“Sorry to show up without texting first, but I was wondering if you’re up for a drive?”
“Sure.”
When we got out to the driveway, he opened the front passenger-side door of his Jeep for me, but that was nothing new. He always tried to open doors for both me and Annie when we went places together.
As we got settled, Gage jerked a thumb toward the house. “Who was the tool?”
I groaned. “Nicole’s boyfriend, Steven.”
His mouth twisted into a grimace. “Huh. She could do better.”
“Agreed.”
Gage stuck his elbow out the open window as he steered us down the street. He cleared his throat. “Uh, anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight.”
The corners of my mouth ticked up reflexively. “Like a date?”
Gage turned to me, smirking. “Yeah, a date.”
“Just me and you?” I teased.
Gage pulled to the side of the road near a park with a playground and walking trails. Shifting the Jeep into park, he turned in his seat to face me. His eyes were intense, the normally light blue a deeper shade than I’d ever noticed in them before.
“Yeah. Just me and you.” The meaning he injected into those words sent shivers down my back.
I smiled widely. “I would love to.”
The afternoon of graduation, my family dropped me off on the “visitor” side of Burger Stadium before parking and finding their seats. Burger Stadium was part of a centralized athletic center in south Austin. Because the schools in Austin didn’t each have their own football fields or basketball arenas, the sports teams from multiple high schools shared several large complexes. Burger was the largest, and also where I played my home soccer games throughout high school. It felt fitting to have my graduation ceremony on the same field I had spent so much of my time these last four years.
I entered the building and checked in, holding my graduation cap in my hand with my gown unzipped over my yellow ruffle dress. The PTA volunteers at the desk directed me to find my spot in the alphabetical line. I looked for Gage and Annie because the Cs wouldn’t be too far from the Ds.
I spotted Gage first, standing a head taller than most everyone around him. I skipped toward him, nervous for the day and excited to see him.
Over the last couple of weeks, Gage took me on two official dates. Fun ones, too. We went go-karting on our first date, followed by burgers and ice cream.
Then the following week, we kayaked to the Congress Avenue Bridge downtown at dusk and watched the bats that lived there emerge and fly away. He even packed us a picnic with all my favorite foods. When we finished eating, we rested back on the picnic blanket to see the stars. He held my hand, and we kissed—a sweet, gentle promise of a first kiss.
We hadn’t yet defined what we were doing, and I’d been holding back on talking to Annie because I didn’t know what she’d think of all this. But I was giddy at the direction my relationship with Gage had taken.
When Gage saw me approaching them at Burger Stadium, his face lit up with a wide smile. He held eye contact as I moved toward him.
But Annie got to me first, tackling me in an animated hug. “Can you believe it! Graduation!” she squealed.
“I know!” I squeezed her back and grinned. “I thought this day would never come.”
“I looked at the list, and I think there are only, like, ten people between us in the line. If we’re lucky it could work out so that I’m sitting in the row ahead of you on the field.”
“Ooh, perfect.” Gage approached us and I smirked. “As long as this guy isn’t sitting in front of me blocking my view with his big head.”
Gage didn’t laugh or even acknowledge my teasing. He slid his hand around my wrist. “I need to talk to you,” he said, tugging me away from Annie and the rest of our class.
I shot a puzzled look at Annie, but she only shrugged and smiled as Gage dragged me away.
He pulled me into an alcove and kissed me, his movements confident and determined. When we broke apart, I was breathless.
“You’re going to get us in trouble,” I teased.
He shrugged. “What are they going to do at this point? Not let us graduate? Besides, I need to ask you something important.”
