The Trouble with Kissing Connor

Chapter 12 (Connor)

It felt good to have my head on Sadie's shoulder. She felt warm and familiar, and, for the first time that day, I felt a bit better. We sat like that for what seemed like hours, our legs hanging off the tree, swinging in unison.

Sadie was wearing her old Adidas sneakers. The once-white laces were now brown and the sole looked worn on one side. Her dad could probably buy her a sneaker factory, and here she was, in the same pair of sneakers she'd been wearing for the last two years. I bumped her foot with mine intentionally and she kicked it back. We played like that for a while, and I don't know why, but it really put me at ease, that is until my stomach rumbled and reminded that me I hadn't eaten.

"What's the time?" I asked, lifting my head off her shoulder.

"Um..." Sadie pulled her phone out of her bag. "One o'clock."

"Seriously? We've been sitting here for two hours?"

Sadie looked at me and nodded. Her hair was flattened on the one side from where my head had been pressed against her. It looked totally ridiculous, but so Sadie.

"Yup. Two hours." She pocketed her phone and with one swift movement swung her legs and jumped out of the tree. "I'm starving."

"Me too."

I joined her and we both started walking instinctively toward my house—the place we usually went to avoid Sadie's mother's fat free, fun free, taste free pantry. But, when I realized where we were going, I stopped.

"Let's go somewhere else," I said. "I don't feel like going home."

"Giovanni's?" Sadie asked, a huge smile spreading across her face.

"Dude. Yes!" I smiled back.

Giovanni's is our other favourite place. It's this dark and dingy pizzeria in an old strip mall just a few blocks from our street. No one from our neighbourhood dares eat there, it's on the 'wrong side of the tracks' as Sadie's mother once pointed out to us. As if she thinks it's in the middle of the violent ganglands, when actually it's just in the neighbouring suburb.

Sadie and I have a theory about Giovanni's though. It's never full. It's only patrons are a group of old Italian men that sit in the corner smoking cigars and playing cards all day. We're convinced the place is front for the mafia and they use it to launder money, or something exciting like that. How else could it have stayed open all these years?

Brett, Sadie and I even went there for Sadie's seventeenth birthday and as always the whole place was empty, apart from those smoky Italian card-players. The middle aged guy running the place didn't think twice about plying us all with Sangria. He didn't care that we were clearly underage. After the Sangria, he brought out the Grappa and the three of us proceeded to get properly pissed for the first time in our lives. The Italians in the back started toasting Sadie and it got pretty rowdy. Before we knew it, they had pushed the tables to the sides and created an impromptu dance floor.

A smirk came across my face at the memory of it. Sadie snapped me out of it.

"Oh my God," she said, burying her face in her hands. "I know what you're thinking about. Stop it."

"I still can't believe you danced with that guy." I burst out laughing at the memory of Sadie doing the Rhumba, or whatever you call it, with a sixty-year-old mafioso.

"Well, it's not like there were lots of willing dance partners that night. I had to take what I could get."

"You could've danced with me." I winked at her and she stopped walking for a second and looked at me strangely.

I stopped walking too and faced her. "What?"

"You didn't ask me to dance."

"I shouldn't have to Sadie. I'm game to dance with you anytime."

"Mmmm..." she grunted. She looked like she didn't believe me.

"I'll dance with you right now if you want."

"Here?"

"Yeah. Right here on the pavement, in front of the passing cars."

"You're crazy."

"My parents are getting divorced. I'm allowed to be," I said, as I grabbed Sadie by the arm and spun her around. I tried to pull her into a dip like they do on all those TV dance competitions, but It didn't quite work. Sadie's head crashed right into my chest. To keep us from stumbling, I grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her towards me and then...

A strange feeling ploughed into me. We both stopped laughing and looked at each other, and then suddenly both pulled away at the exact same time.

What was that? But before I had time to think about it–

"Pepperoni with extra cheese?" she asked, looking away from me and straightening her shirt.

"Uh...yeah, sure."

"Come on. Let's go." She ran off ahead of me.

**

When we finally got home from our pizza binge that afternoon, Sadie's mother was having a rather dramatic shit fit about Sadie skipping school. They'd phoned the house, and her mom was now threatening to send Sadie to that all girls boarding school again and wanted to know if she was doing drugs. Sadie's mother was one of those people who always jumped to the worst and wrong conclusions. Like the time Sadie got a stomach bug after coincidentally spending the day swimming in the lake. Her mother was convinced she's picked up some kind of aquatic parasite and rushed her off to the doctor.

I didn't want to, but to help Sadie out, I reluctantly told her about my parents and explained that Sadie was just being a good friend. At that, her eyes lit up like the 4th of July. Gossip! It's what this lot lived for. And now she had some. She suddenly grabbed me and pulled me in for a hug.

"Connor, I am so sorry. So terribly, terribly sorry," she said over and over. I didn't know what to think. Maybe she seriously cared?

Sadie's mom finally let me go, took a deep breath, and looked at me with sad patronizing eyes. Then she proceeded to pummel me with a million questions. I answered as best as I could, looking to Sadie for help. She tried her best to rescue me, but with every attempted interruption, came another question from her mother.

All I could picture was Sadie's mom on the phone notifying the whole neighbourhood, suburb, city, country, and galaxy. If the news got out, it would keep the gossipmongers busy for a while. The last thing I wanted was for people to start looking at me like I was some kind of 'at-risk youth.'

When I finally got out of there, Sadie followed me to the door.

"Hey. Remember tomorrow night," I said, as I stepped outside.

Sadie looked at me for a moment or two, confused. How could she have forgotten?

"Uhh, the party. My house. Remember? You, me, Brett, Brenna and her friends. You have some mystery-mint snooping to do."

Sadie's face fell, and suddenly she looked distant and strange. "You still want to do that?"

I flashed her a big smile. "C'mon, you have to come. My parents are getting divorced, remember? I need moral support."

"You're pulling that card already?"

I nodded bravely. In truth, I was dreading going home, and I think Sadie knew that, because she gave me a weak smile and waved goodbye.

On the way to my house, I pulled out my phone and send her a quick message.

Thanks for earlier. You're the best. X :)