Chapter Twenty-Three
Another date, another chance for some yummy red flags.
Jove
Friday comes, bringing with it the culmination of a week’s worth of anticipation.
“Come in!” Lyra yells, voice muffled by the door. “It’s unlocked!”
“This is a massive safety concern!” I yell through the house as I enter, locking the door behind me. “I could be a big, bad, scary man!”
“You are a big, bad, scary man,” she counters, walking into the living room. “How much worse could it get?”
“Worse?” I ask, hand to my chest. “You wound me. I’m a good boy.”
She stops dead, blinking at me. “Right,” she says. “A good boy.”
I’d probably take offense to that if I weren’t so busy being absolutely flagging mesmerized by the golden star-shaped freckles dusting her cheeks.
She’s got matching shimmer on her eyelids, bringing out the golden hues of her otherwise grass-green eyes, and more stars grace her collarbones on either side of the dangling butterfly charm at the base of her neck, peeking out above a soft pink…
something. Surely that is not a dress. Dresses are of this earth, tainted by the dirt of this world.
What she has on… it’s ethereal. Angelic.
Flowing in wind that does not exist and laying so sweetly over curves that have me yearning.
For what, I’m not sure. But I know that I want it.
“You could bring a man to his knees,” I mutter, eyes caught on the waistband of her not-dress, where a teensy little 3D butterfly sits, about to take flight. “Where did you get that?”
She might blush. I can’t tear my eyes away to check.
“I special ordered it a few years ago,” she says. “From a woman a few towns over.”
“Oh?” I ask, eyes roving to her sleeves, which appear to be made from the delicate glass wings of fairies.
“I’ve never really had anywhere to wear it before, so I thought…” she trails off, and her fairy sleeve shifts as her arms wrap around her middle. “Well, I thought a date would be a good chance.”
Finally, my eyes make their way back to her face. Blushing, yes, an endearing pink nearly identical to the color of her clothing. Her eyes meet mine, then flick away, and the pink intensifies.
“You thought right,” I mutter. “I am blessed. Grateful beyond measure. Humbled.” I approach her, holding out my hand, and she takes it, bless all. “I love your stars and your butterflies. You look gorgeous, Lyra-love. The prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her smile is slight, but pleased.
“I’m not entirely sure how practical your outfit is for my plans, though. Do you have shorts underneath?”
Her eyes widen. “Are you asking about my underthings?”
“O-of course not!” I stutter. “I just wanted to know if you’d be covered for our activity!”
Her face, previously cooling down, beats red now. “I’m covered!” she squeaks .
“Great!” I respond, the opposite of squeaky. “We can go then?”
She nods and her feet click as she heads to the door. “We can go!”
My head drops to look at her shoes, and I almost do drop to my knees. So much string. So many teensy butterflies. So many peachy-pink toenails.
Flag, she’s adorable.
Somehow, I manage the walk to my truck without prostrating myself at her feet, begging her to let me worship. I even, miraculously, remember to open her door for her, sweeping cascading yards of fabric into my truck before closing the door, careful to make sure not an inch of fabric gets caught.
“Where are we going, anyway?” Lyra asks as I settle in behind the steering wheel and put the truck in drive.
“Go-karts!” I exclaim. “I called ahead this time to check. Definitely flags involved in go-karts. Specifically red ones. And checkered, but who cares about that?” Not the girlies, so not me.
“You called ahead?” she asks. “Did you also ask if any delinquent teens work there?”
“Delinquent teens aren’t an issue,” I answer. “I was a delinquent teen. The issue is stupid ones.”
“Is them doing something to Mars the only thing that qualifies them as stupid?”
“No,” I reply. “Doing something to you will also earn them the moniker.”
Her reply gets lost as we enter the parking lot for Trip’s Fun Emporium, where the go-kart course is located. Also located here are about five hundred speakers pointed into the parking lot blasting kid-safe pop music at full volume.
“What?” I yell over the music as I find a spot.
“I said,” Lyra yells back. “That it’s a good thing I don’t have any ongoing issues with any youths!”
I shrug. That’s what she thinks.
Inside, the volume decreases significantly, so I only have to half-yell to order our tickets.
“No bumping into each other. Don’t leave the kart on the track. Follow the flags,” the woman behind the counter rattles off, glancing at Lyra’s adorable toes. “And, miss, you can’t wear those shoes. Closed-toe only.”
“She’s wearing those shoes,” I reply, tucking our tickets in my back pocket.
“Oh, that’s o–”
“Sorry, sir. Policy,” counter woman says, interrupting Lyra. Rude.
I scowl. “She’s wearing those shoes,” I repeat.
