A Chance for Sunny Skies (16 page)

"A forehead kiss? I LOVE a good forehead kiss!" Anna wrapped her hands around a mug, sighed, and leaned back in her chair.

I took in a deep breath and watched my friends swoon. They had insisted we meet at Anna's work the next morning for coffee and date dishing. As fun as it was to have them giggle excitedly at my date retelling, there was something I couldn't get over, something itching at the back of my mind. While the forehead kiss had been amazing in the moment and had left me swooning, it hadn't taken me five minutes to stop appreciating his "taking it slow" and start over analyzing it, worrying that there was more behind it.

I smiled, weakly. "Okay, yes, it was super sweet, but..." I looked at them seriously. Rainy rolled her eyes, already knowing my problem with the terribly-sweet-forehead-kiss. "Do you think it's possible that he didn't kiss me on the mouth because he's grossed out by me?"

Anna's face scrunched up and her head shot back. Lizzy's mouth parted and her eyebrows knit together.

"What?" they said at the same time, with the same amount of you're-completely-crazy lacing the word.

Rainy held out her hands and looked at me poignantly. "See?" she said. "It's not even a possibility."

I pinched my mouth to one side. "Buuuuuut. He's seen me with a bunch of stuff stuck in my teeth and he didn't kiss me. I think there may be some part of him that didn't because I freak the neat freak part of him out a little."

Anna shook her head. "Neat freak doesn't mean that he's a germaphobe." She narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. "I don't know anyone who thinks kissing is anything but wonderful."

Lizzy looked up and shrugged. "Yeah, Sunny. It really just sounds like he saw that you were nervous and decided not to push you too fast. Heck, maybe he was even a little nervous, too."

Rainy smacked her hands together and nodded. "Thank you." She focused on me. "It was nothing."

"But sweet," Anna added.

"It was nothing, but sweet," Rainy amended.

I took a sip of my coffee and then pressed my lips together as I thought. Okay, they might be right, but the pit in my stomach told me there was something bigger going on here. Based on their feedback, though, maybe that something had to do with me, not Brian. My next question came out quiet, on wobbly legs and deep-down-doubts. "Okay, so maybe he will kiss me at some point, but what do I do when he wants to do more?"

The girls tipped their heads to the side and my eyes flicked to the floor. Sure, I'd watched movies, but Hollywood isn't necessarily a great how-to example of here's-what-it's-like-in-the-real-world. My mother was mostly nonexistent in my formative years and Marie, my nanny, was gone before I really started noticing boys.

Anna narrowed her eyes at me as if focusing to see me better. "I mean, do you know how it works? 'Cause I have some bananas on the counter over there and we could --"

My hands shot up and I waved them around. "No! No. I know about that." Rainy giggled and Lizzy's hand covered her mouth. "I just --" I rubbed my forehead and sighed. "I don't even have any fancy under-things. Does your bra have to match your underwear these days?"

Lizzy spoke up this time. "Sunny." She put a hand on my shoulder. "No, you don't have to do any of that, but it might make you feel sexier if you got some special lingerie." Lizzy raised her eyebrows, smiled, and looked around the table expectantly.

Rainy leaned forward. "Shopping trip?"

Lingerie shopping? My eyes widened and I shook my head, but Anna and Lizzy locked eyes with me and nodded forcefully until I mimicked them. It might be fun, I thought as I they pulled in close and talked about what stores they wanted to take me to.

"Great!" Rainy said as she stood up. "Let's go now." The other girls furrowed their brows and started to point to me and say things like, "job", "can't", and "after". Rainy smiled sweetly and looked at me. "I happen to know that our friend Sunny only has to go in to sign a few documents for her new job which she doesn't start until tomorrow. So she has most of today free." She elbowed me, probably because I looked somewhat green and barf-y. (Damn telling friends things.)

"Great!" Lizzy said. "I have a class at lunch, but I have until then."

Anna shrugged. "I close tonight, so I'm in."

