– Scotch –
Dixie’s Ice Cream
“Wake up, losers. It’s time to go.”
I kick Angelo in the ribs as he cozies up in his sleeping bag on my bedroom floor, then I step over Luc and accidentally kick him in the ribs too. It’s not uncommon for the guys to sleep at my house, and the thick carpet my mom insisted my dad save for a decade means the floor is barely a hardship for them.
Angelo rolls over and grumbles as his long hair fans over his face. “Piss off, Turner.”
“Dixies is waiting. It’s ten a.m. and you know my mom will be up here with the vacuum any minute anyway.”
“Your mom is a pain in my ass,” Luc grumbles, snuggling up to his pillow like it was a big breasted bimbo while his white blonde hair spikes in a thousand different directions.
“That’s not what you said when she served roast beef up to your ungrateful ass last night.”
Luc meets my gaze with his own smartass smirk. “I love your mama, dude. Best cook I ever met.”
“So get up, Slim Shady. Go tell her thank you, then brush your hair cause we’re going out.”
He grunts and rolls over onto his hands and knees, then lifting his sleeping bag, he climbs out and stumbles across the hall to the bathroom.
One down. Two to go.
“Angelo. I won’t tell you again, bro. I have places to be and if we get there too late, Dixies will get busy and Sassy might serve me.” I shudder at the thought. “Ain’t no one taking my cash except Sammy.”
“I think you have a genuine illness,” he grumbles. “It’s not possible that you saw a chick and fell in love. I’m calling bullshit, bud. I’m saying she’s a shiny unavailable toy that you’d have forgotten about two years ago if she didn’t put up a fight.”
I watch him turn over and sit up as his hair falls into his face. I wait for him to scrub at the sleep boogers in his eyes, then meet my gaze again. “No. She’s not a toy and she’s not a passing phase. She’s my forever. You’re just jealous I found her already and you’re still looking.”
He shrugs the way he has a thousand times before when I speak of Sammy Ricardo. “We’re seventeen, bud. I don’t need my forever now, I just need to find a chick who’ll let me touch her boobs. And as far as your forever, I don’t believe you, but I’m your best friend, so--”
“So you’re on my wings. Atta boy. Get up, go take a piss, be downstairs in ten.”
“For fucks sake.” He climbs up from the floor and stumbles around, pulling his pants over his boxer shorts and sniffing shirts to see which is cleanest.
Twenty minutes later, the guys and I are cruising in Ang’s old Dodge Charger while Pearl Jam cries about car accidents and dead lovers, and we pull up out front of the ice-cream parlor that boasts a six-foot plastic ice-cream cone out front. Luc kicks it on the way past as he grumbles about the weird smile the plastic statue shoots at us, and Marc smacks him on the back of the head because we know the owner of the parlor, obnoxiously known as Ms. Dixie, will beat our asses for touching her ice cream man / possibly inanimate lover / fake boyfriend… Again. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s called the cops on us for assaulting her man. And it’s definitely not the first time my dad has had to fake a professional face and tell us off while inside he’s laughing about how creepy Ms. Dixie is about the damn statue.
We walk into the black and white floor and walls checkered parlor, and while the rest of the guys wander to the booths on the far wall, my eyes instantly land on Sammy’s. She knows I’m here too. I’m unable to take my eyes from hers as they stare right back at me. Her bottom lip moves between her teeth, that perfect rose blush fills her cheeks, and her hands shake as she attempts to scoop ice-cream while she watches me.
Yeah. She’s not unaffected by me.
“Hey there, Turner. How you doin’ today?”
My eyes snap momentarily to Sassy St James, with the long blonde hair and big boobs that I think for sure are at least half padded bra, then I shrug my shoulders in answer and look back to Sammy. I walk the last few feet toward the front counter and wait for her eyes to meet mine. “Hey Sammy. How are you today?”
Her hands continue to shake as she rings up the kid before me, then she rights the cutest – ugliest – little hat to ever grace her head. “Hey, I’m doing alright. What can I getcha?”
