24. Summer 19
As we round the corner onto our street at the end of our run, I turn to Andrew and excitedly shout, “I’ll race you to your house!”
I begin to take off, but he hollers back at me from behind. “Wait! No!” He gasps for air between words. “That’s not fair. Get back here. Besides, I’m much too tired to—” My pace falters a little, but as soon as he catches up with me, he takes off at a sprint. I should’ve known better than to trust Mr. Track Star!
I push off and try to catch up. We reach his driveway, and I’m only a pace or two behind him. “You are such a cheater!” I shove him as a smile spreads across my face.
“What do you want to do with the rest of the day? We are supposed to have thunderstorms this afternoon.” Andrew glances up at the sky. “It looks like the dark clouds are already rolling in.”
“I think we should sign up for the race today. It’s already almost the end of July. The race is in two weeks.”
He groans. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m in good enough shape.”
“You just ran five miles with me. The race is only a 5K. That’s barely over three miles,” I argue.
He gives me a very serious look. “The mud adds at least three miles to the distance of the race. Everyone knows that.”
“Oh, is that so?” I inquire, glaring at him and trying hard not to let through the smile that’s attempting to creep onto my face.
He nods matter of fact, and my face betrays me as that dang smile shines through. As if that isn’t enough, a giggle slips out too.
He swoops me up into his arms and twirls me around for a second, and my laughter grows. I watch as his face goes from very serious to filled with elation in less than a second.
Things have been going very well for us over the last few weeks. We’ve been training hard for the race, ramping up our distance to well beyond what we will be running just because we both enjoy being out here so much. We’ve exchanged lots of books and music recommendations and spent almost every waking moment with one another. Andrew even began writing again and shared part of his stories with me. They’re amazing.
The only issue is we have about three weeks left until Andrew and I have to go back to school, and we have been completely avoiding the topic. We have done long-distance before as friends but not while we are in a relationship, and our schools are a six-hour flight apart. It’s not the same as living next door to one another all summer.
I think we both realize that, but we have been having such a great time together this summer that neither one of us wants to bring it up.
“We can sign up for the race today. But that will take what… Five minutes? What about the rest of our day? Anything you have in mind?”
I think about it for a moment. “There’s nothing on my ‘really living list’ that we would do indoors.”
He nods. “I have an idea. My parents are leaving in a couple of hours for a client meeting in New York. I’ll have the house all to myself until tomorrow afternoon, but I’d like some company.” He looks at me with sweet puppy-dog eyes.
“I think I can help with that.”
A sly grin blooms on his lips. “I have to get everything ready, so you can come over around four.”
“Four?! It’s only nine o’clock. What am I going to do with the rest of my day?” I challenge.
“Alright, you can come over and I’ll make you some eggs, but then I’m kicking you out! I have big plans!” He winks.
About ten minutes before five, I wrap on the Martins’ door quickly. The rain begins seeping through my coat despite the fact I was only out in the rain for about twenty to thirty seconds.
The sound of music drifts through the door, followed by Andrew’s footsteps coming toward me. He swings the door open, and I throw myself into his arms, squeezing him tight and covering his lips with mine.
“Gosh, I missed you,” I say to him.
“You’re early! And you’re soaked!” He laughs heartily and then kisses me back. “It’s only been a few hours since I’ve seen you. You missed me already?”
“Is it so bad if I did?”
He shakes his head knowingly. “No, it’s definitely not. I missed you too,” he admits as he places another lingering kiss on my lips before grabbing my hand and immediately taking me to his bedroom to get a shirt that isn’t completely soaked through.
As we walk back upstairs, he hesitates before bringing me into the kitchen. “Now bear with me. I lost track of time, and things aren’t really ready.”
I immediately become aware of the smell throughout the house. Is that bread? Then, I see the mess that is the kitchen. My mouth drops open and my eyes pop out of my skull like in the cartoons.
“Oh my gosh! Your mom is going to kill you!” I burst into laughter.
There’s flour all across the counter and the floor. It is even tracked from the kitchen to the front door. There’s a mixer on the counter, what looks like a pasta maker, and several open jars of tomato sauce that have dripped across the counter and stove.
Andrew gives me a sheepish grin. “I’ll clean it up.”
I take in the scene once more. “What are you making?”
He gives a self-deprecating chuckle. “What haven’t I made? I started off trying to make pasta from scratch, but that appears to be a total failure. I was going to make homemade bread and then make garlic bread with it, but now that the pasta is a failure, I just have a loaf of plain bread that may or may not have way too much yeast in it.”
He pulls a mountainous loaf out from the fridge of all places. Just from seeing it, I can tell he definitely let some instant yeast over-rise in that bread.
He looks at me with sorrow in his eyes. “I’m sorry. This was supposed to be a perfect homemade meal for you, and I’m ruining it. I would’ve asked you to come later if I had noticed what time it was.”