Inside my head, the Old Sunny screamed. I took a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and stuffed her deep inside again. My friends wanted to help me. This might be fun.

"A new job?" Anna asked as we picked up our stuff and started to leave.

"Um, yeah." I squinted as I decided how much to say. "It seemed like time for a change." They nodded, satisfied with that answer. As we walked down town, I filled them in on the details.

"Jeannette Alexander?" Lizzy asked with the same disgust coating her words as it had when Spencer said her name. She raised her eyebrows, but tried to hide her aversion with a smile. "She's probably way nicer than she seems on TV."

Anna nodded. "Uh, yeah. You'll be fine."

The pit in my stomach dug deeper and I clenched my jaw to keep my coffee down. I had watched more of her old forecasts after I'd found out I would be working with her (no need to look more into Ken, I knew that guy was rotten to the core already) and came to two conclusions. 1.) She could be a really nice person who just came off sort of bitchy on screen. That happened, right? People get nervous and they put off a vibe they don't mean to. Or 2.) Her slight bitchiness on camera was only the tip of the ice-queen-iceberg and after a few days with her, I might be begging for Melanie Carter and all of my old tormentors from high school.

Between thinking about my new job and being on our way to do some lingerie shopping, I started to feel light-headed and woozy. The girls had started talking bra sizes to prepare, which luckily I knew or I would have had to add stranger-with-a-tape-measurer to the list of awful things that were about to happen. What had I gotten myself into? Rainy caught my worried gaze and tried to give me a reassuring smile as we walked further into the city. My worry only increased as we passed the Macy's I assumed to be our destination and kept walking.

I looked back. "Shouldn't we go...?" I pointed. It had been the place they'd talked about most back at the coffee shop.

The girls all pulled their lips into sharp smiles, their eyes betraying underlying mischief. "Oh no. We're going to a special shop."

Special? I gulped. "Sure. Yeah." They pulled me along with them. "A department store has too much else in it, too much that might have distracted us from what we were really there for." (Um... exactly like I had been hoping.)

We walked for a few more minutes before arriving at a store that made my skin feel clammy and my feet want to take me to the other side of the street. It was called The Booty Boutique. I could feel my friends’ faces light up and watch me as I took in the mannequins dressed scantily in lace and silk set up in the front window. Sparkling silk curtains framed them and gaudy purple and pink painted chandeliers made the shop sparkle even from the street. I bit my lip as Rainy pulled me after her.

The inside was sparklier, pinker, and scarier than I had imagined from the outside. It smelled like a mixture of candied fruits and musky vanilla, apparently how a sensual woman should smell according to the fragrance advertisements that crowded a perfume table to my right. My eyes flicked around the store trying to find a safe place to land, unsuccessfully. Everywhere I looked there were black strings, see-through lace, and (oh, lord) an edibles section.

"Welcome!" a sultry-looking lady said from behind the counter. She looked like she had been in a Victoria's Secret ad, twenty years ago. She was pretty, don't get me wrong, but just seemed to be fighting hard against her aging body. I'm not a fashion expert, but I'm pretty sure she had hair extensions and fake eyelashes on. "What can I help you ladies find today?"

"We're just looking for our friend here," Anna said, pulling me forward. I thought she was about to sacrifice me to the middle-aged mistress until she said, "I think we are okay for now. We'll let you know if we need any help."

The woman nodded and even though I had dodged having to talk to her more, I could still feel all the heat from my body crowding into my face. I pulled my purse tighter to my side as if it might turn pink and sparkly simply by touching something in there. But it was bound to because, as I was about to find out, it was my friends' mission to make me try on and touch as much as they could.

To be fair, they did start out slow. Rainy guided me to a section that held bras and underwear that looked more like they came from the same family as what I was used to wearing, not distant cousins from Europe (can we say, Transylvania?) like other pieces in the store.

"This is cute!" Lizzy held up a pink set where the lace was more of a decoration around the edges, not the entire body of the garment. A polka dot pattern in the same color made it subtle and yet kind of fun.

