Coffee, Grit, and my Dad's Best Shoes 4.5

We were sitting in my driveway, seats reclined, fingers laced, watching a mixture of rain and snow pelt the windshield. Parker said that sleet always made him feel dirty. I told him that it'd always made me think of filth that spring ate up and spit back out because it left a sour taste in her mouth. Spring was a process; it took a few rounds for it to settle.

"Or maybe it's just an unreliable lover," Parker said. For a second I thought he was joking, but one glance at his pursed lips and cinched brow told me otherwise. "Like. Picture Canada as this expectant, hopeful woman, and spring's just this bang-and-run jack-donkey who leaves every year and when he finally decides to come back, he toys with her for a bit first."

I raised an eyebrow. "Maybe he's into BDSM. Teases first."

The sound he made suggested he was choking on his own tongue, but also communicated that he was entertained. "I don't know why, but the fact that you know what BDSM is surprises me." His gaze shifted from the window to me and back again. I didn't miss the anxiety in it- I felt bad for finding it reassuring. If he was that worried about saying something triggering, I'd found myself a keeper.

Granted, I'd brought up BDSM four hours after confessing to being a rape victim; I'd be a little wary of what I said to me, too.

I cleared my throat. "I have access to the internet." And there it was. The warning shift. A stone in my stomach and pressure in the back of my throat. I changed the subject. "How's the salad sitting?" I practically feel the figurative spotlight shifting from me to him. It's what he'd gotten from a drive-thru joint after the movie, and half of it was still sitting between us. I'd scarfed back a hotdog without giving much thought to it.

"Eh." One of his shoulders lifted and fell again. "The dressing was pretty thick. I'll scarf back a banana or something ins-" He frowned. "When I get home."

My gaze hit the windshield again. I think I nodded, but I wasn't sure. My head felt too stiff on my neck all of a sudden.

"You don't have to go home," I whispered. "I mean... I don't think Mom would mind, honestly, and I have school tomorrow, so we'd have to, you know, attempt to sleep, but... if you wanted to..." The truth of the matter was that I'd been glued to him all night, and all of the anxiety that I'd managed to shed over the course of the movie and the drive we'd taken afterwards started pawing at me as soon as I even thought about him leaving. Which was fine, I think. I'd felt the same way when Nicky left.

He was watching me. I could feel his eyes on the side of my head, and some sixth sense was aware of the fact that his forehead did the same thing Nicky's did when she was worried bout me. The only difference was that I always counted seven folds in hers, and I counted eight in Parker's.

"First of all," he said finally, "I'd absolutely love that. Which leads me to 'second of all,' which is that I'm terrified that your mother will, indeed, mind."

I tried to laugh, but it barely worked. "She won't. I mean, she'd mind if she thought we were going to have sex because she's overprotective like that, but I think she kind of subconsciously knows that I'm not really looking for it, right now." Talking about sex was one thing. So were fantasizing and making out. But actually having sex definitely wasn't something that I'd have pegged myself as ready for, and her Mom Senses trusted that.

Besides. I'd made an abstinence pact when I was twelve, and I aspired to keep it.

"I can definitely work with that." He pulled out his phone and, I assumed, texted his aunt to let her know he wouldn't be home. "I kind of just want to stay here and wrap you in a permanent bubble of impenetrable safety anyway."

I smiled at him, and we piled out, his arm around my shoulders, one of mine shielding my hair from the sleet. We walked in to see Mom and Francis bent over a game of chess. They didn't even look up when we stepped in; Mom just threw out an, "Is he staying here?" and Francis shouted an enthusiastic, "Hi, Parker!"

He said hi back, smile on his face, hand raised in a half-wave, before he licked his lips and addressed my mother more seriously. "Um. If I'm allowed to stay here, I think that's the plan." He was already stooping to untie his shoes, pausing halfway down and blushing like he'd realized that removing his footwear sort of undermined his asking permission.

"You're allowed." She still didn't look up at us, and I was almost glad. For Parker's sake. He looked far more embarrassed than he should have. "I'm waking him up at five thirty tomorrow morning, though. It's a long drive to the new school."

"Will do." He relaxed a little. "Kobes has me up at five every morning anyway. Used to it." They exchanged brief pleasantries- mostly my mother asking how Koby was doing- before we slipped to my room.

"What time is it?" he asked, kicking the door closed with his heel. "The movie was over at what, six?"

I nodded, glancing at the digital clock on my nightstand. "Nine." I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck. "We sat in the driveway for quite a while." Which was only because I'd almost had another panic attack when we pulled up, and we both decided that it'd be better if I calmed down there than in here. So I did, and then we'd talked about sleet and the wantonness of spring.

"What time do you wanna be asleep by?" He sat down on my floor as he asked it, legs crossed, hands pressing into the floor just behind his hips. I didn't know why- he could've just sat on the bed- but I didn't question it.

I shrugged, flopping down in front of him in the same manner. "Eleven? It'll take me a while to fall asleep." I wet my lips. "New school. I'll be up all night worrying about getting lost or confused and not living up to their expectations, or not being able to catch up. I really, really don't want to do summer school this year." I'd done it more than once. Mental illness breaks that went on long enough that I either had to accumulate necessary credits that summer, or retake the entire grade. I'd chosen summer school, and I'd hated it every time.

"You'll kick ass, Braz." He smiled at me, and I caught the light in it. The light I'd seen on Friday night that made me feel like there was a matching one in my chest.

So I mustered a small smile back at him and scratched the back of my neck. "Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I suppose it's better than going back to Yarvon Community, right?"

Parker nodded. "Right. They transferred you to Hanley's, didn't they?" 'They' meaning the court, technically. They'd been the ones to order the transfer for 'precautionary reasons'. I'd mostly blocked out the reasoning and legal blather. "Because I've heard that they're a really good high school. Takes a while to get to from here, but it's like living on the Eastend without the Eastend snobbery."

