Into the Velvet

Fifty-Five Days Until

"Go left."

"You told me to go right!"

"I lied. Go left."

"Well, it's too late now – I've missed the turn."

He sighed in bitter disappointment, and then muttered, "should've turned left."

I wanted to scream. "Olly, I swear to God—"

"Why aren't we moving? The light's green. Green means go." 

He looked at me with a golden, serene smile on his face. Knowing that he was getting to me. My foot eased back onto the accelerator. "Okay, now remember to go right."

"You said left before!" I growled. I then muttered a series of expletives that would've granted me a smack over the head by my mother. However, an emergency at the school left her unable to supervise my driving lesson. My father remained plastered to the television at home, caught up in the world of college football.

Which only left Olly. My annoying, hungover driving instructor for the afternoon.

"See," he began, starting another one of his long monologues, "this is how I see it — I hold the wisdom that will unlock the wonders of the open road. You are my disciple. Unschooled, ignorant, naïve to what rules can or can't be bent. I am here as your shaman. To you I am Mr. Miyagi, and you're a young karate student performing menial tasks which are really secretly honing your skills, so that when you finally go up against Johnny Lawrence in the big fight—"

I took the next turn sharply, making the tires squeal. Olly cried out, stopping short his speech, gripping the door handle to stop from lurching sideways. He winced, feeling his throbbing head. "Okay, no more Karate Kid references."

"I hope not all college boys are like you." I glared at him from the corner of my eye. "Otherwise I'll start dating girls."

"I'm copyrighted, unfortunately. Unique and never before attempted."

"Thank God."

"Who's this guy you're going on a date with?"

I tried to avoid answering by taking a roundabout slowly. The rosary my mother had looped around the rear-view mirror swayed lazily back and forth, nodding 'yes' and then 'no'.

"... Do you even know who you're going to see tonight?"

"Not technically."

He whistled. "Bold. Could be a serial killer. You're just leaving that possibility to chance there. Not a typical move for you, Lula."

"He's not a murderer. He's studies Environmental Science."

"Are you telling me that those two facts are somehow mutually exclusive? Because Ted Bundy majored in Psychology."

I ignored him. In fact, I pretended in the next five minutes that I never had a brother, that the thought of having one seemed far away from me, and that I was merely dropping off a homeless man I'd picked up to the closest shelter. I slowed down at an intersection to give way to a finely dressed blonde woman with her young child. A dark-haired toddler.

Olly slung an arm around his chair, facing me. His shaggy curls glinted in the sun, and he tucked some overgrown strands behind his ears. "If you want my expert dating advice—"

"I don't."

"Want and need are two different things. Just make sure he's not a dick. And that you feel safe enough to leave whenever you want to. And make sure you're both on the same page."