I pressed my lips together and nodded. "Okay, but I like the blue instead."

Lizzy picked one out in my size. The tightness in my lungs subsided a bit, but then I turned around and ran right into a garment that Anna held out for me to see. I grimaced and pawed at it until I became untangled from the black mess of barely-there fabrics. Anna unsuccessfully tried to keep her laughter in as she put the underwear back onto its hanger where I could see it in all of its strappy, buckle-y, dominatrix glory.

"Oh, um...." My eyes widened and I shook my head.

She smiled and rolled her eyes. "Alright, I didn't think so. What about this." She pulled a different hanger from behind her back that held a bra and underwear set. It was still black, but actually really cute. I tipped my head to the side and pursed my lips.

"I would try that one," I said and Anna skipped off to get my size.

Rainy, of course, chose the most colorful piece in the store, being a lacy mixture of oranges and purples, which she said would go really well with my hair. I have to admit, I was actually smiling a bit, that is, until we met at the dressing rooms which were just more silk fabric pieces pinned up to create privacy. I took the hangers from each of my friends and frowned.

"I don't have to -- come out and show you? Do I?"

The girls shook their heads. "Nope," Lizzy said. "We've done our work. You get to decide which ones you like now." To prove it, they wandered off to look at the rest of the store.

Alone with my fears, doubts, and lacy things on complicated hangers, I closed myself into one of the silky dressing rooms and stood frozen for a second. I looked in the mirror, at my wild red hair, twisted back into a low imperfect bun, at my rosy cheeks (if not merely from embarrassment), and at my light blue eyes.

I tried to see myself as Brian did, on our date, through his thick glasses and equally blue eyes. You know what? It made me smile. It made me remember that right now, life was pretty darn good. I had great friends and a wonderful guy that wanted to see me again. After a while (I mean, a long while probably) maybe I would want him to see me in one of these skimpy, lacy outfits.

Resolve restored, I went to work on the pile the girls had accumulated for me. There were a lot of furrowed eyebrow moments, a couple wide-eyed oh-my-goodness turning red moments, and even a few smiling I-actually-look-okay-in-this moments. By the time I went to pay for the items I'd decided to get, I was laughing and having fun with my friends again.

Maybe it was because I desperately tried to avoid eye contact with the woman behind the counter as she rang up my very intimate items. Maybe it was because it was bright and sparkly and completely ridiculous. Or maybe it was because it was my sixth vision, that the rhinestone collar on the counter caught my eye. There it was, right in front of me, sitting on a necklace-type display stand, silvery and complete with a bejeweled bow to top it off. The next sign.

My hand (yes, it was my hand's idea) reached out and snapped it off the display, shoving it forward at the lady. I said, "This, too. Please," smiled, and tried not to look as crazy as I felt.

Her eyes widened and she seemed about to gush and goo over what a great decision I had made when Rainy bumped up behind me.

"Sun!" she squealed as she saw the collar. "Bras are one thing, but you're already getting into collars." She elbowed me and made a "meow" sound. "Way to go."

My face burnt up with embarrassment. I shook my head and looked down at my hands.

"Oh, no," the lady behind the counter said, concern steeling her tone. "This is not a toy. Not for people." She shook her head. "It's for dogs. See?" She held up a picture of her holding a small, fluffy ball inside which I assume there was a dog. The fuzz ball wore a matching collar around where its neck would be if it had a shape.

"Oh," Rainy and I said in unison.

I paid for my purchases (holy cow, that collar was a hundred and fifty-five bucks) and walked arm-in-arm with my friends out of the store. I couldn't seem to stay focused on the conversations they were having as we walked through downtown because my mind spun with questions about this sign. I couldn't keep my hand from reaching down into the bag from time to time to let my fingers slip around the elaborate accessory, just to make sure it was still there.

