A Chance for Sunny Skies (10 page)

"Thanks," I said as he sat down. I handed out straws, since I sat closest to the container. Rainy gave me a quick head nod of encouragement.

"Oh, it's the least I can do after you risked your life to help me that day. Sorry, I never got your name." He sipped his smoothie as he waited for me to answer.

The anxiety returned. I felt a cackle clawing up my throat, but I held my breath and puffed out my cheeks instead. I looked to Rainy, hoping my eyes held enough fear to show her that I wasn't ready for this.

"She's Sunny and I'm Rainy." Rainy pointed back and forth. When she was sure he wasn't looking she rolled her eyes at me for my mute-ness.

He chuckled. "You're kidding, right?"

Here it was. Heat spread from my chest and climbed up my throat. He was making fun of my name. Our names. Together. I'd never thought about it before, but together we sounded even crazier.

However, when I looked up his face was soft and kind. His eyes squinted as he smiled and he genuinely seemed to find our names fun. "How'd you guys find each other?"

I waved my hand at him. "Fate."

Rainy smiled, then she leaned forward. "Shit, Sun, he's right. We sound like a genuine traveling hippie band." She whispered, "We definitely should not tell him our last names."

He threw his hands up and said, "Okay, now you have to tell me!"

I felt a laugh (a normal, non-cackly one) tickle my throat. I let it out and let it relax my face before saying, "I'm Sunny Skies and she's Rainbow Gold."

Green Shoe Guy leaned back and let out a deep, throaty laugh. "You're killing me."

I smiled back because the blueness of his eyes, the way they seemed to light up when he laughed, the way he didn't mention me being a weather girl, all of
that
was killing
me
. Our shared laughter gave me a boost of confidence I wasn't about to waste.

I held out my hand and lifted my eyebrows as I asked, "What about you?"

He noticed the gesture and leaned forward. "Gosh, my name. Well, now I'm totally embarrassed." He took off his glasses, polished them, and pointed to his chest. "I'm Brian Andersen."

(I know. Insert balloon deflating sounds.)

My face must've reflected my disappointment because when he put his glasses back on and saw me, his smile faded. He looked down at his smoothie. "I know. It's totally boring."

Rainy furrowed her eyebrows in a "fix this" way at me and nodded in his direction.

"No, not at all. It's great. We're jealous." I smiled really big and took a sip of my smoothie, too. He looked up and into my eyes. I felt a shiver run up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold beverage in my hands. There was something about this guy. I had this weird feeling that I almost already knew him or maybe I just needed to know him.

"So, Brian." Rainy leaned forward and sipped from her smoothie. "You have a boring name, your friends throw your shoes into the street to catch hotties like Sunny here, what else should we know about you?"

My cheeks heated up, I reminded myself to kill Rainbow when this was over, and I looked down. I couldn't stop myself from wanting to see his reaction to her question, so I tried to watch his face out of my peripheral vision.

He put his drink down and shook his head. "Well, that pretty much sums it up." His lips peeled back into a smile. Such a great smile. "I work a few blocks down at Pet Protect." He motioned with his hand toward what I'm sure was the direction of his building.

"Which is?" Rainy leaned forward. I pursed my lips.

"Oh, we sell pet insurance."

Rainy and I looked at each other for a few seconds before bursting out laughing.

"Insurance?" I scoffed. "Benny's lucky if I take him to the vet every year, let alone insure his little orange butt." The words spilled out with the laughter, in the comfort of having Rainy sitting right across from me. My face tensed as I realized that might have been rude to laugh at his job; he might be a work-o-holic and love what he does.

I peeked over at him, ready to apologize, but he chuckled right along with us. "Yeah, I know." He squinted one eye and tipped his head to the side. He focused on me and asked, "Is Benny a cat? I'm just guessing; there aren't a whole lot of orange colored dogs out there."

I waved my hand. "Yeah, he's a cranky pain, but I love him."

"Not enough to insure him," Rainy whispered and coughed.

I narrowed my eyes at her and looked back to Brian. "Do you have any pets?"

Brian shook his head and pulled his glasses off again to give them another go over with the bottom of his shirt. "Nope. I'm kind of a neat freak and I can't handle the hair."

I tilted my head as I thought back to the super white sock from a month ago, to his friend saying he was just messing with him, to all the polishing of glasses now. It all made sense. "Oh, that's right." I nodded.

"Yep, add it to the list. Boring name, neat freak, glasses, pale skin. Line up, ladies."

All I could think of while he ticked off things he hated about himself was how those were the reasons I was feeling more and more drawn to this guy. I loved his name. I would have killed for a normal name growing up. And neat freak? There were worse things than valuing cleanliness. His glasses made him look focused and smart and hip and made my knees wobble under the table. Pale skin? I looked down at my freckly, almost-transparent skin and pictured how great we'd fit together.

He was sexy and nice and couldn't see it at all. I leaned forward and my eyes may have had a dreamy quality to them, maybe even cartoon hearts pumping out of them. They must have been saying something fierce, because Rainy decided we needed some alone time. She stood up and said, "I'll be right back. I have to pee."

Brian and I smiled at each other. "So what do you do? Besides I'm guessing," he looked at my cat bag full of workout clothes "yoga?"

I winked at him (or tried to, but I think it came out more like half of my face had a stroke). "Good guess." I played with the straw on my cup for a second while I thought. "Besides that, I'm just a temp at the local news station." I followed him by waving my hand in the direction of the studio down the street.

His blue eyes smiled back at me. "You mean the KMPO 4 building?"

I nodded.

He laughed. "It's that way." He pointed the other direction.

