The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition (28 page)

              Grace held her hands behind her back to keep Kyle from noticing how they shook.  He’d assured her that there was no reason to be nervous.  His father would meet her and fall for her just as Kyle had.

              “You fell for Jennifer first,” she quietly reminded him.

              Blinking, Kyle turned to face her.  “Honestly, I’ve always been interested in both of you.  You had this knowing look about you and Jennifer let people know she was in the room.  It wasn’t until I’d gotten to know the both you that I found out that you were more my speed.”

              Letting out a self-deprecating laugh, she whispered, “You mean quiet and managing.”

              “I mean caring and sweet.”  He didn’t dare admit that those were some of the things he liked best about his mother.  “I have enough loud and demanding at home.”

              “She’s not that bad,” Grace defended her friend.

              Turning to face the door, and his parents, Kyle acknowledged the comment.  He’d remembered bits and pieces of their freshmen year and how Amanda Kirkland had treated her.  What he’d forgotten David and Jennifer had taken the time to remind him.

              “She’s a great friend; just better suited for Wesley,” he agreed.

              Tilting her head to the side in thought, “Do you think they’ll ever get together?”

              Smiling before he kissed her quickly, “I’d bet on it.”

              Without a beat, Brent Goldman opened the door, startling the young couple.  “Are you going to be standing there forever or are you going to come inside and join us for dinner.”

              Grace reached for Kyle’s hand and gave it a squeeze.  He could almost feel her hand trembling. 

              Clearing his throat, “Father, this is Grace Chandler.  Grace, this is my father.  We’ve been working on his people skills.”

              “Kyle!”

              “Well,” Kyle drawled, the past couple of weeks being out from under of his father’s thumb having done him some good, “Most people open the door and say ‘hello’ instead of some sentence that isn’t even a proper greeting.  You, of all people, taught me better than that.” 

              “Kyle Brent Goldman!” sounded from inside the house, “Don’t speak to your father like that!”

              Mr. Goldman moved out of the way so that Kyle and his girlfriend could enter the house.  Seconds later he disappeared into its depths while Kyle held Grace back. 

              “Hey, wait,” he stopped her, tugging on her arm.  “Dad and I haven’t exactly been getting along lately.  I’m sorry for bringing you into this, but my mom has wanted to meet you ever since the football game.” 

              Giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, Grace smiled, “It can’t be any worse than what happens at my house.”  Letting him lead her into the house, she continued.  “It’s a zoo with everybody talking over everybody else.” 

              “Hurry up already!” Mr. Goldman’s voice echoed from the direction of the dining room.  “Dinner won’t wait forever.” 

              Pacing back and forth in front of her locker, Wesley decided to put an end to their constant back and forth.  He’d watched as Grace and Kyle started out in their relationship, including the ups and downs related to Kyle’s father. 

              He still wondered how their ‘Meet His Parents’ date went.  Kyle and Grace were amazingly tight-lipped about the experience.  Wesley knew that things had been rough between Kyle and his father for the past couple of weeks thanks to Kyle’s declarations.  Even though taking sports off the table, Wesley knew that his friend still had to focus on his grades to remain towards the top of his class. 

              “Ummm,” Delilah saddled up to where Wesley was waiting.  David was five feet behind her.  “You are aware that Jennifer has Cross-Country practice right now?”

              He was moments away from banging his head against the locker.  “How did I forget that?”

              David, barely paying attention even though he was waiting for Delilah to give him a ride home, added his two cents, “Why don’t you wait at her car.  Practice only lasts thirty minutes most days.”

              Nodding his head, Wesley grabbed his back pack and walked out with the are-they-or-aren’t-they couple.  “So, do you have any idea what happened at Grace and Kyle’s ‘meet the parents’ dinner last week?”

              Shaking her head, Delilah answered him, “No.  Grace is being close-lipped about what happened.” 

              Delilah curled herself up in the tree house, hoping that David didn’t see her escape.  All she needed was a few minutes to think, to really think without any distractions, to figure out if what David wanted was really what she wanted.  Did she want to reattempt the course that their paths had been taking before freshmen year?  Did she want to run the risk of him doing something equally painful again?  Something worse?  Was David worth the risk?  So much had happened and so much could happen again. 

              She knew it was impossible to deny that he wasn’t the same David whose father had died before they were entering high school.  She could also see that he had no idea about who he was anymore either.  Did she even know who she was at eighteen?  Was it even possible to know this stuff in high school?  So many things could change with college and graduations and life in general. 

              Nodding her head firmly, she accepted what was, she figured, meant to be for right then.  Let whatever would come later come then instead of wondering about it now.  Everything happens for a reason.  Anything else was simply buying trouble.

And as all things go things have to come to an end, including the secret admirer books. The other girls often wondered if they were right with their suspicions.  They wondered if Delilah knew who it was – she did and was enjoying keeping that secret from her friends.   They wondered if he would or would not reveal himself. One by one they had begun to suspect David since nobody else ever paid Delilah as much attention as he had, but they had decided not say a word to Delilah since it wasn’t easy to figure out how she would take their suspicions.

