It has been three days since my run-in with Raven. Since that night, I’ve barely slept, because my thoughts of her won’t stop racing through my mind. She hasn’t been to her mother’s since Sunday morning, and I was beginning to think she changed her mind on the whole lunch thing until I received a text this morning asking if I was free this afternoon.
Now, I’m sitting here on the back patio, sipping on a glass of iced tea and waiting for her to get here so we can head to the country club together. At first, she tried to insist on meeting me there, but I told her it was stupid for us to both drive there in separate vehicles when we’re going to the same place. Her father’s place is only a few blocks away from here.
The sound of the patio door opening and then shutting snaps me out of my Raven-induced daze. Shifting in the seat, I look behind me, and for a moment, my heart freezes mid-beat in my chest before kick-starting once again. Raven has her red hair pulled into a high ponytail and is wearing a pearl necklace, small pearl earrings, and another floral sundress with wedged heels. There’s a warm summer breeze blowing across the backyard, causing her hair to whip around behind her. She gives me a nervous smile as she presses a hand to her skirt the wind is trying to blow up into the air.
“Hi.” Her voice comes out soft and sweet, no hint of anger or distaste. She slowly makes her way across the patio, stopping to lean against the glass table beside me. Sitting back in the seat, my eyes roam slowly over her body before coming to a stop at her face.
“Hey, Spitfire.” A cocky grin spreads across my face as I watch her chest and face flush a light crimson. Clearing her throat, she rolls her eyes at my nickname for her, but she can’t mask the smile fighting to stretch across her beautiful lips.
“Are you ready to go?” Shifting her weight, she steps away from the table, creating a little more distance between us.
I guess there’s no prolonging the inevitable. Might as well go to t lunch and get this damn ‘talk’ done with.
Unfolding myself from the seat, I stop beside her and hold my hand out. “After you.” Letting out a soft groan, I watch as she sashays ahead of me into the house. At first, I follow behind a few steps, but as we leave out through the front of the house, locking up, I step beside her, bringing my hand to rest at the small of her back as I press the unlock button on my keychain.
I notice she inhales sharply and tenses up slightly as my hand touches her back. “Relax, Raven,” I whisper into her ear before pulling her passenger door open. I feel her shiver gently against my hand before stepping away from me and climbing into her seat. I slam her door shut and run around to the driver’s side.
We ride to the country club in silence. After a few minutes, Raven begins singing softly along with Avril Lavine’s Give You What You Like as she sits beside me. I find myself growing hard as she sings about a guy wrapping his drunken arms around her and saying she’ll allow me to call her mine for just tonight. It’s as if she’s singing about our night together, and it’s making me want her even more than I did five seconds ago.
As she asks, “Is this love? Maybe one day,” I choke on my saliva I’m attempting to swallow, because even though it’s only lyrics coming from her mouth, it feels as if she’s really speaking to me. It terrifies the shit out of me, because a tiny piece of me feels like if things were different, she’d be the one girl who’d be able to get me to want more from life than just quick, meaningless fucks.
I love listening to her sing. It’s just one more reason I know we’re walking a fine line every time we’re alone together, because she’s the one person I can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try. You know you’re falling for someone when you choose to sit outside, listening to them sing off-key for hours on end, praying they never stop.
She may not be the best singer on the planet, but when she gets lost in the moment and lets the outside world fall away, she never looks more stunning. I’ve watched her lounge outside by the pool with her iPod, singing along to Carrie Underwood, Beyond Redemption, and any other artist on her playlist more times than I can count.
After a few more minutes, we’re finally pulling into the country club. I have valet park my car and then follow Raven inside. I request for us to have a table outside overlooking the golf course, since it’s a warm and sunny day today. Since we’re having a late lunch, we have the outdoor seating almost completely to ourselves, which is perfect. I’m hoping the somewhat private setting will allow us to discuss everything I feel needs to be put out there on the table. I just hope we can make it through this lunch without me leaving here wearing it. It always seems that no matter how hard I try around Raven, I always somehow end up saying something that sends her blood boiling and her firing off insults at me.