“We have shoes you can rent over there.” She points to the far wall, next to an area taken up mostly by a bowling alley.
“She’s wearing–”
“Thanks!” Lyra cuts me off, shoving me toward the shoe counter. “We appreciate you!”
“I don’t,” I disagree. “She won’t let you wear your shoes. They’re cute shoes. They trail butterflies up your calves, and they match your outfit. You shouldn’t have to wear their ugly shoes to push a pedal in a kart.”
“I don’t mind,” she says. “It’s probably better, actually, because I won’t scuff them or get them dirty.”
I see her logic, and I hate it. “But they trail butterflies up your calves.”
“And they’ll trail butterflies up my calves later, too,” she says, gutting me. “It’ll be okay.”
“It won’t,” I insist. “I will be a starved man, deprived of all goodness, with naught but a patch of bare, smooth skin to get me by. How will I survive? Nary a butterfly in sight! ”
She snorts. “I have a butterfly on my belt and a butterfly on my necklace.”
“So few!” I complain.
“Oh?” she asks. “They aren’t enough? I should just take them off too?”
I halt. “If you take off that necklace, I will forcibly put it back on.”
Her brows rise. “Forcibly?”
“Correct. Forcibly. It belongs right there.” I point to the dip between her collarbones, where her comma lies. “Forever. Always.”
“Are you wearing yours?” she asks, apparently on a mission to offend.
I reach behind me, following the chain at my neck to the front and lifting until a matching comma to her own surfaces from my collar. “I’m always wearing mine. Like you should always be wearing yours.”
“I recall you saying something about it being up to me if I wore it or not,” she says. “When you gave it to me.”
“I was young. Stupid. Didn’t have any brain cells rattling around in my skull. I’m older now. Much wiser. Would never suggest something so moronic as free will when it comes to our friendship.”
“You’re really dedicated to this red flag thing, huh?”
“I am, but this has nothing to do with that. This is just good old fashioned character growth.”
“Character growth turned you into a controlling lunatic?”
“Yes,” I reply. “Character growth taught me control. As it should.”
Her head shakes, and she grabs my hand to drag me the rest of the way to the shoe counter. “Come on, Mr. Control. Let’s get me some appropriate footwear. For my safety. Did your character growth teach you anything about that? ”
“My top priority is safety,” I respond. “The safety of my sanity, mainly, which requires a dozen itty butterflies on each of your legs. Please.”
“You’ll have your sanity, Jupe, just as soon as we’re done playing with flags. You like the flags, yes? Pretty, pretty flags. So red. So shiny.”
Hmph. “Butterflies are better,” I pout.
“Of course they are.” She pats my arm, then lets her hand rest there as she tells the shoe man her size. The warmth of her fingers pressing through my shirt does much to comfort me, despite the loss of the butterflies.
Several minutes later we climb into our karts butterfly-free.
“Okay, folks!” a man in a white and black striped shirt and black slacks speaks into a microphone beside the lanes where Lyra and I sit in a line of go-karts filled with teenagers and children with stuffed shoes.
“My pit crew worker, Laura, will be by to check your seatbelts and ensure everyone’s safety before we start the race. ”
A surly looking brunette in an identical uniform stops by my kart, takes a cursory glance at my seatbelt, then moves on.
“If you see a yellow flag while you’re out there, go ahead and slow down for me, yeah? Red flags mean full stop and wait for instruction.”
I frown. I don’t like the sound of that. That feels like in case of emergency wording, not routinely we show you the red flags wording.
“White means last lap, and a Fun Emporium favorite – the checkered flag – means your race is over! When you see that checkered flag, go ahead and park your kart, then wait for this light right here-” He points to a stoplight above his head.
“-to stop blinking red before you exit the vehicle. Hands and feet stay inside at all times.” He smiles the smile of a man who makes minimum wage to corral children all day. “Happy racing!”
The light above his head turns green, and we take off.
I spend the first lap in shock, doing all that I can to keep up with Lyra, who must have been a NASCAR level racecar driver in a previous life. She zips. She zooms. She laughs .
The second lap, my shock leaves me, and I’m able to fully appreciate Lyra in this setting – wild, free, and high on kart fumes and life.
The third lap, I ram into the barrier on every turn, unable to keep my eyes off of her wide smile, the wind in her hair like a halo around her.
I commit these moments to memory. The beauty of joy on her face, the way it transforms her in that not-dress. The beating of my heart – too fast – and the goosebumps on my flesh. I memorize it all.
This moment.
This feeling.
This woman.
They never do wave the red flag, but I don’t notice. My vision is taken up by gold.