Ashley Elston - 10 Blind Dates

Wes has a fake outraged look on his face. “You mean the date with Judd isn’t in the running for first? I’m shocked!”

“Yes, shocking, I know.”

“So which date is the best kisser? My money’s on Hundred Hands.”

I duck my head so he doesn’t see the blush.

He leans forward and lowers his head, trying to catch my gaze. “Don’t tell me you’ve had all these dates but no good-night kiss.”

I straighten, and then he’s so close. I push his shoulder playfully, but my hand lingers there. Before I can pull it away, his hand covers mine. We’re both surprised, but neither of us moves. His eyes go to my lips and he squeezes my hand. I catch myself leaning closer to him.

Warning bells blare through my brain, but I can’t stop.

The sound of the door opening behind us is what does it. I push back, nearly falling off the step I’m sitting on. We both look shocked at what almost happened.

I glance to the door and see Nonna, alarm etched on her face. I jump up. I can feel Wes behind me.

“It’s not what it—” I begin, but Nonna interrupts me, her face softening.

“I just got off the phone with your mother. They’ve admitted Margot to the hospital. The contractions haven’t stopped, and her swelling is getting worse.”

My stomach drops, and it takes a few moments for me to process what she’s said. “Is she okay? Is the baby okay? This is too soon. She’s not supposed to have the baby for another six weeks!”

Nonna wraps me in her arms.

“It’s not the best situation, but she’s okay. The baby’s okay.”

She doesn’t say it, but I feel like she left off the words for now.

I barely slept last night. There’s been no chance to talk to Margot, but she did send me a text telling me not to worry. I talked to Mom for a while and she kept assuring me the same thing: Everything is going to be fine.

Olivia is asleep in the big guest bed with me. The room is still mostly dark with only a faint yellow light filtering in through the blinds, which highlights the rows of framed pictures on the opposite wall.

My grandmother has a portrait done of every grandchild when they turn two years old. We’re all dressed in really fancy little outfits that have our name monogrammed across the front as if she knew in advance how full this wall would get. My eyes scan from one side to the other, stopping once I find Margot. Her dark hair is short and she’s got these little ringlet curls all over her head. Her smile is big and her eyes are dancing. I wonder if Margot’s baby will look like her when he or she is two.

My throat clenches. I can’t stay in this bed any longer.

I slide out, careful not to wake Olivia, and tiptoe from the room. The house is quiet as I pass a pallet in the den full of my younger cousins, and I smile as I notice the tangle of arms and legs. I miss those uncomplicated days when our biggest concern was who was going to get stuck on the edge, where you were likely to end up off the pallet, onto the hardwood floor without a pillow or a blanket. Just like my little cousin Webb is right now.

I pull two blankets off the back of the couch, covering Webb in one and taking the other with me out to the front porch. Wrapping the blanket around me, then dropping down on the front steps, I lean back against the top step and watch the sky go from a deep blue to a warm yellow-orange and finally see the first edge of the sun peek out from the horizon. The air is just cold enough that I can see my breath when I exhale, but I’m warm, wrapped up in the thick blanket.

I glance at the house next door.

It’s probably a good thing that we were interrupted before we did anything stupid, I think. He’s got a girlfriend, and I’m in the middle of a nervous breakdown and dating half the town. But I can’t help but feel a small pang of regret.

The morning has been so quiet that it’s jarring to hear an engine barrel down the road and even more disturbing when a familiar truck pulls up to the curb.

Griffin has just parked in front of my grandparents’ house.

I’m frozen on the step as I watch him get out of his truck and walk up the brick path. His head is down, and he seems to be mumbling to himself. I take these few seconds to stare at him. His brown hair is a little too long, and it looks like he slept in the clothes he’s wearing. The pang in my chest is still as painful now as it was last Friday night at Matt’s party.

When he finally raises his head, he’s so startled that he jumps back and yells loud enough to wake the neighbors.

I can’t help but stare at him. Even after everything that happened, my heart starts beating faster and my palms get sweaty.

