Chapter 12
I GUESS it was past seven o’clock when I got to the Clubhouse, because Mick was already waiting for me.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, cocooning me under his rugged arm as soon as I got within his grasp. “I missed you.”
I felt like a moron when I saw how Mick was dressed. I mean, it wasn’t like he’d overdone it or anything; it was just that he had clearly put effort into his appearance, which I, very clearly, had not. His sexy cobalt blue button-down (partway unbuttoned, of course), his tight indigo jeans, and his scuffed black leather boots had drool-worthy written all over them. Meanwhile, I was the epitome of ordinary. Boring to the nth degree. Hopeless.
“I didn’t know you were dressing up,” I said, trying to excuse my shabby outfit. I could hardly believe I was still in the same ragged jean shorts and slub tee I’d worn all day. How idiotic.
He leaned in and planted a solid, forceful kiss right on my lips, giving me the tingles all the way down to the soles of my feet.
“I’m not dressed up,” he said, still face-to-face with me. “I just wanted to look good for my birthday girl, who, by the way, looks perfectly spectacular.” He took a step back and made a show of looking me up and down.
“Thanks for being so polite,” I said. “I feel like a mess, but I’m glad you like me.”
He laughed. “I more than like you,” he said. “In fact, I don’t know if I should say this, but…”
No way. Not fair. You cannot start an interesting sentence and just leave someone hanging. “What?” I demanded. “What shouldn’t you say?”
He hesitated, like whatever was on his mind was just too dangerous to verbalize. “I don’t know. You might take it wrong,” he eventually risked saying.
“No, I won’t. I promise.”
Cringing like the mystery information was actually painful—or at least painful to admit—he said, “How do you know? You don’t even know what it is.”
“I’m not like that, I swear. Nothing shocks me,” I said emphatically. And for the most part, it was true. “Besides, I can’t even imagine you saying anything that would bother me. So go ahead, spill it.”
“Are you sure?” He frowned. “Because if this upsets you, or scares you, or freaks you out…”
“Okay, I give,” I whined. “The suspense is killing me. Just tell me what’s going on. I won’t freak out. Double cross my heart.”
“Don’t take this wrong,” he hedged again, “but I think I might be obsessed with you.”
I tried not to giggle—I really did—but I just couldn’t help it. “That’s it? You were worried about that?” I asked, stunned.
“Yeah. And it’s not funny,” he complained. “I don’t think I can control myself. Doesn’t that scare you?”
“Not really. Because I know I can’t control myself—when it comes to you anyway,” I said, only half kidding.
“Very funny. Ha-ha,” Mick said, shaking his head. “It’s more than that. It’s that I can’t stop thinking about you. Not just here and there, but all the time. If we weren’t together, I’m sure I would be stalking you. How about that? Doesn’t that bother you?”
There was no way on earth I’d admit it, but the stalker reference did freak me out just a tad. “It’s not considered stalking if the stalkee is in love with you,” I said, hooking my thumbs through his belt loops.
Still, he didn’t seem satisfied. “There’s something else I think you should know then,” he said.
Suddenly my lungs froze. No ordinary boy would’ve poured his heart out to me like this. Mick was a different breed altogether. A breed my feeble teenage brain wasn’t equipped to deal with. And the proof was, when I opened my mouth to say something, nothing came out.
Mick continued, “I know this probably isn’t normal, but I think you should know about my experiences before you. About my past.”
My eyes were tacked open in fear. What if he’d been in love like this before? What if he’d wanted to stalk a multitude of other girls? What if he’d had a lot more experience than I’d had, and I was just some hopeless amateur?
I gulped hard before I squeaked out, “Okay, go ahead.”
“First of all,” he said, shaking his head and smirking, “I’m a virgin. I don’t know why, but I wanted you to know that. I’ve never been with anybody else, so…”
“So am I,” I blurted. What the hell. If he was willing to put it out there, I might as well too.
“Oh. That’s good,” he said, obviously relieved. “But, well, on top of thinking about you all the time, I’ve also been feeling very physical around you—more than I ever have around anyone before. I just don’t know if I can restrain my appetite,” he said, breathing a little defeated sigh.
Unless I’d misunderstood him, which was certainly possible, Mick was saying I was making him horny. I, Flora Fontain, was making the sexiest virgin alive horny. Uncontrollably horny. Surely he must be joking.
“I know. I want you too,” I said, flinging my arms as far around his neck as they’d reach. “And for the record, I’m just as new at this as you are.”
He eagerly slipped his hands under my T-shirt and caressed my bare back; meanwhile, I peppered his neck with soft kisses. And just as I was preparing to start a hickey near his collarbone, he whispered in my ear, “I love you.”
Reluctantly, I pulled my lips away. “I love you too.”
For a while longer, we stood right there pressed against the Wiener Tree and made out. But as much as I hate to admit it, even sucking face with the man of your dreams can get boring after a while if you don’t mix things up a little.
“Hey, wanna go watch karaoke?” I asked.
Sounding surprised by the idea, Mick said, “There’s karaoke?”
“Yeah. I think it’s in the…” I slid the wrinkled recreation schedule out of my pocket. “The Activity Center. Do you know where that is?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, lacing his fingers around mine. “It’s the white building over by the basketball court that sort of looks like a church. Shall we?”
