Dare Me

|17|

To Allie's surprise, she really likes Keith's chick; A sentence she'd never thought would come to her mind.

The wind rushes through the window and through her hair, caresses her face in a way that makes her want to close her eyes and feel every second of this moment. But instead of doing that, she finds she prefers looking at Keith instead.

His chin up, eyes concentrating on the road, their color looking a shade darker under the city lights. His black hair a little disheveled from the running before. Allie runs her eyes along the lines of his face, his nose and mouth and cheeck bones... she sees the hollow under his jaw and feels a strong desire to put her head there, close to his throat, and feel his skin vibrating from the beating of his heart.

She blushes from her thoughts and looks away. "Did you see Miss Ramona Thompson?" She asks to fill the silence, giving a faint smile as she recalls the dramatic reaction of her teacher.

"I wasn't focused on the crowd..."

"Oh. Well, I think she might force you to come to our theater classes now," Allie jokes, wondering if he implied something but what he said before. Was he focused on her?

Keith shrugs and gives Allie a short look before looking back on the road. "This year will be over soon, and then we'll finish high school... It's a bit too late for her. "

"True. What colleges did you apply to?"

"None, actually," Keith says, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.

Allie tries to hide her surprise. Even though Keith likes to paint in classes, and sing Single Ladies to the math teacher... somehow Allie always thought he was taking his studies very seriously, and that he would probably go to a higher education right after high school. What is he planning to do instead?

"So you want to take a gap year..."

"Something like that," Keith mumbles.

There is an awkward silence for a few moments, and then Keith gives her a quick smile. "Hey, Allie?"

She raises her eyebrows in question.

"You were... pretty amazing today."

Excitement spreads over her again. He thinks she was good. "Thank you for pushing me to do it."

Keith scratches his chin. "Yes, now that I think about it, it's all me."

"Hey!" Allie says, pushing him lightly on the shoulder.

Driving alone with Keith.

Usually this thought would've freaked out every atom in her body, but now that they've experienced so many things together, for the past 24 hours, it feels... natural. She can hardly believe how her life looked just two days ago, and she no longer thinks she would be able to get back to them at the end of this game - now that she knows how it feels to be around him, free like that.

Like being herself again.

The way he looks at her makes her feel strong, more confident. Keith doesn't say sentences like "it's not for you," or "you can't take such a dare," unlike her best friends...

"Oh, no!" Allie jumps up in her seat.

"What?" Keith asks, panic in his voice.

"I completely forgot about Maisy and Lane."