Once When You Were Mine

Chapter Eleven

"I know we've got to move somehow, but I don't want to lose you now..."

                                                                -"This is the Time," Billy Joel

"Did you and Austin finally talk?" Dave asked. We were on our way to the supermarket to pick up the cake for Austin's party.

"Yeah, we did." I turned the car into the parking lot.

"Thank God." He breathed a sigh of relief. "I was afraid we were going to have to cancel the party. So what did you say when he told you? I hope you went easy on the poor guy. He's got it pretty bad for you."

"What?" I put the car in park and turned the ignition off before I looked over at Dave in disbelief. "What?" I repeated.

"You mean he didn't tell you?" He looked sick.

"Well, we both apologized and he told me he was afraid of losing my friendship."

"Yeah, right, that's what I meant," he tried to cover. He went for the door handle.

"Not so fast," I grabbed the sleeve of his green ski jacket.

He slumped. "God, Austin's going to kill me. You can't breathe a word of what I said," he warned.

"A word of what? I'm not really sure what you're saying. What did you mean, 'Austin's got it bad for me'?"

"What do you think it means? Hello?" he tapped my forehead. "Anyone in there? The boy is in love with you."

"That's impossible!"

"Well, what exactly did he say to you?"

I relayed as much of our conversation as I could remember. As I talked, I had a sneaking suspicion that I had totally missed everything that Austin had been trying to tell me. How dense could I have been? How long had I been totally oblivious to something that was obvious to everyone but me?

Dave opened the car door. "Just don't be too hard on the guy when you shoot him down."

"What do you mean, 'shoot him down'?"

It's not like you have feelings for him, right?" Dave got out of the car and slammed the door, leaving me still sitting inside.

All of a sudden I wasn't so sure.

Dave and I walked into the store and two feet from the entrance was Austin talking on a payphone. Before we could think about taking evasive action, he saw us and gestured us over. Dave and I looked at each other. "You keep him busy and I'll go get the cake," I whispered. I waved and pointed vaguely at another part of the supermarket. Dave walked over and when I saw them start to talk, I took a detour over to the bakery.

When I got to the counter, I told the girl my name; she went in the back to look for the cake, then called loudly, "Is yours the one with the big 'A' on it?"

"Yes," I called back, cringing inwardly and looking around wildly for Austin and Dave, relieved to see that they were nowhere in sight. It was a good thing Dave had been able to keep Austin diverted. That crack about the 'A' would have been a dead giveaway. The girl tried to put the cake in one of those boxes with the little window.

"Um, can you put the cake in a box without a window?" I asked. The girl rolled her eyes and went into the back to search for another box. I felt bad, but I didn't want to have to worry about Austin accidentally seeing what was written on the cake.