Disclaimer: the characters in this story belong to people other than myself
Sure
Lucy? Why was Lucy calling him in the middle of the day? And an even better question, what did she mean by tai bo? Was that a come on line in Lucy language? Actually, even more importantly, did he want it to be one? He had barely spoken to the girl in the past two months, and he certainly was not expecting this.
"Carter? Hello?" Answer her, stupid.
"Sure." Sure? He mouthed to himself in disbelef. Where did that come from?
"Great. You know where I live, right?"
"Yeah." He wasn't even sure if he knew where she lived.
"See you later then."
"Yep. Bye." He heard a click as she hung up the phone and he put his hand to his head. Sure? He didn't even know why he said that, or how he came to that decision. The words wanted to come out before he knew if he wanted to say them. This was Lucy he was talking about here. He definitely did not get along with her too well when they were together, and he had barely spoken more than three words to her in a while. And he hadn't really had the desire to. So why did he say he'd come over?
Well, he thought, you could be here all day analyzing yourself, but the fact is, you said you'd go, so you have to go. And you'd better get going if you're gonna go. he was talking in cicles again, which usually meant he was nervous. Nervous. About Lucy. He took a second and laughed at himself, realizing there was absolutely nothing to be nervous about.
Carter walked briskly over to his room, grabbing his coat off the hanger and putting it back after looking out the window at the shining sun. Keys. His mind shifted gears quickly as he felt his pocket for them, and a lightbulb went on as he jogged to the kitchen table, seeing the shiney metal and hearing the jingling as he swooped down and picked them up. He reached for the door knob, when something dawned on him.
"Where does she live?" He had no idea where she lived. "Great." He stood for a moment, once again contemplating his options. The phone rang, and he jogged back to the living room, diving for it. "Hello?"
"Carter? Me again."
"Hi."
"You don't know where I live, do you?"
"Not a clue."
*****************
Here he stood, or there he stood, twenty minutes later in front of Lucy's apartment building, the unusually warm September sun beating down on his back, sweat beads forming on his forehead. He looked up at the large structure, wondering exactly how tall it was. He could guess, but it wouldn't really be an acurate guess. He stepped forward, up the concrete walkway and pushed open the door. Cool air being blown out by an air conditioner came at him full force, and it took a second for his body to adjust to the temperature change. He spotted the elevator just as it opened and ran to catch it. Boy, he thought, he was doing a lot of running today. and he wasn't even at the hospital.
He got on just in time, along with ten other people. Ten hot, sweaty people. Ten hot, sweaty agitated people. at least elevator rides are short. And it was short, disrupted only by the occasional cough and ding noise. There was one extremely 'large' man with the tendency to scratch himself where someone should only scratch themselves in the privacy of their own homes, but he tried to ignore it, and did a pretty good job.
John got off at the fifth floor and mentally thanked God for the fact that the large, slightly smelly man did not get off with him. Apartment 10B. He scanned the golden plates on the doors that specified their number and letter. 10B. 10B. Ahh ha!
The numbers and letter 10B stared back at him, and he gave them a satisfied smile. he had made it, without incident. Now if the rest of the day could go as smoothly, he'd be a very lucky man. he reached for the doorbell, hesitated, reached for it again and hesitated. Was he sure he really wanted to do this? Too late now, he muttered as he pressed his finger to the button.
He heard a scuffle and footsteps, he made the educated guess that it was Lucy.
"Who is it?" His educated guess was confirmed by her voice.
"It's me." A second later the door was open and Lucy was standing in front of him, smiling.
"Hey. Come on in." he followed her inside, glancing around at the small but well furnished apartment Lucy called home.
"Nice place."
"Thanks." Dead air. He hated dead air. Say something, Carter!
"So what's this about tai-bo?" She motioned for him to sit down and he did, not knowing what else to do.
"Well, I was just sitting and I looked at these exercise tapes I bought forever ago and never really used, and I thought 'I should put them to good use' and then I thought 'Maybe Carter's home, I haven't really talked to him in a while and I know he'd probably enjoy it if I promised not to kick him' and so, here you are and here I am." She sounded relieved after she said all that, and he just sat, mildly shocked. She had brought 'it' up. Not directly, it's not like she said "Hey Carter, remember when we made out in that exam room?" But still. He thought there was some sort of unspoken agreement that they would never speak of 'it' again. What was he thinking? Tai-bo? How stupid could he be? She wanted them to have a relationship reminiscent of the one they had during 'it'. And that . . . that was not something he wanted. At least, that was not something he thought he wanted, but there was some area of doubt. "So," She motioned to the open area between the couch and the t.v.
"Do you wanna get started?" He cleared his throat, looked at her, and everything he was just thinking about was gone.
"Sure."
The End