“How’s your summer been so far?” I ask after washing down my burger with a gulp from my bottle of beer. Starting out this conversation slowly, I think, is the best course of action.
Raven’s eyes stay on the ducks that are swimming casually in the small pond down the hill from us. She’s avoided eye contact with me for the last twenty minutes as we chatted casually about how school has been going for her, and golf for me.
“My father was able to help me get a job at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach for the summer. I’m only working as an intern. It’s nonpaying, but the experience I’m gaining being there is worth the long days and long hours of work. I’ve been shadowing marine biologists who are, at the moment, working together on the drought in Southern California. It’s terrifying seeing the horrendous effects on places once beautiful and thriving, which are now dried up and no longer the safe place for aquatic animals and plants they once were.”
Whenever Raven starts talking about marine life and her degree she’s working toward, she gets this sparkle in her eyes that is almost magnetic. You can feel the energy pouring out of them slowly seep into your body, making your insides light up and you feel as energetic and passionate about it all as she is.
I can’t help but smile at her as I hear her speak passionately about her internship. “That’s amazing, Spitfire. I can see it in your eyes as you talk about what you’re doing. You’re really avid about all this environmental stuff. It’s definitely scary. I saw a video pop up on my Facebook about the drought. It’s shocking to see the before and after shots of the areas effected the most by it all.”
Tossing a French fry into my mouth, I sit back in the chair and listen as she goes on for almost ten minutes straight, telling me about the things she’s gotten to observe and even participate in while starting her internship. She even goes into detail about the things she’s hoping to be able to do, even after school starts up again in August.
As each moment passes, I notice she seems to relax more and more across from me. I feel as if we’re slowly getting back to where we were before everything blew up in our faces.
“What do you say we take a walk, so we can talk more privately?” I ask as I push my now empty plate away from me. I grab my beer I’ve been nursing throughout lunch and bring it to my lips, savoring the cool, refreshing taste of it as I take one long pull, draining every last drop.
She gives me a slight nod in agreement, so I wave over the waiter to take care of our bill. After ordering two bottles of water to go, I pay for our lunch and then walk slowly beside Raven for a few moments in silence. I pick at the plastic label on the water bottle nervously as I try to find the words to say. I’ve never done this before, and in all honesty, never thought I ever would. Now, I’m here with her, trying to find the right words to say…to do what exactly?
I truly have no clue what the hell I want with her. I know, for one, I really would love to have the afternoon end with us naked and clawing at one another’s body. But the reality of it is in two days, we’ll be flying to Napa Valley to stand as witnesses to our parents, watching them wed, making us officially become family.
Running my fingers through my hair, I look out towards the rolling green hills, staring at the golf course I frequent almost daily. When I look up at hole four, all I can see are images, almost like ghosts of our past, taunting me with moments from that day with Raven, when we came here and I taught her how to golf—actually, more like how to destroy a golf course while attempting to learn to golf.
I desperately wish I could reach out and grasp onto her, reliving the day over and over again, free from the fucked up reality that is our lives.
Before I can get a word out, Raven grabs my wrist, bringing us to a stop a short distance away from where we were just having lunch. She stares nervously down at our feet for a few beats before finally lifting her eyes up to mine.
They’re dark with sadness as she opens her mouth to speak. “I know things between us have been crazy, and we both have things we’re angry about, but I just want you to know I honestly feel awful about everything that happened before. I’m sorry I hurt you...because that was never my intention. Tessa and I saw the stupid bet as something funny. I saw how you were with other girls—in your bed one minute, gone the next, with another girl soon following. Tessa knew I liked you—well, not actually liked you, since you are a pretentious asshole ninety-nine percent of the time.” She laughs as she tucks a hair back behind her ear that the wind blew in front of her face a moment ago. “But I really enjoyed the view you gladly displayed to us on a daily basis. And then there’s the whole reputation you carry around. I’d have to be a lesbian or a nun to not be curious about what it’d be like to experience a night with you.”