My face heated up. Shit, was I that turned around? Directions were never my thing, but this was bad. I cackled to cover up my embarrassment, but that only created cause for more. Shit. Rainy only went to the toilet a few moments ago and this conversation seemed to have followed just as quickly. I needed to get out.

I slurped the last bit of my smoothie and widened my eyes. "Speaking of work, I should probably head back." I stood up quickly and knocked over my bag, spilling the contents all over the floor of the smoothie shop just as a kid walked by. His feet got all tangled up in my Monty Python tank top and he bit it hard. It didn't help that he'd had his nose in a book, so his hands were occupied and couldn't help him break his fall one bit. My hand flew to my open mouth and I watched in horror as he writhed on the floor in a puddle of my workout clothes.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry." I lunged forward and tried to help him up. I saw Brian moving, too, out of the corner of my eye. The kid looked to be in about third grade, so I figured we were going to avoid a crying spectacle, but then his chin scrunched up and his face turned red. Brian and I looked at each other as we knelt helplessly by. We were moments away from a break down. Would they kick us out of the shop for harassing minors? That's when I noticed his book, the third Harry Potter. My eyes widened and I gasped. "Oooh!
The Prisoner of Azkaban
is my favorite!"

The kid sniffled, but looked at his book. The corner of his mouth tugged up and he swiped at his nose with the back of his hand. He nodded and said, "It's my fourth time reading it."

I mouthed "wow" and gave him an approving nod. He smiled and it seemed we were in the clear, so we helped him to his feet. As he stood it became my turn to go all red and feel like crying. Strewn all over the floor were not only my pants and tank, but my sports bra and hot pink change of underwear.

I let out a small squeak as my hand flew to snatch the panties up and my eyes flew to Brian helping the kid dust himself off. I hoped to Jesus that he hadn't seen anything. The kid finally went off to find his people and I started shoving the rest of my clothes back into my bag.

"Here you go," Brian said.

I looked up and he held out my tank top. I bit my lip, took it, and crammed it in with everything else.

"That was really nice what you did, distracting that kid so he wouldn't freak out." He ducked his head and pointed at my bag. "I love the Holy Grail, by the way."

"Me, too." My cheeks heated up. "Obviously, I guess." I pointed to the shirt and rolled my eyes at myself.

Rainy walked up to us, a big smile on her face. "Is she talking about that British crap again?" I had forced her to watch
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
a few weeks ago when she had called, upset because her bogus boyfriend, Jeff, had called and cancelled on her for the third time in a row. While she acted like she thought it was lame, her tears had dried and she had left my place laughing a few hours later.

Brian shuffled his foot on the floor in front of him. "Actually, I brought it up, I guess." He ran his hand over his hair and even though Rainy was there and there were a few other people in the shop, he didn't seem to be looking at anyone but me. After a moment he said, "Well, you needed to get going, so I won't keep you. It was nice to meet you, again. Thanks for the whole -- shoe -- thing." He finished and I watched him shake his head, probably berating himself just like I always did.

I took one last big sip of my smoothie to ready myself and then said, "You, too. Thanks for lunch." I tried to smile nice and big even though I didn't ever have braces and my teeth probably will never be as great as his, but I felt bad for my dysfunction. He stopped, looked like he was about to say something, but only waved again and left.

Once he left, Rainy turned toward me and smacked my arm. "What happened? What'd he mean, you had to go?"

I cringed and put my hands out. "It was awkward and I needed to get out."

"Sun! What the crap, man?"

I winced and looked up at her. "Once you left..." I shook my head and shuddered. "I couldn't remember where my building was."

Rainy opened her hands. "Who the fuck cares?"

She had a point. Even as I said it, it no longer seemed like a good reason to end our date. "And I cackled!" I stuck out a finger to make my point. That was a real embarrassment, she couldn't find fault in that. "Then I knocked my bag over and some kid got tangled in my clothes. My underwear was on the floor." I let my head fall back and I groaned.

Rainy rubbed her forehead with her hand and closed her eyes.

"It was only going to get worse," I assured her with a smile. "This way it ended on a good note."

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at me. Her lips pressed together and she covered her mouth with her hand, hiding a smile. She patted me on the back as she sipped her smoothie. "Sure thing. Good note. Especially since you've got a ton of seeds in your teeth."

My face went red. "What?" I spun around to a mirrored wall behind the place where you get straws and napkins and opened into a big smile. Sure enough, a veritable family of seeds had lodged themselves into all of my front facing teeth. My smile faded and my head dropped. "How? How do I do this?"

I let my shoulders slump as we left the shop and walked back to my building, in the direction Brian had pointed.

Rainy stifled a giggle. "You have to admit that it's pretty funny."

I stopped and scowled at her. "No. We don't have to admit that."

Rainy wrapped her arm around my defeated shoulders and said, "He liked you, Sun. He found you, talked to you, asked questions about you. He's interested. You guys like the same lame British stuff." She turned me toward her. "You're definitely going to have to make the next move, because right now he probably thinks you hate him." She tipped her head to the side. "Just saying."

Despite the not-so-great last part, (which she was totally right about) I smiled a little. "He did seem interested, didn't he? And he was really sweet." I readjusted my bag of workout stuff and shuffled my feet.

Rainy raised her eyebrows. "Uh huh."

"If I can't talk to him by myself for more than a few minutes, how am I supposed to ask him out and go on a --" I looked from side to side "date?"

"I don't know, chick. You've gotta figure that part out yourself." She clicked her tongue at me as she turned to leave, waving her hand in the air as she walked away.

I huffed and turned toward my building. Being so intent upon getting back to work meant I still had about half an hour left on my lunch break. I shook my head and gave myself a personal lecture about not being a dweeb and to get-some-freaking-guts-why-don't-I. The other annoyingly nagging truth was that I actually missed going to yoga class today.