I caress his face in reassurance. “It’s okay, Andrew! Honestly, seeing you mess something up makes me feel a little better. I’ve been kind of spoiled lately.” I give him a teasing smirk. “How about we make something together? That would be fun!”
He perks up slightly. “Okay. What would you like to make?”
I look around the kitchen and begin checking the fridge and pantry for ingredients. “I know we already had pizza on a date, but it looks like we’d have all of the ingredients to make a pizza from scratch.”
He nods excitedly. “That sounds great! Hang on, let me at least get the mood right in here, the way it was supposed to be.”
I watch him glide across the room to grab a lighter out of the drawer. He begins lighting some candles sitting on the windowsill that I hadn’t noticed before. He lights more on the kitchen table and across the entertainment unit in the living room. Then he shuts the kitchen lights off and closes a few blinds to shut out the last bit of light slipping through the stormy clouds. We are left enveloped in just the soft glow of candlelight.
“It’s beautiful.”
I can see the pride shining through on his face. “What do we need to do first for the pizza?”
I inspect the ingredients already on the counter. I grab the yeast, flour, oil, and salt, setting them close to the mixer. “I’ll measure out the yeast. You get me two cups of hot water.”
“Yes, ma’am!” He salutes me and goes to fill the water.
The edges of my mouth turn up as he turns away.
After the yeast mixture turns frothy, I have him begin measuring out cups of flour while I measure out the salt and oil and search for a pizza stone.
Giving Andrew sole responsibility for the flour was my first mistake. He pulls a cup out of the bag, overflowing with flour, and levels it off, spreading more flour across the already powder-covered counter.
“Do you need help?” I laugh.
“No! No! No! I’ve got this,” he insists.
As he scoops the last cup, he takes his powdered hands and flicks them at me, caking me in flour. I shriek in shock and narrow my eyes at him as he grabs my waist and pulls me toward him, pressing a big white handprint on the waistband of my joggers.
“Andrew! You’re getting flour all over me!” I reach past him for the bag, sticking my own hands in the flour and then pressing them to his cheeks as I kiss him.
The look of shock on his face makes me giggle. “Oh, that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” He scoops another handful of flour and flicks it at me, covering my entire front side.
I gasp and try to reach for more flour from the bag, but he blocks me. I settle for scooping flour off the counter and swatting it in his direction just as he grabs me by the hips and lifts me onto the counter. He steps between my legs and kisses me tenderly, making me completely forget the intense flour fight we were just having.
I swoon as he says with a sly grin on his face, “I like making pizza with you.”
“Me too,” I reply, pulling him back to me for another long, slow kiss.
An hour later, we have mostly cleaned up the kitchen and ourselves. We devoured our pizzas. They were nothing fancy, but they were made with passion and love, making it some of the best pizza I’ve ever had.
I pull the plastic cleaning gloves off my hands. “I have another song to show you. Can I queue it up?”
“Sure,” he hands me his phone between drying dishes.
I quickly search for the song I’m looking for as I realize the one currently playing is about to come to an end. I swipe over to add it to the queue and tell him, “Listen to the words. I think you’ll like the song, but the words remind me of myself.” I laugh nervously.
The song begins. Several lines in, I quickly interject, “Here comes the part I like!” I sing along.
Andrew’s grin breaks wide as he watches me lovingly. “Is that all you need? A little dancing around the kitchen? Some hugging and kissing?” He quotes the song.
He wraps me up in his arms again, and we are dancing along to the song. The song is too upbeat for slow dancing, so Andrew has a little hop in his step that’s awkward but cute. I giggle with him as he spins me around and then pulls me in for a kiss.
“I like the song.”
I beam softly, ignoring the fluttering feeling in my stomach as he takes me in with his beautiful blue eyes. I swear they can see into my soul, but the amazing part is, he sees my whole soul and still thinks it’s beautiful.
“I have a song for you too. Hopefully, you don’t know it because it isn’t very new.” He queues up the song and sings along with Tim McGraw about how I’m both his lover and his best friend.
My heart swells as I listen to the sweet words. There’s something about that song that resonates with me. I think it has to do with the way Andrew and I are even better in a romantic relationship because we are best friends.
We continue going back and forth for almost half an hour before he finally pauses the music. “It’s about time for the grand finale,” he announces.
“What grand finale?”
He scoops me up and carries me piggyback into the bonus room where I see for the first time a huge pile of pillows and blankets on the couch.
“We are going to build a fort,” he says, clearly trying to hold in his excitement.
I look back and forth between the pile of blankets and Andrew. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. I remember how excited you were when I told you the story last summer about building a fort to read in. I thought it’d be fun to do together sometime, and seeing how the weather outside is absolutely crummy, there’s no better time than now.”
I give him a big smile and a tight squeeze before rushing to attack the pile. “Okay, you go grab some chairs, and I’ll grab some chip clips to hold the blankets up,” I say, hardly containing my excitement.
He kisses me on the forehead before rushing to the dining room.