Chapter 27

So here’s a question to toss out to the void. Have any of you ever looked at a younger sister’s group of friends (two grades younger here, so not like it’s creepy younger) and thought that you’d preferred one of them were your friend and not your sister’s friend? Since you know ... that would mean you had a better chance and not the awkward part about “What would my sister think/hear about us dating?” I don’t think I’ve specifically stated yet, but the oldest of my two sisters was now a sophomore and at the same school as me. Thankfully we traveled in very different circles and she was much more the social butterfly. It was also true that she had in fact several friends that I would have definitely gone out with if it weren’t for the fact they were always around my sister.

Evidently that thinking wasn’t just reserved for thinking from my side to the younger, as I would soon find out. Her friend Shelly had actually moved the year before and was now going to Layton High. It wasn’t a huge move though, Layton was just the next city north of us and was also where my grandparent’s lived. It was big enough to have changed her school though and she had lost touch mostly with my sister Annie.

That’s the issue I found myself facing about a month after cross country had finished and the forced break up with Julie. It was a Monday night at home and a call had come in. I’d been the closest so had answered it. When I heard the familiar voice of Shelly and her explanation/reminder that she was Annie’s friend I started to let her know I would go get my sister to get her to the phone. “Well, you could do that. But then she’d give the phone back to you. I called to talk to you, Ry.”

Shelly had been friends with my sister for a few years and had also been friendly and at least a little of a friend with me, so the Ry wasn’t much of a surprise. “Oh? You wanted to talk to me?” (Yeah, I was a genius back then ... gimme a break. You saw at the beginning this was a story about growing up.)

I could hear her chuckle through the phone, like the rest of her when I had last seen her it was cute. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to ask you out, actually. Layton’s Sadie Hawkins is coming up in a month and I want to go with you. Before you say anything Annie already knows I was going to ask and she’s OK with it. So this is just about you and I. We’ve got a month before it, so we’ll each have time to figure out our outfits and what the group plan is.”

Through the phone receiver I could hear the tone in her voice. She actually sounded a little nervous but also excited. Thoughts sped through my mind. She was one of the friends who wasn’t just moving past me to go with my sister when she’d been at our house. We would talk and I would call her a friend of mine as well. Like I said earlier she was also at the least very cute. Plus, she was actually asking me out. Between those I would have to be an idiot to turn her down. So I said so, literally. “In that case I’d be an idiot to say no. So yes, I’ll go to the dance with you.” There was an audible exhale of breath through the receiver before I continued. “On one condition though. Since we’ve got some time between now and the dance we go out at least once or twice. I figure it’s a good way to reconnect since it has been a little while. So how about Friday night we go to dinner, maybe a movie after?”

I could almost hear the smile in her voice. “Alright, that sounds good to me. We’ll play it by ear till them and figure something out for that night. Here’s my address now, you can come pick me up at about five.”

I took down her address and we continued to talk for a little while. It was largely just catching up and going over dinner options. It was about twenty minutes before my sister was interrupting with a request for the phone. “Alright, Romeo. Hand it over, you can talk to her on Friday or tomorrow night. But if you hurt her, I’m going to kick you in the nuts.”

I handed the phone over to her, knowing my sister that was no idle threat either. She meant it and would follow through. With the phone handed off I headed back downstairs to my room. I allowed my thoughts to drift. Over a year at 15 to 15 things could change depending on the person. Would that be the case for Shelly? If so, I had to wonder how. I had a couple of days to find out though.

We had the chance to talk some more along the way before the Friday date. We had ended up deciding to do stick with the dinner idea and then just see from there whether we’d want to do a movie or something else. I had to admit as I was driving to pick her up that I was feeling a little jittery. Getting out I took a breath and then walked to her door. Ringing the doorbell it wasn’t long at all before the door opened and I saw her mom. Being a friend of my sister her and I were at least familiar enough to know who each other was, even if we hadn’t talked much. But it was kept fairly simple an exchange. “Hi, Ryan. Shelly is just finishing up.” She greeted me with a smile and to back her words up I could hear a door upstairs close before footsteps started down the stairs. I would look past Elizabeth to see Shelly coming down the stairs. I had to bite back a whistle as I saw her.