Pizza in the Rain Pt. III

Haven’t read parts I or II? Click here to read before continuing on!

I trembled as Justin pulled into the driveway. At last. Daniel burst out the doors and onto dry land without a second thought; Kevin glanced at us still in the front seats before following after him.

They had the pizza.

I sat still clutching my ginger beers before Justin nudged me again to get me to come inside. Reluctantly, I slunk out the vehicle and into the warm house where I hoped to bundle up and get cozy underneath some soft blankets. Except as I walked inside, I noticed how my trembling continued as a slight tremor—almost—and I knew I needed something to ground me, to bring me back to the solidness of reality. I stood in the doorway watching the guys scatter about; Kevin dried himself off whilst Daniel started setting the table. At least he had the courtesy to not begin eating without the rest of us. Justin was no where to be seen. I felt my traitorous heart sink a little, but ignored what it desired. Instead I did what felt safe.

“Hey, Kev?” My friend looked up from wiping his glasses in the tail of his shirt. “Can I…could you…would you just hold me for a sec? I need to calm down.”

Without hesitation, he crossed to me and wrapped his surprisingly strong arms around me. We still stood near the doorway, somewhat blocking the stairwell as Justin alighted. I glanced up to see he had changed his shirt to something a little more dry. He also carried a fresh towel and clean shirt. When his gaze met mine, I couldn’t read if it was hurt and betrayal simmering in his dark eyes. I turned to bury my face in Kevin’s chest, trying to ignore the question in his gaze. My heart thundered in my ears, and I feared Kevin would hear and know how I wished it wasn’t him holding me close.

I gently extricated myself, and Kevin gave me a quick glance to ask if I was okay. I nodded, then grabbed the towel Justin left for me on the coffee table. Wrapping it around my arms, I walked to the couch and laid down, burrowing under a not quite as soft as I would have liked blanket.

The lads continued with whatever tasks they had set themselves to, and then I overheard them sit at the table and wait. The murmuring indicated to me one, if not all, of them was determined to wait for me. Daniel was the first to ask, though, if I’d join them for dinner. I stayed firmly curled up in my tight ball and didn’t say anything. Finally after a few more minutes they started without me. As long as they left me some pizza I couldn’t care less if they had.

As I laid there, I went numb. Overwhelmed from what the evening had suddenly thrown me, I tried to disappear beneath the blanket and forget everything I just experienced. What I avoided most of all was the question sprouting in my heart: why did I suddenly feel strange around him?

A few more times, the lads attempted to get me to come eat with them, and so annoyed with their constant beckoning, I finally emerged.

I marched to the kitchen and grabbed one of my ginger beers which had been put into the fridge. How they got there, I did not know, but I didn’t care as I ripped off the lid and started chugging. When I finished, I let out the most boisterous, unladylike belch that would have gotten me in so much trouble if I were in front of my parents. Instead, I had just embarrassed myself in front of the one’s whom my parents always threatened me would be the most repulsed by my indelicate flaw.

“Sexy,” I heard from the dining room.

That was the last thing I’d ever expect a guy to say about my belching.

I glanced through the doorway and all the lads were smirking at me, but the widest grin came from Justin, who looked at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Oh, no.

Ignoring him and my traitorous heart, yet again, I fell on the pizza unleashing my ravenous appetite whetted by stress. I rolled my eyes at the thought that if he still found me sexy after watching me eat, then perhaps there was something more to it than mere jest.

After we all finished eating, we made our way back to our respective places where we sat during the study hour. I curled up on the loveseat by myself as Kevin started LEGO Batman. With the opening line, the lads were all laughing, most surprisingly Justin, who cackled. I soon found myself watching him react to the film the rest of the evening instead of the film itself.

As Bruce Wayne turned to see the new commissioner at a party, he was dumbstruck by the sight of Barbara Gordon. “I Just Died in Your Arms” by Cutting Crew played over the dialogue to betray his lovesick puppy eyes. With the song’s first chord, Justin fell out of his chair roaring.

Gone was the serious, stoic man I knew, replaced with a rambunctious school boy with a fantastic sense of humour, and somewhere deep, deep inside of me I wondered if he would look at me the way Bruce looked at Barbara—if he might “die” in my arms.

I was in awe. I had never witnessed such a transformation as I did with him, and it struck me that maybe everything I knew about Justin from our past three years of friendship—everything I thought I knew—was wrong.

The rest of the movie continued, but I could not keep my eyes open long enough after Justin returned himself to his chair. Somewhere between the Joker trying to take over the city and Batman trying to stop him I fell asleep.

When I woke, the movie was finished, the house dark, and someone was tucking me in. I looked up to see Justin standing over me. He whispered something about the blanket he just covered me with being a good blanket that would keep me warm before sitting on the floor beside me. As he did, Justin put his arms around my legs.

I freaked out.

Internally, I screamed. Externally, I was still too sleepy to reveal any reaction.

As someone who is shomer negiah, I don’t touch men who are not relatives. Justin knew I was shomer negiah, so as I lay there, I wrestled with that inevitable question which has historically done nothing but cause me problems: WHY?

Eventually, Justin, who was so exhausted he started falling asleep sitting up, moved his arm. I assumed he must have been too spent to really know what he was doing, but of course, my stupid mind kept asking, “But what if he wasn’t?”

Finally I found the energy to get up and slowly make my way for the door. Daniel was already asleep on the couch, and Justin had begun to snore. “Yeah–he’s just exhausted and doesn’t know what he did,” I kept telling myself.

Kevin followed me out to be sure my car started up fine and that I didn’t need anything else before making the trek home. Miraculously, the storm had cleared, so it would be an easier trip than to pick up the pizza. Before I left, though, I asked him to make sure Justin got some rest because he seemed worse off than I felt after our little adventure. He reassured me they all would be getting their beauty sleep. I thanked him for everything and then went on my way.

As I drove off and later fell asleep that night, I tried my best to not think about the weight of Justin’s arms laying over my legs, but as the morning came and with it a new day, and another day after that, then another and another—soon I couldn’t stop thinking about the boy I saw behind the man who laughed at all of LEGO Batman’s jokes, who called me sexy when I belched.

It’s a good thing, then, I married him as it’s been five years and I’ve never seemed to be able to stop thinking about him since.