Offside

“You gonna pop that little cherry?” Dad asked as we drove from the banquet.

“Fuck yeah,” I replied automatically.

“Damn,” Dad laughed, “that would seriously piss off her father.”

“Heh,” I smiled a little and wet my lips with my tongue. “Yeah, it would.”

“Well, get her worked up so she’ll do your biology work,” Dad said. “You need to keep your focus, but string her along a bit if it doesn’t get in the way. Greg was going on about how smart she was, so if you play the game right, maybe she could take care of your other homework, too.”

“Yeah, that would be good,” I said. I nodded in agreement as my mind relived every moment I had experienced with her.

Seeing her in the hoodie, behind my goal.

The warmth of her touch when I ran into her and the deep blue of her eyes as they looked up at me.

Trying to ignore me during class.

The smell of her hair as I leaned close and asked her if she was wet.

The look of incredulity as I held the door open and asked her to dance.

“Just keep the focus on the important stuff, son,” Dad said. “You know how cherries are. If she gets clingy or something, ditch her before she becomes a distraction.”

“I don’t do clingy,” I heard myself respond, “but a little cherry sounds appetizing.”

“Damn straight.” Dad chuckled a bit more but didn’t mention Nicole again.

Thankfully.

I relaxed a little since Dad seemed to be in good spirits. It was pretty late by the time we arrived home, so I headed straight to bed to watch the day’s re-runs. I closed my eyes and felt the cool slickness of her fingers as they curled around my shoulder. I felt her initial resistance and eventual relaxation as she let me guide her body on the dance floor. I saw her smile and detected a faint hint of some kind of perfume…flowers or herbs…I wasn’t sure until I went back further.

Lilac.

Mom planted one of those shrubs at our old house.

I opened my eyes and reached my hand across the bed and down to the nightstand. I pulled out my sketchbook and started to draw. First there was the angle of her head as she tilted it slightly to the side, exposing her neck to me as I held her in the proper waltz position. There were the curls of her hair, flowing softly over her shoulders as she spun in a circle. Of course, there was also the vision of her teeth, partially embedded in her lower lip as she looked up at me in contemplation.

I didn’t stop until it was time for my morning run.

As I ran, I pushed...hard. When I checked my times, my average mile was five minutes forty seconds. Good deal. I tried to keep my eyes peeled as I ate some cereal for breakfast and tried to gauge Dad's mood. He glanced at my pedometer and gave me a nod, so at least that was good.

“I'm heading to the hospital,” he told me. “I probably won't be back until late.”

“No problem,” I replied.

“You do your weight training this morning?”

&n

bsp; “It's my off-day,” I said. “No weights until tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah.” He grumbled something else, but I couldn't hear what he said. I wasn't going to ask.

After he left, I got the laundry going and went grocery shopping. The mums were still on sale, so I bought two pots of them. As I drove past Nicole's house, I saw both her dad's cruiser and her car were gone, so I left one of the pots on her porch and headed home.

A few hours of FIFA 2013 on the Wii and several loads of laundry later, I did my homework and finally thought about the biology project again. I wondered if Nicole had actually waited for me at the library and I had missed her, or if she really did just stand me up on purpose. I hadn't thought to ask her last night. I pulled out my laptop and started looking for interesting organisms. I was tempted to look up orgasms but contained myself. Vertebrates were boring, so I discounted those altogether. Maybe something weird like euglena or sea cucumbers or something would be good. I wondered what Rumple would want to use for the project subject, which made me realize I didn't even have her phone number.

I'd have to fix that.