“Whoa. I did not realize we’ve been driving for an hour,” I muttered when we got out of the car, adjusting my messenger bag on my shoulder.
“Time flies by when you’re on planet Earth, little Martian.” He breezed past me, punching the door to the store open. I liked that there was a massive height difference between us. I barely made it to his ribs.
We spent exactly ten minutes in the store. Alex knew the guy who manned the cash register. They talked a little, laughed a lot. The cashier had the drumsticks Alex had come for ready at the register. They talked about a brawl that started in one of the clubs they had been clubbing in a few weeks ago. Alex didn’t introduce me. In fact, he downright ignored me, and I pretended to find a row of guitars hanging on the wall completely fascinating.
Alex paid the guy, turned around, and tapped my shoulder.
I swiveled in his direction, acting as if I was not hurt and confused as to what I was doing there. Was my first date ever also the suckiest to ever be recorded on planet Earth? I couldn’t rule that out.
“Ready to roll?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure.” I played it cool. Like I didn’t come all this way for ten minutes in which I was completely ignored.
We walked out of the store.
We headed for his car.
We got INTO his car.
He still didn’t make a move to ask if I wanted to get an ice cream or pizza or whatever. Oh, that’s right—everything kids our age did involved eating shit with animal products in it. Gosh, why did I have to go for a vegan anarcho-punk? Why couldn’t I date the guy down the street, who listened to Blink 182 and uploaded videos of himself doing dangerous tricks at the skating rink in a supermarket cart to YouTube? Someone who was pro-fish tacos and ate pizza without feeling bad about it. Sure, that person was likely to smell of socks, but maybe it was a small price to pay for freedom.
Alex started driving.
I took even, calming breaths and promised myself I wasn’t going to kill him.
When he slid onto the highway, he said, “I bought a double bass.”
“Okay,” I said. The word was wrapped in pure venom. I said it like what I really meant by ‘okay’ was burn-in-hell-you-stupid-jerk.
“I’m pumped to check it out.” He drummed on his steering wheel. His car smelled nice. I bet his house smelled nice, too. I knew HE smelled nice, because I’d sniffed him a few times when he wasn’t looking. He wasn’t a smoker. The cigarette he shared with the beautiful girl at the demonstration must’ve been a one-off.
“Good for you.”
“Do you want to…” He let the sentence hang in the air for a second, unfinished. It was the first time I detected something that wasn’t complete and utter poise from him. “Learn how to play the drums?”
Hell no.
“Oh, yeah, for a long time now.” I pulled the answer out of my ass, finally getting what he was trying to do here. Dang, he was emotionally screwed. He was too proud to ask me out for a freaking vegan pizza. Holy shit. I was going to have my hands full with this one. “It’s, like, high on my to-do list.”
Right after dining on broken glass and used condoms at the local dumpster.
“I can teach you. Or whatever.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Or whatever. Yeah. Sure.”
I was going to die a virgin. That much I knew. Too bad, because other than the sex part, I was also curious about motherhood. But at this rate, Alex and I were getting nowhere, fast.
“Doesn’t have to be now.” He shrugged.
“Totally. Now’s not a good time,” I agreed.
“But it could be. Unless you have plans. Which…I guess you do?”
This was getting really messy and really awkward, and I wasn’t going to lie—I enjoyed every single minute of it. Because even though I squirmed, he did, too. And that said a lot.
“I cleared my schedule this afternoon, so I think I’m okay.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged again. “Makes sense.”
Then something occurred to me.
“We’re going to your house, right?”
“Yeah. That’s where my drum kit is. Actually, that’s where the band rehearses. In my basement.”
Alex was the rich kid who also happened to be an only child, so his parents let him convert his basement into a rehearsal room slash studio, because they had a trillion guestrooms, anyway. Meanwhile, there was a literal HOLE IN THE WALL between my brother’s room and mine. I mean, it technically used to be a window, from before my parents expanded our house, but a little privacy went a long way when you were on the cusp of turning sixteen.
“Going into a stranger’s basement is definitely not something I do on a regular basis,” I said. Alex was seventeen, and the size of two fully grown men. It was worth making sure we were on the same page here. “So I’m just going to put it out there—I’m not gonna sleep with you.”