When I got home, I had plopped the bags on my counter and was sitting inspecting the confusing collar/sign when my phone started ringing. I pulled it out, smiling because I knew it had to be Rainy, checking to make sure I hadn't gone back and returned the lingerie after I'd left them earlier. She'd be proud, though. I'd gone to work and gotten all of my paperwork squared away with Sarah in HR, grabbed a quick bite, and headed home, not a doubt in my mind about keeping the things I'd bought.

I froze when I saw the screen. It wasn't Rainy. Brian's name shimmered back at me.

I took a deep breath and answered it.

"Hey."

"Hi there." His voice sent shivers deep into my bones and I sunk into a chair.

"What's up?" I asked opening the bags from the store and arranging my purchases on my table.

He sighed and said, "Not much. Had a crappy day and thought you might like to grab a dinner and a drink." There was a rustling sound like he might be polishing his glasses nervously like he had last night at dinner.

My heart raced and I looked at the clock. It was past 7:30. "I already ate dinner while I was out, but I'd be up for a drink."

"Perfect. I'll eat something real quick and come get you," he said.

"Don't you think this is against the rules, though?" I asked.

"Rules? What rules?" His voice had a playful ring to it.

"Just every dating book ever. We're supposed to make each other wait."

He laughed. "Oh. I forgot about that. Dang. Well, what if I told you I was a total bad boy and I lived to break rules?"

I bit my lip and smiled. "I'd say that I exclusively date bad boys and I'll be ready in half an hour."

"Good. See you soon." He hung up and I took a second to squeal and hop around before getting to work.

I fixed my hair and decided to put on one of my fancy new intimates sets before getting into my date outfit. I opted for the blue, lacy number with the polka dots and covered it up with casual jeans and a cute white linen tank that let the blue straps peek through just enough. I didn't really know what happened on second dates, but I did know how he had looked at me last night and how after he'd kissed me on the forehead all I had wanted was more. So at least I was prepared.

He picked me up on time and took me to the cutest little bar. It looked like it could've been the "our place" in a cute TV sitcom. The lights were dim and he ordered us a couple of beers when I told him I had no idea what I wanted and to surprise me.

He came back balancing two very full pint glasses. "Yours is a pale; it should be pretty mild, since you said you don't normally drink beer."

"What'd you get?" I leaned over toward his much more interesting, cascading, frothy, dark beer.

"This," he looked at it like it was gold, "is a Guinness."

I oohed, awed, and reached. "Can I try it?"

He chuckled. "Sure."

I watched the toffee colored foam at the top shimmer and dance down into the velvety brown liquid. The perfection of it made a shiver shimmy up the backs of my arms. My focus broadened from the beer to the guy sitting next to me, to this night, to me making a life for myself. It was all so sweet, so beautiful, so like this beer, falling into place. No. Beautifully cascading into place. My mouth pulled back into a smile.

"It's so pretty," I whispered.

Brian hummed in agreement and nodded, but when I glanced up, he didn't seem to be looking at the beer. My ears got instantly hot and I looked down, then back at the drink. I could still feel his eyes on me. At first it felt lovely, but as the milliseconds passed, I started to get worried.

Suddenly everything didn't feel beautiful, or cascading. What if he looked closer and realized he didn't like what he saw? I brought the beer forward, to taste it, wanting (no, needing) something to do other than sitting there, waiting for him to notice all of my faults.

It turned out that I was a little too anxious to get that freaking beer to my lips, because instead of tipping it all sexy-like into my mouth, it spilled down the front of me. I squeaked and jumped up, setting the dripping glass back on the table, and swatted at my shirt. (Because beer can't stick to fabric if you hit it, right?) I looked down and gulped as I saw my white shirt was now brown, mostly see through, and that my blue lacy bra was visible enough to notice the cute polka dots.

"Shit, shit, shit." I grabbed at my hair, turned in a circle, and swore under my breath.