“Sleep well last night?”
The blush continues to color her cheeks as her eyes flitter over my face and chest. She nods softly. “Yeah, I slept well. I heard you and the guys put on a good show last night.”
“You asking after me, Ricci?” I shouldn’t tease her. I should just shut my damn trap and let her ask after me, but just the thought that she may be curious enough has my heart doing somersaults.
“Um, no,” she stammers and starts nervously wiping the clean counter. “Sassy was there, and she wouldn’t shut up about Luc when she came in today.”
Sassy wanders by us, scoffing and snapping a towel on Sammy’s ass. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sammy smiles a genuine we’re both on the inside of this joke and we’re the only ones here smile, and my stomach starts cartwheeling too. I want to be in on all of Sammy’s inside jokes. I want to be Sammy’s everything.
My friends and brothers may call it bullshit, they may call this a passing phase or a shiny obsession, but I know the truth. Love at first sight is a real thing, and I know with everything in my body that Sammy was destined to be mine. This shit was destiny, she was mine before she ever even walked into my lab class, and even if she’s not quite aware of it yet, I am and I know the damn truth.
I lean forward closely, so close, like I’m gonna tell her a secret, and like she expects me to whisper, she leans forward too. She smells like candy, like a rainbow of skittles. “I wanna take you out Sammy. One date. Take a chance on me. Don’t live a half-life. You’ll always regret it.”
Pulling away slowly, she shakes her head sadly and wipes the clean counter again. “I can’t. My parents would never allow it.”
“Are you not allowed to date, period? Or is it me?”
She nervously bites her bottom lip again. “Both?”
“What’d I do to your parents? They don’t even know me.”
She shrugs, not coldly, but as though she has simply accepted her fate. “They think they know you, and you’re officially on the no-fly list. I’m sorry.”
She’s breaking my damn heart. “Ricci--”
“And if you keep bothering me at work, I’m going to get fired.” Her desperate green eyes are pleading. “I begged my folks for this job and I need the cash. Don’t ruin this for me.”
My hand dives into my pocket and I pull out a twenty, the biggest note I have on me, and I shove it onto the counter in front of her. “Can I have a glass of water? Keep the change.”
She rolls her eyes. “Water’s free, Turner. Go take a seat and I’ll bring it over.” She picks the cash up and thrusts her hand back toward me. “Take your money. My treat.”
She laughs nervously at her joke, but I step away. “Whatever you’re so desperate to save for, I want to help. Keep the twenty, I’ll take the water when you have a moment. Don’t rush.”
I walk away before she finds a way to give my money back, but I watch her from the corner of my eyes to make sure she pockets the twenty and doesn’t give it to Sassy or throw it in some community tips bowl. That’s not how this is going down. That was my money and now it’s hers. Not Sassy’s, and absolutely not Dixie’s.
I sit down in a large booth with the guys and a couple girls from school that pounced as soon as they sat, and I lean forward and start organizing the sugar packets. The group have messed up the table, ripping napkins and spreading the sugar packets. I’ll be damned if Sammy has to clean up after these pigs.
I absentmindedly tidy and watch as customers trickle in and out and Sammy serves them with a big fat fake smile, then ten or so minutes later, she grabs a glass and starts filling it with tap water. Giddiness rolls through my stomach. It’s my turn.
The people at the table around me laugh and joke and reminisce about the party last night and parties of times gone by, but they’re just white noise in the background. What I really hear in my mind is the song I wrote for Sammy, and I watch her stride toward me without even realizing she’s matching her steps to the beat in my head. It’s a slow song with a deep bass, something a couple might choose as a first dance on the day they marry.
As far as I’m concerned, it’ll be the most romantic song ever written, because it’s about her and me.
