Ella shivered as Liz knocked on the door. She pounded the cold steel as hard as she could, but they still had to wait a few minutes for John to let them in. Both girls were still warm from skating and that made the cold night air feel even colder.
Liz started jumping up and down excitedly as they heard the familiar metal-on-metal grinding of a key being turned in a lock. A blast of warm air greeted them as John held the door open and ushered the two girls inside. “Hi, John!” Liz greeted him enthusiastically.
“Liz,” he replied, looking beyond her and focusing on Ella. “Hi, Ella,” he murmured as she hurried in from the cold.
“Hi, John,” she said, surprised by the softness of his tone. “How are you?”
“Fine! Great!” he replied, a little too quickly. “You?”
“Oh, she’s great,” Liz answered for her. “Guess what?”
“What?” John asked, returning to the counter to finish putting away some skates.
“I just had a birthday,” she sang. “You know what that means!”
“You’re another year older?” he guessed, not really caring whether or not he was right. He looked up from his work to see Liz doing her best to look seductive and completely blocking his view of her friend. Dammit, he thought, why can’t Ella ever come alone?
“John! John, are you listening?” Liz demanded as he suddenly realized she’d been talking.
“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” he mumbled, returning to his work and wondering how it was possible not to hear her.
“I said I’m 21 today, silly!” she repeated. “I can drink now! We should go back to that karaoke bar when you’re finished here.”
The thought of spending more time with Ella was incredibly appealing, but he wasn’t overly thrilled about sharing that time with Liz. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s kinda late.”
“It is not, party pooper,” Liz whined. “It’s only a little after eleven. Come on, let’s go out. And call Jeffy and Stevey and make them come, too!”
John cast another look in Ella’s direction. “Oh, all right,” he sighed, grabbing his cell phone from his pocket and punching in Jeff’s number. He made the calls somewhat absently, his gaze locked on Ella, who looked bored by her friend’s attempts at flirtation. “Yeah, 2000 is fine,” he said, turning away from both girls. “We’ll meet you there.”
“So where are we going?” Liz asked as soon as John was off the phone.
Her voice had a sing-song quality to it that he found particularly annoying tonight. “Club 2000,” he replied. “Jeff said he and Steve will meet us there.”
Liz clapped her hands in delight. “Yay!”
John noticed that Ella seemed to brighten at the idea of going out. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all, he thought. “Hey, look alive out there,” he called to her.
Ella blushed. “I’m alive,” she insisted. “I’m just cold.”
“Well you’re about to be colder,” Liz announced, “because we’re going out! Hey,” she said, turning to John, “let’s all ride together!”
Soon they were all piled into John’s truck and on their way across town. John wished Ella was sitting next to him instead of Liz and kept glancing over at her. Ella was thinking about how nice it would be to have other people to talk to so she wouldn’t be forced to watch Liz make a fool of herself. Liz, meanwhile, was completely oblivious to her two friends and their sober thoughts, focusing instead on the fun night ahead.
It didn’t take long to reach the club and find Jeff and Steve. The five of them claimed a table and then Liz, Steve, and Jeff headed for the bar to order drinks. The moment they were gone, John seized the opportunity to move closer to Ella and grabbed the chair beside her. “Boy, it’s loud in here,” he observed, immediately chastising himself for having said something so lame.
But Ella just smiled at him. “Yeah, it is,” she agreed. “Would it kill ‘em to turn the volume down a notch or two? I think my hair is vibrating!”
“Nice,” John laughed, beginning to feel a bit more at ease. “Say, do you want something to drink? It’s on me.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s really very nice of you.”
“What can I get you?”
“A strawberry stripper?”
He smiled. “Comin’ right up,” he told her, hopping up from his chair. He pushed his way through the crowded club and up to the bar, where Jeff, Liz, and Steve surrounded him as he was ordering Ella’s drink. “I wondered what happened to you three,” he said, turning around.
“John, John, John – a strawberry stripper?” Jeff teased. “Seriously, man – who orders that?”
“Ella,” he replied. Steve cast him a doubtful look. “Ah, see?” John said as the bartender set two drinks down in front of him. “One strawberry stripper for Ella, and one ice-cold Pepsi for me.”
His friends groaned in unison. “Come on, John,” Steve exclaimed. “At least her drink has a little alcohol in it!”
“Hey, are you gonna sit with us or aren’t you?” John asked, picking up the drinks and jostling his way back through the crowd.
Ella watched John from afar, curious. He’d been acting strangely all night, but she had yet to discover why. She quickly averted her gaze as he left the bar so that he wouldn’t catch her staring and turned her attention to Liz, who was following Jeff and Steve around like a lost puppy with a very large drink in hand.
It wasn’t long before John returned to where Ella was sitting. “Here you go, one strawberry stripper,” he said, setting the drink down in front of her with a flourish.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
They sat there rather awkwardly for some time, neither one sure what to say next, until at last their friends rejoined them. Liz entertained them all with her karaoke skills and thoroughly enjoyed being the center of attention.