Brian had jumped up with me and stood there with napkins in his hands and wrinkles of worry on his forehead. He waved off the bartender who walked over with a stained bar towel when I just stood there, stunned. Finally, I slumped my shoulders forward and took a few of the napkins he offered, slapping them to my chest, patting futilely, and trying to hide what was under my see-through shirt.

"Sunny, I'm so sorry." He shook his head and his mouth hung slightly open as if he was waiting for more words.

I covered my face with my hands and the wet napkins I still held. "It's not your fault. I'm stupid and clumsy and stupid." My voice was muffled by the paper, my face was getting hot, I smelled like beer, and I became increasingly aware of people's eyes on my mostly exposed front.

I heard Brian step toward me. "Hey," he said, gently touching my hand and guiding it away from my face. One of the wet napkins, however, stuck to my forehead. He peeled that off, too, and led me back to my seat. "You're none of those things. Not a one." His blue eyes held me and the small wrinkles of worry that surrounded them made me helpless.

I looked away. No. This shouldn't have happened. Things were going well. Why did I have to screw up like this? My eyes scanned the place, watched the people that could be in a sitcom where this was their place, where some klutzy girl had just made a fool of herself. They would talk about it later and come up with a funny name for me so they could reference the event in later episodes.

My heart rate slowed slightly as I watched the people who had been staring, go back to their conversations, save one or two that still wore sympathetic grimaces after watching me have a two-year-old tantrum over spilled beer and a wet white shirt.

Brian reached over and gathered my hand in his, so I turned back to him. "You okay?" he asked.

My lips felt huge and pouty and all I wanted to do was cry (because tears were one of the less-than-great traits of New Sunny), but I took in a deep breath, ignored the stinging heat behind my eyes, and nodded.

"Good," he said, then he lifted his eyebrows at me and smiled. "So how'd you like it?"

I groaned, laughed, and rolled my eyes at the same time. "Sorry. I didn't mean to overreact, it's just..." I trailed off and motioned to my mostly exposed chest.

"Beer totally comes out of clothes," he said, seriously. "Trust me. If it didn't I would've gotten into a lot more trouble in college."

Even though his words should've made me feel better, Brian's mention of college memories made me sad. I didn't have any of those. I didn't party in college because I didn't have anyone to party with. I felt my head sink forward.

"Hey, you want me to take you home?" he asked, noticing my posture. He said it like a friend says they can help you move, with good intentions, but an undercurrent of not-wanting-to.

I stuck my bottom lip out and blew a long exhale up into my face. I scrunched my nose up. I really wanted to go home. It's not that I wasn't having a great time with Brian, I just wasn't having a great time with myself. The front of me was wet and slightly sticky and I wanted to hide, to pretend everything had stayed perfect.

I was about to say, yes, take me home, but what Brian had said about college stopped me. I couldn't keep hiding from my life. The image of Braidy Bags sitting alone, Gollum-shying away from people wafted into my brain, slowly covering any feelings of self-pity and wanting-to-go-home. Different, Sunny. You need to do things differently than you normally would, I reminded myself. The universe chose you for a reason, saved you because it must've seen something worth saving there.

"No," I said. The truth was that Brian had been trying really hard to keep his eyes from wandering down to my wet chest and that made me feel all tingly. Plus, I found if I crossed my arms in front of me, it wasn't that noticeable. So I added, "If you don't mind having a drink with a bit of a slob." I motioned to my shirt and gave him a crooked smile.

Brian sat back and let out a long breath that turned into a laugh. "I wouldn't have it any other way." He ran his hands through his hair and kept trying not to look at my chest, but failing miserably.

I picked up the beer, again. "Let's see if I can get this to my mouth this time." I did and it was wonderful, smooth and rich, but not even close to being as wonderful, smooth, and rich as Brian's face as he watched me sip. I tried not to let it fluster me like last time and I held the beer out to him.

He held up his hand and shook his head. "You keep that one," he said as he reached for the lighter beer he'd ordered for me.