“Well, this is a little sad,” I said, as Mick and I claimed our metal folding chairs in the back row of the nearly deserted Activity Center.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said optimistically. “Those kids seem to be having fun.” He nodded toward the stage, squeezed my hand, and smiled
It was true. Maybe ten or twelve kids were huddled together at the front of the room, where a tiny brunette clutched a microphone and a teenage girl about my age (probably a Wild Acres employee) exercised fleeting control over the teenybopper chaos.
And after some heated disagreement among the teenybopper crowd as to which song the diva should sing, the little brunette finally started belting out the winning tune: Genie in a Bottle. And at first it seemed like an okay pick, at least for a seven-year-old. But then the diva’s act dissolved into a lewd series of gyrations and pelvic thrusts, which just about made me lose my lunch. I mean, I guess it could’ve been funny in a Little Miss Sunshine-esque way, except that unlike the girl in Little Miss Sunshine, this girl had very smooth moves. Honestly, it was disturbing.
“Okay…that’s a little sick,” I said, wondering how Mick was taking the provocative display. Before I could inquire, though, his horror became apparent.
“Why is she doing that?” he asked, screwing up his face in disgust. “Isn’t anybody going to stop her?” He glanced around anxiously, like he was expecting the karaoke police or maybe even the decency squad to intervene, but it was no use.
“Should we say something to someone?” I asked. It was a stupid question, really, since nobody but us seemed freaked out.
Mick stood up. “Wait here,” he said. “I’m going to do something about this.”
How chivalrous. My sweet, sweet boyfriend was hell bent on defending the kid’s honor. But from where I sat, I couldn’t see much of what happened when he stalked up to the stage and cornered the Wild Acres girl—although I imagined he was explaining tha
t he had sisters not much older than the little diva, and that he found the child’s behavior inappropriate and offensive. Whatever he was saying, though, it was taking a while.
I leaned over sideways to catch a glimpse of what looked like Mick giving the Wild Acres girl advice on song titles to ban. But honestly, it was rather ironic that a blatant face-sucker like him was trying to censor karaoke performances. I mean, who’da thought?
As another miniature starlet finished a less-than-accurate rendition of Oops!... I Did It Again, Mick stepped onto the stage and took the microphone, which brought a rumble of complaints from the peanut gallery. But as soon as my sweet, sweet boyfriend opened his mouth, the crowd settled. I, for one, was riveted.
“Hi, everyone,” Mick said in a rich, velvety showbiz voice that made me swoon. And unless I was imagining things, the rest of the room was swooning too. “I won’t take much of your time,” he told the audience with a wink, “but I do have something I’d like to say.”
Huh? Was he actually going to rag these kids out in public? I was so mortified I could barely even watch—which was probably a good thing, since instead of embarrassing one of the precocious preteens, he took aim at an unexpected target: me!
With a twinkling movie star grin, he said, “I’d like to wish a very special girl a happy birthday.”
Was he insane? This kind of embarrassment could kill me.
“She’s sixteen today, and her name’s Flora. And she’s right over there in the back row,” he announced, pointing straight at me. He encouraged the audience, “Let’s all wish her a happy birthday, okay?”
So while I turned a hundred shades of pink and red and probably even purple, fifteen complete strangers bid me a joyous sweet sixteen. Then, like a sound effect from an action movie, Mick’s voice boomed out again. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said, topping the spectacle off with a pair of air kisses.
On that sappy note, the crowd groaned in unison. I, on the other hand, vowed to get the boy checked for rabies at our earliest convenience. Yes, rabies was a definite possibility.
But as blindsided as I’d been by the Happy Birthday ambush, I was still woefully unprepared for what came next. Because before I could even wrap my mind around what was happening, Mick launched into a love song in my honor. He was singing. To me. In public. I was completely blown away and so freaked out I felt like I might actually have ants in my pants.
Still…
There was no denying that my sweet, gorgeous boyfriend was to die for. I mean, even in my near panic, I could appreciate his guts. Plus, his voice was quite good. And the song he’d chosen—I Swear—was akin to a marriage proposal. All things considered, I really couldn’t complain.
“Thanks for doing that,” I said—stifling a sob—when he returned to my side. “You’re amazing, you know. And you’re a great singer too, by the way. Is there anything you’re not good at?”
He just laughed. “Of course you think I’m great,” he said. “You’re wearing love goggles.”
“And you’re not?” I challenged. “I mean, I hate to break it to you, but you’re the first guy who’s thought I was special enough to sing to.”
“Well, I can’t help it if they didn’t know what they were missing,” he joked. “Hey, who are they anyway?”
The truth was, I hadn’t really had any serious boyfriends before Mick. I mean, sure, there was this one guy, Brian Moore, who’d pretty much strong-armed me into being his girlfriend in seventh grade. But other than that, I’d spent my life in the romantic desert. Of course, this information would never penetrate Mick’s ears.
“There’s no they. There’s only you,” I said, snuggling up to his chest and resting my head on his shoulder. “I love you.”
If I did say so myself, I was getting pretty good at this mushy, lovey-dovey girlfriend stuff. I guess it was another way Mick had changed me: He’d turned my jaded negativity into visions of sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies. How fitting.