Eventually it was decided to go back to John’s house and this time when Liz and Ella climbed into his truck, Ella wound up in the middle. John couldn’t have been happier; Liz was already hammered and was more annoying drunk than sober. The drive was a short one and Jeff and Steve pulled into the driveway right behind them.
Libations continued to flow once inside, for Steve had stopped at the Music Station along the way. After a couple hours, though, Ella needed some fresh air and stepped quietly out onto the front porch.
“Are you okay?”
Ella jumped at the sound of John’s voice. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “I just needed some air.”
John inhaled deeply. “It’s a beautiful night,” he said.
Ella turned back to gaze up at the stars. “It sure is,” she agreed.
“Liz got to be a little much, huh?”
“Did she ever!” Ella laughed. The tension broken, she turned to face him again. “So, what’s your story?”
“What?”
“You know, your story,” she repeated. “What are you doing out here when the party’s back inside?”
“Why, checking on you, of course,” he laughed. “You sure you don’t want to come back inside? I think things are beginning to settle down in there.”
A sudden gust of wind made Ella shiver. “Why not?” she said. “It’s getting cold out here anyway.”
John stepped back and held the door open for her, then joined her in the entryway and closed the door. He smiled as she slipped her shoes off, doing a little dance to avoid stepping in any of the many puddles created by snow melting off of shoes. “That’s odd,” he said as he cocked his head to the side.
“What’s odd?”
“It’s quiet,” he explained. “Too quiet.”
John hurried to the living room, but no one was there. He continued through the kitchen and dining room, finally running across Steve sprawled out on the couch in the game room. Ella followed him and entered the game room just as he tried unsuccessfully to wake Steve.
“Where are Jeff and Liz?”
John jumped, startled. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Steve-o here is out cold.” He cocked his head to the side for a moment, holding up a finger to silence Ella as she opened her mouth to speak. He listened intently for a moment and finally, he heard it again: the faint sound of a mattress groaning upstairs. “Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”
“What?”
John turned to face her. “I know where they went,” he said.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard them.”
“But I didn’t hear anything.”
“If you listen carefully, you can hear them,” he explained. “Apparently they decided to try out the horizontal mambo.”
Ella blushed. “Now I’m sorry I asked,” she chuckled. “How am I supposed to get home now?”
“You can stay, you know,” John told her. There was tenderness in his voice. “You probably shouldn’t be driving anyway and Liz definitely shouldn’t.”
“That’s true,” Ella agreed. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” he said. “You’re always welcome here, Ella.”
“All right then,” she said. “I’ll stay.”
“You know,” he began, “I’ve got some popcorn in the kitchen. How about I make it and then we watch a movie?”
“Sure!”
Ella followed him into the kitchen, not sure what else to do. John stuck the popcorn in the microwave and within a couple of minutes, it was done and they adjourned to the living room. She took a seat on the couch as John stuck a movie in the dvd player and he joined her a moment later. It didn’t take long to figure out that it was a horror movie and as John stretched his arm out behind her along the back of the couch, she began to wonder what he had up his sleeve.
John smiled as Ella buried her face in his side at the climax of the movie and let his arm slide down from its perch. He pulled her close, surprised that she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she stayed that way for the rest of the movie. “So what did you think?” he asked as the end credits rolled.
“It was okay,” she answered politely. At his doubtful look, though, she changed her mind. “Okay, it was terrible! Happy?”
John laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly say it was terrible,” he said. “Parts of it were really rather nice.”
“What parts were those?”
“Well, there was the part where you buried your face in my side,” he replied. “That was nice. Then, of course, there was the kiss.”
“What kiss?”
“This one,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her. His heart hammered away in his chest as he felt Ella melt against him. For a moment, he couldn’t catch his breath. Wow, so this is what it’s like, he thought.
“Wow,” Ella whispered.
“I love you, Ella,” John blurted out. “I love you.”
“What? But John…what? How? I don’t understand,” she sputtered.
John leaned forward to kiss her again and once again, she saw stars. She thought she heard gunshots in the distance, but then she realized it was her heart pounding away in her chest. When he pulled away, she gazed up at him and saw in his eyes all that he held in his heart. “Wow,” she repeated.
“Wow what?”
“Wow, that was…that was amazing, John.”
He smiled. “Is that a request for an encore?” Ella nodded, speechless, and let him kiss her again. “I could do this all night long,” he confessed, running his fingers through her hair.
“Me, too,” she murmured, laughing at his surprised expression. “I love you, too. I just didn’t realize it until you kissed me. I’ve never felt anything like it before. Kiss me again?”
John gazed into her deep blue eyes. A man could get lost in those, he thought as he leaned in to kiss her again.
(c) 2009. All rights reserved.
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