Oh, good. I liked the dark one, I thought as I took another sip of what was now my beer, but as I was sipping, my conversation with the girls about why he hadn't kissed me on our first date came back to me. It made my heart quicken and my face heat up.

Was I right to be worried about last night? Was he letting me take that beer because he was grossed out by me and didn't want to share a drink with me? I grossed him out. My spit had tainted the beer and now he didn't want to drink it.

Then my face got hot as I thought about him looking at my boobs. What if he wasn't actually enamored with my assets like I had thought, but actually grossed out by the stain on my shirt?

"Something up?" he asked.

I realized that I was scowling and holding the beer to my lips, not drinking. I set it down and shook my head, trying to give him a reassuring smile while I thought it all through. I tried to let the girl's advice rule my thoughts, beat back my insecurities. He had called for a second date. People didn't do that if they were grossed out by someone. Plus, if I was honest with myself, the way he looked at me didn't really say grossed-out.

I took a deep breath and tried to put the worries behind me. I decided that the very best way to put my mind at ease was to try to kiss him myself tonight. That would tell me once and for all. We won’t linger on the fact that even the thought of kissing made my body go hot then cold all over again.

"So what do you think?" Brian looked at me closely, waiting.

Crap. He had asked me something and I was too busy freaking out to hear. "About what?" I cringed.

"Music. Your favorite band." He leaned in.

"Oh, music. Yeah. Um..." I closed my eyes to think, but all I could see in my mind was me trying to kiss Brian and him pushing away my slobbery mouth in disgust. "I like it." I nodded.

Brian ran his palm over his stubbly chin and down his neck. "Okay..." He narrowed his eyes at me and pulled his glasses off, polishing them nervously.

I tried to take a deep breath. I was tanking everything again and making him nervous. Come on, Sunny. Don't let it end here. You're reading too much into everything. I tried to listen to my words of wisdom and opened my eyes with a new resolve. To hell with what-could-happen, I was New Sunny.

"Sorry, it's just, I like some pretty obscure bands. I wasn't sure if you'd know them, is all."

Brian's face softened and he held a hand out, palm up. "Try me."

So I named a few. Turned out that Brian actually knew some of them. It wasn't all fairy tale like our movie connection, we didn't realize we had the same favorite bands and that we'd been at all of the same concerts (being that I hadn't ever been to one). Actually, I kind of liked that we had different tastes in music and after we finished our beers, Brian was so excited to let me listen to some of his favorite bands, he paid and we made our way out to his car.

I loved the way he closed his eyes and drummed on his leg as he listened to the songs he shared with me. I'd heard some of them before, but seeing him react to them, made me feel differently than I had before. Suddenly the lyrics made more sense. Suddenly everything did.

A few seconds into a new song, he opened his eyes, blushing a little. "Sorry. It just gets to me."

I smiled and shook my head, thinking that no one should ever apologize for loving something so deeply.

His eyes sparkled in the parking lot lights that streamed through the windshield. "I'll get you home now," he said and moved to start the car, but I put my hand out to stop him.

He looked at me, took his glasses off, and polished them. I pressed my lips together and leaned closer.

"I had a great time," I said, steadying my resolve.

"Me, t --" he tried to say, but I couldn't wait, I would doubt myself if I had the chance.

So I pushed myself the rest of the way toward him, tilted my chin up, and shoved my mouth onto his while he was midsentence. He didn't seem to mind too much, though because he wrapped his hand behind my neck and pulled me in close. He smelled like cologne, but there was a faint aroma of beer on his breath that took me back inside the small pub we still sat in the parking lot of.

I pulled back, smiled, and watched his face. In that moment, I was surer than sure that there wasn't a hint of grossed-out anywhere on that boy. He smiled back at me, took my hand in his, and started the car with the other, driving and holding my hand the whole way home. We had time to listen to a few more songs on our way to my place. It was quiet, save for the music, but not in an awkward way. It was more of a we're-absorbing-this kind of perfection. All of the lyrics seemed to be about us, about boys and girls and possibly love.