“What are you doing here?” I finally ask.

Griffin takes a few steps toward me but stops when he’s a foot or so away. “You wouldn’t talk to me. So I waited as long as I could. I have to talk to you.”

I tug the blanket even closer. After hearing about Margot, I feel like I’m about to fall apart, and seeing Griffin here is not making it any better. Half of me knows it would be so easy to close the distance between us; let him wrap his arms around me and chase away the sadness that seems to have settled just under my skin. It’s easy to ignore him when he’s thirty miles down the road, but seeing him here, looking at his sad face is harder than I imagined it would be.

“I told you, I’m not ready to talk to you yet.”

Griffin puts one foot on the bottom step, but I hold my hand out, stopping him before he can come any closer.

He digs his hands in his pockets and lets out a deep breath. “Please, Sophie. Give me ten minutes.”

“You can say what you want to say, but say it from down there.” I stand and walk to the top of the steps. I need some distance to sort through the tug-of-war going on inside of me right now.

“I screwed up, Sophie. I knew it the second I saw your face.”

I spin around to face him. “I heard you. You were so bummed I wasn’t leaving town. But you’re telling me that feeling changed ten seconds later?”

He throws his head back and his hands come up in front of him. “I’m saying that I’m going crazy. That I have been since you left Matt’s. That I see these pictures of you out with other guys and I want to rip their heads off. I mean, what is going on? There was a picture of you riding a mechanical bull in some formal dress. And then some crazy picture of you with…” His hands flail in front of him like he’s trying to come up with the words. “Lights!” he finally bursts out.

“So you’ve been bothered by seeing pictures of me?” And then I add for emphasis, “Having fun?”

He blows out a deep breath and starts pacing the width of the sidewalk.

I sit down on the top step and say, “I think you only want me back because you’ve seen me with other guys. Would you want me back if I had been tucked away in a room upstairs, crying for the past five days?”

His forehead scrunches up. “I texted you I wanted to talk before I saw the first picture of you with someone else.”

“But what about what you said that night? About how senior year should be fun?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I mean, we’ve both been so focused on school, and everything else came second. But the closer we get to graduation, the more I wonder about what we’ve missed. This year is almost over and everything is going to change and I just don’t know…”

It’s hard to hear what he’s saying. But it’s even harder to realize there is some truth behind his words. Being with Olivia, Charlie, and Wes this week has reminded me that I used to be different. When we were the Fab Four, things were fun and easy. And then somewhere along the way, schoolwork and clubs and making sure my transcript was perfect took over. I went from one extreme to the other.

And while I think Griffin may miss me, I don’t think what he was feeling has really changed.

“Hearing you say what you did was hard, but it made me start thinking, too,” I say. “I guess we both have a lot to figure out.”

He moves up one step. “I hate seeing you with the other guys, but it’s more than that. Don’t throw what we have away. We can figure it out together.” His voice has gotten louder, and I can’t help but glance back at the front door.

It would be so easy to get back with him. I could say yes and it would be done. But how long would he be happy? And can I go back to how things were before?

“Is everything okay?”

We both turn to see Wes standing in the grass just a few feet away. He’s in gray pajama pants with little Santa hats all over them, and a bright red T-shirt. Even with the thick tension hanging between Griffin and me, I want to giggle at his festive attire.

His eyes go from me to Griffin and back to me. “I heard yelling,” he says.

Griffin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, man, it’s fine. We’re just talking.”

Wes is still looking at me. I give him a small nod.

“Can we get a little privacy?” Griffin asks.

“If you wanted privacy, you shouldn’t have been yelling loud enough that I could hear it from next door.”

Griffin looks confused. “This isn’t one of your cousins?”

Gah, I know I have a big family, but we’ve been together a year. You’d think he’d know my family by now.

“No, Wes is an old friend.”

And then I see recognition on his face.

“The picture of you dancing. With him.”

I nod and look at Wes. “It’s all good. We’re just talking.”

Wes stands there a few more seconds. He starts to walk away, then stops and asks, “Any word on Margot and the baby?”