say hello wave goodbye

10: it's true the two of us are back as one (1997)

May 1997

"So. I was thinking."

Stevie chuckles. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"It is. I'm pretty sure." He doesn't know why he's so nervous, like he's asking her out for the first time. Of course, he was nervous then too. It was a little ridiculous to be that anxious about inviting her to a movie, considering that they'd already slept together multiple times, but he remembers being convinced that asking her on a real date would be the tipping point where she came to her senses and realized that she could do so much better than him. She said yes to him then, though, and he's hoping she'll say yes to him this time too. "I'm. Ah. What are you doing the weekend after we tape the show? Your birthday weekend."

"Nothing that I know of...yet," she says.

She sounds curious, and he counts that as a win. Come on, Buckingham, get it together. He tries to tell himself that it's unlikely she changed her mind about wanting to have sex with him in the past few hours, because it sure seemed like that was where they were headed earlier that evening. They had snuck back to her dressing room after rehearsal and he had her up against the door as soon as it closed behind them, attacking her neck with his mouth while one of his hands traveled under her blouse and groped at her breast like a horny kid in the backseat of his parents' car. Good thing she was into it. Or maybe not so good, because the sounds of her little giggles and gasps were enough to attract Karen's attention from out in the hallway, which put an end to the fun. "I'm glad. Cause I was kinda hoping you'd go somewhere with me."

"Oh yeah? Where?"

"Honestly? I don't care. I just- we've been so busy, and that's our only chance to really have some downtime for a while, and-"

"Lindsey," she says, and he can hear amusement in her tone.

"Yes?"

"Just say you want to go somewhere so that we can have a lot of sex without being interrupted."

"That is...exactly what I want," he admits. "We've been waiting so long, and so once we finally...I don't want any distractions for the next few days after that."

"Days, huh?" she asks, her voice going from amused to sultry. "I like how that sounds."

"So is that a yes?"

"Well, I don't know." He sits there silently, frozen and slightly open mouthed, until she continues. "I mean, that kinda sounds like a thing that couples do."

"I...yeah? I guess?" What is she getting at?

"And we're not a couple, at least not yet. So don't you think you're forgetting something?"

He can tell that she's smiling, so he knows she's not shutting him down outright, but he's still baffled. His Stevie never did come with an instruction manual. "Babe, if-"

"For God's sake, Lindsey, just ask me if I'll be your girlfriend so that I can say yes."

"What am I supposed to say- 'do you want to go steady with me'?," he teases, able to relax now that he's no longer worried about being rejected. "Because I don't think I ever actually asked you that."

"You didn't. I told you to go break up with your girlfriend so that we could be official, and then that night you came back to my apartment and said 'well, I guess I'm your boyfriend now.' So this is your chance to do it the proper way. I'm not going to go running off with some guy I'm not even dating! What kind of woman do you think I am?"

"Is this something I'm even allowed to do over the phone? I don't want you bitching later on because I didn't ride up to your door on a white horse and hand you five dozen roses," he says, fully prepared to do just that if that's what it's going to take.