Sammy’s brown hair doesn’t hang loose today. Dixie makes the girls wear it in a low ponytail and then plops an ugly hat on top, but she looks beautiful anyway. She looks amazing. She hasn’t changed all that much since the day I met her; her teeth have straightened a little and her hair has been cut and grown out a couple times, but she’s still all legs and long arms and clicky knees.
She places the tall glass down in front of me and her arm brushes along mine in a way I just know wasn’t by accident. “Here you go.”
I look up into her eyes, forcing her to meet mine for a long beat as her blush spreads through her cheeks and my stomach tumbles like a dryer set on scolding. “Thanks Sammy.”
Whitney giggles beside Marc. “Does anyone else think it’s weird that Sammy and Turner are together? It’s weird.”
“We’re not together--”
Luc snorts. “Hey Sam. Do you like green eggs and ham?”
He thinks he’s a funny fucker, but my eyes still haven’t left hers. I eat up the way her cheeks flush pink at Luc’s teasing.
“You should decide between the two of you who’s gonna change their name, because at the moment, they clash and it sounds like Turner’s whacking off alone every night.”
“Hey!” My head swings toward him. “You don’t speak that way in front of her.” I know he’s only teasing, it’s just who he is, but no one has permission to make her feel uncomfortable like that.
Sammy’s face has flushed a dark red, her mortification almost painful to look at. She’s different to us. She’s classier and more sheltered.
“It’s okay,” Sammy stammers and turns away. “I gotta get back to work.”
I watch her sprint away from us like her ass was on fire, then I turn back to Luc. “You’re a fuckin’ asshole.”
He grits his teeth. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to be funny.”
“Don’t. She’s not like us, Luc. You offend her when you speak that way.”
Whitney snickers. “That just makes her a prude, Turner. You said it yourself, she’s not like us. She’s a snob and a bitch.”
I glare at Whitney’s filthy mouth. “You call her names again and you’ll be blacklisted from The Shed.” Her eyes flare wide at my threat. To be blacklisted from The Shed is social suicide around here. “I don’t give a damn what you think, and I doubt she cares either. She’s not a prude and she’s not a snob, she’s better than any of us.”
Angelo lets out a deep breathy sigh. “I’m your best friend and I love you…”
His words instantly set my gut on fire. Angelo doesn’t speak all that often, especially not in crowds, so when he does, it’s usually best to listen. But today, right now, I don’t think I want to hear what he has to say. “But?”
“But you have to get her off that pedestal of yours. No woman can possibly live up to the bar you’ve set her at. Not even she can live up to it. You’re setting yourself up for heartbreak.”
Deny, deny, deny. He’s wrong. “No.”
“I’ll always be here to catch you, bud. But I’d rather you didn’t fall.”
“No.” I stand from the booth. “You’re wrong. You’re not trying to be dicks, so I’ll always forgive you. But you’re wrong.” I walk away from the table and head across the store. I have shit to do today anyway, so I walk by the front counter. “I’ll see you Monday, Sammy.”
Her startled eyes snap up to mine. “You’re leaving early.”
Yeah. She definitely watches me as much as I watch her. I scratch the back of my neck nervously, because I want to impress her, but, “Yeah, I have some make up math tests I have to study for, and my friends are annoying me, so…”
Sammy’s eyes flitter across my face as she studies me. “You’re struggling in math?”
“Yeah. I failed the last two tests, and if I don’t do better, I won’t have enough credits to graduate. Plus, my mom and dad said if I don’t pull my head out, I’ll be banned from playing at The Shed.”
She smiles softly, then at a loud ruckus behind me, she watches over my shoulder for half a beat. “It’d be a tragedy if you had to quit the band. There’d be a riot.”
“Ha. Yeah. Wouldn’t wanna disappoint my legions of fans… Anyway.” I wait for her eyes to come back to mine. “I have to go, so I’ll see you at school, okay?”
She nods slowly and wrings a hand towel between her hands. “Okay.”
“Sleep tight. And don’t bother going back to their table. They’re idiots.”
She nods again as a sneaky smile lifts the side of her lips. “Okay. Happy studying.”