I whispered that I hoped so and, once again, changed the subject to something lighthearted. I knew how to twist the conversation to bring us to things he'd laugh at, so I did, because I wanted to hear it. He had a multitude of them, kind of like he told me that I had a multitude of smiles. The fullest one was the one I was going for, and I got it after asking how he'd managed to get his hands on the purple eyeliner he had on. He lisped off something about Leanne, rolled his eyes, and flicked his wrist, and I grinned and muttered that all he needed was a mini pincher and a pink Gucci bag and he was set for life.

Obviously, he was a little on the tired side. I hoped that the shadows under his eyes (which grew more obvious the older his foundation got) were due to being awake for good reasons. Hopeful things, like dates and hairdressing and Koby.

I don't know how it happened, but we hit midnight. Kept glancing at the clock. Kept saying that we were running on our second wind, because he suddenly looked less tired, and I suddenly felt less tired. He leaned back on the door and quieted, and I looked down because I almost couldn't handle how green his eyes were. It did weird things to my gut.

"I can't believe I'm sitting here right now," he said, after a while.

I looked up and frowned, just barely. "Why not?" He didn't sound like he was having second thoughts, but still. The idea made me feel self-conscious and a little bit wary.

"Don't feel like I deserve it, I guess." He licked his lips, and I went to catch his gaze just as it fell to his lap. "It's just... weird, sometimes. Like, in a good way, but... you know how things sort of just sink in all over again, every now and then?"

I nodded.

"That. I'm here. You're actually... we snuggle and stuff, and I'm taking you out for a date on Saturday, and..." He shrugged, fiddling with his hands. "I don't even know what I'm trying to say." He pushed off the door and scooted closer, I was assuming just to grab my hand, because he took it. Didn't say anything. Didn't look at me. Just at it. And he just... sat there, playing with my fingers, brow downcast and looking like it was trying to sort through an entire mess of things.

"I think you deserve it," I whispered, looking down when he looked up. "And I mean, even if you don't, you have it."

His lips turned up. He stopped playing with my fingers to wrap them around my entire hand. "I know. That's the crazy thing, Braz."

I did catch his gaze that time. I'd been right. The green was a killer; more so then than it usually was. "What is? That you have me?" I noticed the slip from 'it' to 'me,' but I don't know if he did. At any rate, I wasn't going to correct myself. It was sort of what I'd meant the first time, anyway.

He nodded. "Yeah."

I smiled. "You need to go to bed, Parker."

"Still not tired."

"Neither am I."

We stared at each other, and I couldn't figure out if we were sleep-drunk, love-drunk, both or neither, but whatever the case was, I was lacking the self-control I'd had a couple nights ago. My eyes landed on his lips, chest-light so bright that I could feel the heat coming off of it. That's when I made up my mind. It wasn't an issue of self-control; it was an issue of 'I need to kiss you before the tension kills us both.'

I swallowed dryly and pushed myself onto my knees, a hand resting on either side of his jaw, eyes somewhere between open and half-closed, and only kind of on his.

And God, there wasn't any hesitancy or urgency or fear in it. I just kissed him. Lightly first, because I could feel his chest expanding and his hand landing on my side, but it took a moment for his lips to press back. It felt almost like he'd been drinking it, and that alone brought on a wave of goosebumps.

One of my arms slid so that it was resting on his shoulder, and then it was wrapped around his neck while his arm draped itself over my back, hand hooking around my ribs. His legs shifted so I could get closer, and then both of my arms were around his neck, and his mouth was drawing at my bottom lip, and I was almost certain that I was melting into him. Or dying. Blissfully. Maybe both.

He was still a good kisser.

It got deeper, and something in the back of my mind reminded the rest of me that I needed to acquire a full two lungs of air at some point. When I pulled back to do so, both of our breathing was heavier than it had been, and I could still feel our lips brushing when he spoke. All it was was a quiet, "Please do that again," to which I could only whisper okay and oblige.

I heard his back hit the door and felt it against the back of my arm. That hand retracted, resting lightly on the side of his neck so that my thumb could trace ligaments. I hadn't touched skin that soft in... a really, really long time. Probably not since the last time I'd kissed him, and that'd been two years ago.

And that was it. Lips and a calm that consisted of a buzzing stomach and a burning chest and goosebumps and shaky hands. I pulled back for another breath, and once we both took a few, he kissed me again. It was shorter this time, and when it broke, a string of them followed. I counted five, too deep to be pecks, too loving for me to mind if that's all that they were.

My face found a home in the crook of his neck when they stopped, both of his arms rearranging themselves over my back. My head was swimming, body fitting itself against his because my knees weren't going to keep me knelt like that for much longer.

"Is it too early to say that I'm pretty sure I'm already back in love with you?" he asked before he caught his breath, voice quiet.

"No," I said back, a smile spreading itself across my eyes. It didn't feel too early. Maybe we'd changed- I pray that we'd at least grown up a little- but we still had the same foundations that we had two years ago. The same cores. God knew how well we'd known those parts of each other, and they were the most important.

I felt his lips on my jaw, and his breath when he whispered, "Good." He squeezed, pulling back a little so I had to pry my face out of his shoulder. He caught my gaze, and I let him hold it. It was almost easier than looking at the lopsided smile on his lips. "Brazil Liu, I love you. Even if I haven't actually taken you on our first date yet."

I laughed- a little bubble of a thing that came from my gut and half-stuck to the back of my throat. "Parker Reisse Heyton, I love you back. Even if you haven't actually taken me on our first date yet." Which was, in and of itself, as reassuring and wonderful as it was terrifying.