Anything but Minor - Kate Stewart Page 0,18

the real, and at that moment, nothing in my life aside from ball had been so appealing.

“I came here to have nothing but good days,” she declared absently, staring at the marsh as we crossed over the bridge onto the connecting island.

“And where you’re from, you didn’t have good days?”

“Huh.” She wrinkled her nose. “My mother was the definition of oppressive. Happiness, smiles, excitement, it was all a foreign concept to her. She was serious and...strict.”

I looked over at her and saw a sad smile. “She was just way too intense.” Alice lifted her hands in the air through the top of the Jeep with a sinister smile. “SO I ESCAAAAAAAPED!”

I couldn’t help my light laughter as she closed her eyes with her hands held up...all the way back to the bar.

“I think I was a little buzzed,” she said as she unbuckled her seatbelt and checked her phone. “Thank you for an awesome time.”

“You’re welcome,” I said as I took her phone and texted myself a hello with her number. “For the next time you want to cancel on me.”

“For days like this, never. Except next time...I won’t be so nervous.”

“Good to know,” I said as we both grabbed her bag from the backseat. Our hands connected, and I rubbed my thumb over the top of her soft skin as she exhaled and lowered her head.

“Rafe,” she protested as I leaned in to claim her lips. She closed her eyes tightly and then looked to me with brown-eyed seriousness. “So far, you’re the only person resembling a friend I have. I’m going to be at every single home game of yours this year because I promised Dutch I would. Do you really want to do this with me? I mean, I know how this works. You’re curious, we have sex, I may like it, I may not, either way, I may like you more, and your curiosity will be quenched, and then I don’t get to have days like today. You’re a ladies’ man. Find another lady, and let me have more days like this.”

I sat, stunned, fucking speechless.

“It’s not that I’m not attracted to you, Rafe. Believe me, I am...really attracted to you,” she whispered. “But I can’t beat days like this, okay?”

“Okay,” I said as I let her hand go. Beautiful brown eyes seared right into me in thanks.

She paused before she opened the door. “I may be wrong about you, I think. I thought you were one of those bone-headed, stupid athletes who only cared about baseball and women. But I have a feeling you’re worth knowing.”

For the second time in a minute, I couldn’t say a single fucking word.

“So, okay, I’ll see you at the game.”

My body felt like it had been dipped in lava. I couldn’t handle another second. I tore off my pajamas just as Rocky knocked out Apollo Creed and stood under the cold shower. I had the sunburn of someone being electrocuted. Still on fire, I wrapped myself in my favorite afghan and picked another movie: Sixteen Candles.

John Hughes was my ultimate go-to. Never had my world been rocked like it was when I discovered his movies. I’d memorized his whole collection, coveting the underrated Some Kind of Wonderful like most women did their favorite pair of shoes. My movies meant everything to me. They were my best friends, my confidants, and my prophetic teachers when life got hard.

There was a question on the board the first day of my human studies class at Cornell that asked: If you could take only one thing from your home as you flee from a fire, what would it be?

I answered my movie collection and odd looks were shot my way. The professor asked me why I would choose to take something so easily replaceable. My first instinct was to tell him that they’d belonged to my father, and that was some of the significance, but instead I answered, “Jake Ryan.”

I cringed when no one got it. I was referring to a movie as old as most of the students in the class.

I sat up that night thinking about that question and wondering if something was truly wrong with me. I’d listened to the other answers of the other students in an attempt to understand. Those answers consisted mostly of computer towers, iPads, and their phones being the number one answer. Others were family photos, childhood stuffed animals, jewelry. Watching the movie that night and with a sigh on my lips, I kicked myself