my neck up to look at him and he has to lean down.

It’s like how my mom and Dad are. My mom is too short for him so he always bends down. Sometimes my mom steps up on his feet.

She only does that though when she thinks I’m not looking.

My parents are really frisky and sometimes they make me laugh with how in love they are with each other.

But most times they make me dream of finding that kind of love one day. And the thought of love these days makes me think of Brendan.

You can’t love him, Rose. You’re too young for all that. And remember your dad? So scare him away. Right now.

“It will never work between us,” I blurt out, trying to do just that.