Free The Everafter by Amy Huntley

toward the park that sits along the banks of the Grand River.
    It’s a short drive, and we talk about memories we have of coming to this park back when we were kids.
    He pulls into a parking space, switches off the engine, and takes his keys from the ignition. That’s when I realize…I’m not holding my keys anymore.
    He opens his door as if to get out of the car and then realizes that I’m looking frantically around me…seat, floor, area between the seat and the door. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
    “Um, I, well, I was holding the keys to my house when we got in the car, but I don’t know what I did with them.” I hold up my empty hands.
    “You mean you’ll be locked out of the house and at my mercy if we don’t find them?”
    “Well, actually, yes.” I’m now dumping all the contentsof my purse onto the floor to see if I put the keys back in there without realizing it. Wait, I remind myself, make sure you don’t dump out the tampon, too. Everything else is on the floor in front of me. No keys. I start throwing makeup, pens, and my wallet back into my purse.
    When my purse is sitting back in my lap, Gabe says, “Here, let me look under the seat for you.”
    Suddenly his chest and shoulders are sprawled across my lap. I can feel his muscles moving as he shifts around on top of me, pulling my legs together, then moving them toward the driver’s side. He maneuvers his body farther over mine, drops his head below the seat, and starts searching under it. His chest is warm and solid against my thighs, and I can’t help wondering what it would feel like to have all of him lying on top of me this way, to…
    He suddenly looks up and gives me this devilish grin that seems to ask, “Are we having fun yet?”
    I can’t help it. I smile. The urge to tease him back surges through me, and before I even have a chance to think about what I’m saying, out pops, “While you’re down there, why don’t you check and see if my underwear is there, too?”
    Shocked, his head whips up so suddenly that it hits the glove box. “Ouch!” he says. He balances himself on his hand and then starts to scoot back across me until he can sit up. He stares at me expectantly, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as I make him wait for the explanation.
    “Seventh grade, remember? You and some of your friends dared Sandra and me to go skinny-dipping, and, while we were in the pool, you stole all our clothes.”
    He grins. “Yeah, I remember. But we gave them back.”
    “All except my underwear,” I agree. “They’ve been missing ever since.”
    He laughs. “I swear I have no idea why they weren’t with your clothes when we gave them back. And you think I’ve had them all this time? No wonder you’re scared of me.”
    “Scared of you! I’m not scared of you.”
    “Terrified. You wouldn’t even look at me when I came to your locker that first time.”
    “If I was a little uncomfortable around you, it wasn’t because of my underwear. It had more to do with what you saw at the wedding.”
    He holds up his hands in a gesture of “Not my fault,” then says, “I didn’t see anything at the wedding. Honest.” He tries to keep a straight face as he says it, but there’s this mischievous quirk at the side of his mouth that gives him away. I give him an “Oh, yeah? Try again” look, and we both burst into laughter.
    “Okay, so I saw something,” he admits.
    We laugh again, and then I say, “When did you decide you wanted to ask me out?”
    “I plead the Fifth.”
    “Oh, come on,” I say. “Just tell me.”
    A long moment of silence passes, but I figure I can wait him out. Finally, he kind of grins and says, “Oh, fine then. It was when we were walking up the aisle together. You tripped, and I had to sorta hold you up. That’s when I thought, ‘Hey, I wonder if this totally klutzy girl would go out with me.’”
    “No way,” I say, laughing.
    “Well, okay, not exactly. But it was kinda cute, y’know? I