Chapter 7

I ended up driving home that night on auto pilot. Getting home, I gave a shout upstair his time I hadn’t bothered to take my walkman out with me. I had enough in my thoughts to keep my mind occupied. I was still on a little high from my night and the making out with Nicole I had done.

Once I got back inside, I went down to my bedroom, and turned on the radio, to listen to some music. Flipping through a few stations and getting only commercials, I decided to put a CD in. Tonight's choice ended up being a Def Leppard CD, Adrenalize.

With the music playing, I changed out of my clothes and climbed into bed, and was, as usual, just wearing my boxer briefs to bed. I let the CD play in the background for a little while before sleep finally overcame me.

It was about ten the next morning, when I woke up. Pulling on a pair of shorts and t-shirt I took Grizz out for his morning walk. Once I was back from that, I decided to go out for a run. The time out on the road could do me some good. It did give me a chance to think about how things were going with Nicole. I liked her. I liked her a lot. I had still only known her for a couple of weeks, so I didn't have any illusions of whether we were set for anything long term, but I'd enjoy whatever we would have together.

Most of the rest of the morning, and into the afternoon, went fairly typically for me. After getting back from the run, I'd showered and gotten cleaned up before making some macaroni and cheese for lunch. My two sisters were already out of the house somewhere, so, once again, it was just me. After I'd had my lunch I did a few errands around the house, cleaning up a little. I was, by no means, a neat freak, but I had to make sure things like my dirty clothes were put up where they belonged, that my clean laundry was put away and basic things like that.

I had chores too, that needed to be done on a regular basis. Each of us kids was responsible for vacuuming one of the levels on the house, as well as our own room. Since there were four levels and three kids, we also each had an additional duty to even things out. In my case it was also vacuuming each of the stairs. Since I had time, and also didn't want anything to mess up my plan for tomorrow, I went ahead and got my vacuuming taken care of.

Once I had the cleaning done, I gave Josh a call, to let him know that everything was still good for our plan, to meet at KFC the next day. The conversation went quick, as it seems to with most guys on things like that. Teenage girls could talk on the phone for hours, and still have things to say to each other. Most of the guys I knew, and I was included, would usually just keep a typical conversation short and sweet. Well, at least when it was with another male. When it was with a girl, I'm sure I could drag it out longer. I'd already had a time or two where I'd talked to Nicole for a half hour or more on the phone, and that was even after we'd just left each other.

I still had a little bit of time before I was planning on leaving for work, so I started up some music; today's choice being a Chicago CD that was full of mostly relaxing music. While the music played, I thought a little about how things had changed for me. As of last night, I had my first girlfriend. In thinking about it, I probably already had a crush on her at this point. She wasn't the first I'd had a crush on, that went to a girl I went to school with named Megan. The two girls actually looked somewhat similar, but I didn't think there was anything really noteworthy in that. Megan and I were friends; I'd even danced with her during some of the school dances. I could even remember a time where she'd actually asked me to dance, while we were still in junior high. Thinking back on it, that may have been a sign that she'd been interested in me. I tried to make a mental note of it, as something that could be useful, if or probably when things ended between Nicole and I.

I was a realist about Nicole and me. By no means, did I think that she was going to be the girl I'd be with the rest of my life. That type of thing only happened in the old stories; that someone would find and fall in love with their first love interest. I was still just in high school, people could change a lot over the few years we had in high school. It did have a romantic thought to it, of course, but that was the type of thing from a story book ending.

Once the CD ended, though, I took a look at the time. It was almost 2:30 now, and I had to be to work at 3:00. Shutting the radio off, I changed into my work clothes, and then went out to get in the car and head to work. On the way in to work today, I had to stop to fill the car up with gas, so in the process of stopping at 7-11, I also picked up a 1 liter drink to take with me. Pulling into the employee lot, I parked the car and walked into the office, looking around for a minute, until I'd spotted Nicole. Going over to her, I slipped an arm around her waist.

We were only there waiting for a couple of minutes; we actually didn't talk much, beyond just asking how the other had slept. The rest of it was just spent enjoying being together, being close. Once the night's game assignments were given out, we had to head to our respective games. Once again, it seemed like we'd been assigned to games at opposite ends of the park. We ended up parting with a quick hand squeeze and a promise, that we'd see each other before the night was over, at the least.

Tonight I'd ended up getting assigned to a throwing game. It was one where you had to knock down three targets in three throws. Each of the targets was plastic surrounded by a fur type border, which made it look bigger than what it actually was. Of course people could tell that the border wasn't solid, so they knew to try to aim for the center, but it was still hard enough that it was easy to miss.

One of the nice things about this game was that it was fairly easy to work with; there was a rope that you pulled, which would stand the targets back up for you. Another nice thing about it was the presence of the balls themselves. If you got bored while you worked, you could toss one around or throw at the targets to show how it was done.

The night, as a whole, went fairly quickly, though; not really much going on beyond a few people I knew walking by and saying hi. I saw Tenille and Tanya go by together. From what they'd told me, they were going to go out and see the Shawshank Redemption, later that night. We'd talked for a few minutes, and I'd told them to tell me what they thought of the movie when I saw them again.