Finally, the fateful day arrived where it would all be revealed. She had pretended to wait patiently for months.  She would verbally wonder who it was that kept leaving books in her locker.  Today was the day she would enact the plan the girls had been working on for weeks.  The girls were beginning to get impatient about confirming their various theories. Delilah stood in place for mere seconds before walking over to her locker where David was ‘unknowingly’ being watched by the girls in various different locations. He spun open the lock and smoothly placed the gift wrapped book on top of a textbook.

Walking up behind him, she tapped him on his shoulder. Feeling as if she was in a movie, she quoted, "I'd hoped it was you," she said for the benefit of everybody watching, which happened to be everybody currently standing in the hallway.

David smiled slightly, "So, I guess we can be considered official now?" He struggled to keep the hope out of his voice and failed. "I can shout it at the top of my lungs? Finally!"

"Why can't we just keep things quiet like we had been doing?" she whispered, fearing once again becoming the center of the gossip mills. It had been months ago but it still felt recent.

“You want to keep us secret?” David asked, confusion coloring his tone. 

Blinking, “What’s wrong with that?”  In her mind keeping their relationship status quiet meant that nobody would be trying to break them up.  It meant that nobody could try to ruin their relationship or spread rumors about them or any of those other things that she’d faced at the beginning of the school year. 

"Why do you still want to keep us quiet?" David asked, slipping his hand up to cup her cheek as he started to lean closer. "You're not concerned about the gossip are you?"

She looked behind him and saw the small crowd that was gradually growing bigger. His intimate gesture told them everything that they needed to know and she clutched her notebook even closer to her chest. "I guess that isn't an option anymore. We have unexpected witnesses."

Her eyes wide, he gently brushed his lips over hers and pulled away before taking the notebook from her grip and setting it in the open locker behind them .  After taking those few second, David started kissing her properly.  This time she responded, one hand slid into his hair, fingers tangling in the soft mass, and the other rested on his chest, grasping at his shirt.  For a moment she forgot that they were in the middle of the hallway surrounded by people. 

A small cheer coming from the crowd nearly masked the gasp coming from Aimee as she managed to make her way to the front. Fake tears sprung into her eyes, but they were more out of habit than from wanting to put on a performance for this group of spectators. She hadn’t gotten what she wanted, even if she never had the chance to try to get it since David never went into the bookstore anymore.  Those closest to her figured that they were tears of disappointment.

Breaking apart, "But you're planning on going to…"

"No, I'm not," David interrupted. "I don’t have to.  I decided to try to go to the exact same state school that you are attending. The program is better so you better not start on that." He kissed her again.  After having waited longer than he realized to hold her in his arms he had trouble letting her go.  He hoped that the crowd would be able keep the teachers out for a little while longer.

              It took a few weeks before their schedules could mesh up and the young couple could attend the Bible Study class for young married couples.  They knew that they would be the youngest couple there at the meeting.   At a study session where Hannah would be the youngest Bible Study student.  All of that unnerved Hannah a little.

              She felt uncomfortable continuing to go the Teen Bible Study class with the chatter about dates and if so-an-so liked them as more than a friend, about homework and parent woes.  They couldn’t possibly understand Brady’s ‘my father-in-law hates us’ concerns or how Hannah was concerned about money and her growing baby. 

              They never doubted that other teenagers had concerns about where their next meal was coming from, if their mother’s new boyfriend could be trusted, or if they had time to do homework after they had taken care of their younger siblings.  She’d seen it with some of her classmates, but none of those classmates had time to come to the Wednesday night Bible Study.  They were at home either cooking dinner or helping with homework. 

              Brady and Hannah had no idea what was about to happen as soon as they walked through those doors.  If there would be more or less judgment that she occasionally felt from several other Teen Bible Study classmates. 

              Waving to Kelly as they watched her and Penny - the other girl had decided to join Kelly on occasion - disappear into the Teen room, Hannah quickly glanced to see if Aimee was present – the other girl hadn’t returned since vandalizing David’s car - before hurrying to catch back up with Brady.  Instead of going into a room where they would know everybody they were about to enter a room where they knew nobody. 

              That was a tad scary. 

              “I can’t do this,” Hannah started to panic.  “I can’t go into this room with people who are going to judge us for getting married so young and for such obvious reasons.”  She rubbed her hand over her belly where she was just beginning to show.  Soon she would have to worry about clothes not fitting.

              Brady tugged her into his arms.  This wasn’t the first time she had acted irrationally and by now he knew better than to comment that she was being worried over nothing.  The first time he had told her that she was acting ‘crazy’ she had gotten mad so quickly that it shocked both of them.  Hannah had then burst into tears. 

              “Baby, we’ll be fine.  These are the young couples.  None of them are above college age and several of them are freshmen and sophomores in college.  They won’t think anything about us.  I think one or two of them are even pregnant.  We can swap horror stories.” 

              He took a step back when she started glaring at him.  “Horror stories?  What ‘horror stories’ are you talking about?”

              Sighing to himself, “Like sitting in the waiting room worrying about what you were having to go through during that first doctor’s appointment.  Or they can prepare us for the appointments to come.  What it feels like when the baby first starts to move around.”  He took care to move the topic away from the discussion of ‘pregnancy horror stories’ and into happier areas. 

He imagined that the program of events in the Young Couples Bible Study happened similar to those in the Teen Bible Study with studying and then talking about everything while everybody ate the food that somebody from the church had provided.  He just wondered how different the conversation topics would be.