Chapter 26: First Impressions

First Impressions

“Can you guys excuse me for a minute?” I asked the crowd of people. One or two of them nodded, and I escaped the extra room attached to the back of my house and headed up to my room. It was nearly six at night, and I still hadn’t heard from Roger. Normally, he always picked up his phone. But now? Nothing.

I hit the redial button and sat on my bed, looking around my neat, hastily cleaned room earlier. We had been at my house maybe an hour. My mom was nice enough to order pizza for us all, and we all sat downstairs. Tom was watching the mess of people with amazement, and I had been watching his reactions with a silent amusement not lost on him. The phone rang the predictable four rings and then switched to the message that said I couldn’t leave a message. I hung up, turned my phone on its loudest ring and left it on my bed, heading back downstairs. I had a crowd of people to entertain.

“My mom doesn’t even care that I’m having sex with my boyfriend…” That was Angela’s statement as I walked in the door. I surveyed the scene with great interest to see how Tom was taking the news that the love of his life was fucking another male. He looked…pissed? Sad? It was hard to read him when he was sitting with his back to me, against the step leading down to our sun room.

“Hey Kaley, does Tom know about your boyfriend?” I asked loudly, shaking my head at Angela. She looked up at me but said nothing, and the ‘I have a boyfriend’ smile began to spread across Kaley’s face.

“I think so. I’ve been going out with him for a while. You know about Colin, right?”

“Yup.” Tom said. “I can always tell when you’ve ought been out with him, because you’re babbling online.”

“I am not!” Kaley said indignantly, the smile still a dead give away.

“Yes, you do babble on the ‘net after talking to him. I’ll vouch for that.” I said, laughing. She babbled incessantly on the phone too, if she had just gotten back from a date.

“Does anyone want any more pizza?” My mom asked from behind me. I jumped.

“I’m fine.” Tom said. I nodded, and so did the others.

“Mom, you want me to help you clean up?” I asked her, turning around. She nodded and I left the room, shutting the door behind me. My friends could get kind of loud after a while.

I wrapped the pizza while she compressed the box enough to make it fit into our garbage can. I looked up at her and asked the question I had been wondering about since we had packed everyone in the cars to go home.

“So, what do you think?”

“He seems like a nice boy. When are all of these kids leaving?”

“In a little bit. What do you think dad thinks of the whole thing?”

“Well, considering he hasn’t chopped him up into little pieces, I’d say he approves, kind of. You know how your father is.” Mom suggested. I nodded.

“Call in if you need me.” I said, shutting the refrigerator door.

“Will do. We’re just watching Law and Order though, so we probably won’t need you.”

“Who are you joking?” I asked her. “You always need me.”

I reentered the room where separate conversations had broken out. I could tell that they were all getting ready to leave. Tom looked…awake, but tired. If that makes any sense. I shouldn’t have let all of them arrive at my house and trail after him as soon as his plane landed. Oh well.


As soon as the last one left, I walked back into the sun room where Tom was beginning to sort through his stuff. I watched him with interest. This little man was the reason my boyfriend (I was assuming) wouldn’t talk to me. Wow.

“Hey Tom, you want a tour of the house real quick? Or did you get it all the first time through earlier?”

“I got it. I’m fine.” He said. He pulled out a package of crackers from his carry on luggage and opened it. He offered one to me and I shook my head.

“You want more pizza or anything?” I asked him. “You didn’t eat too much. We could go out and grab some fast food, if you want.”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Okay. One more question, and then I’ll leave you alone. Do you want to go swimming? Its hot, and its about to get dark. The pool’s always fun.”

“Sure.” His eyes brightened, considerably. I had noticed him eyeing our pool with the slide all afternoon, and knew he was eager to try it out.

“Grab your suit and go up to the bathroom to change.” I said. “You know where it is? I’m going to change, too.”

“I can figure it out. Its going to take me a second to dig out my suit, though.”

“Okay.” I turned and walked upstairs. My suit was hanging off of my bed post, drying from yesterday’s antics.

I closed my door – something I was going to have to get used to – and peeled off my sweat soaked clothes. Even sitting around all day, between the afternoon showers and baking in the sun room (which didn’t have air conditioning, may I add), my clothes were sticky and disgusting. I climbed into my bathing suit as quick as I could and opened the door. I waited for Tom to emerge from the bathroom, leaning on the corner of the hallway. The rest of these two weeks was going to be interesting.


“Watch this!” Tom yelled as he jumped into the pool from the top of the slide. I winced – I had made that particular jump before, and the slap of his skin against the water reminded me how much it could hurt. Especially since he was jumping in that way, completely dry. He’d have the slap of the water plus the temperature, which was right around eighty degrees, the lower limit of my tolerance for swimming. If the temperature dipped into the seventies, I was nowhere near the pool.

Tom surfaced seconds later, his hair dripping and plastered against his face. He ducked under and washed his hair back, away from his eyes.

“Fuck! That’s fucking cold!” He yelled. An English man screaming ‘fuck’ is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. ‘Fuck’ is not a word that the English should use. “My bollocks are fucking freezing off!” He continued, climbing out of the pool. His teeth were chattering. He turned to me, and I backed up, grabbing the deck’s railing.

“I’ll be in the pool in a second, don’t worry. You might want to get back in though. You look like you’re going to freeze out here. You’re shaking worse than someone out rolling in snow naked.” I said. He nodded and leapt back into the pool. The water droplets hit me in the face, and I realized that the pool probably hadn’t been the best idea in the world. That water was cold.

Oh well. I wasn’t about to get shown up by a guy. Especially not one that had hopped in twice against his better judgement. I let go of the railing and took a flying leap, grabbing my nose so water wouldn’t choke me. I hated water up my nose, and I had trouble holding my breath without inhaling water. If that made sense.

The water hit me like the cool air hits you when you walk into a freezer in the back of a restaurant. Cold, damp (duh), but not exactly unpleasant. It was surfacing that was the problem. As soon as my head reached the water, I heard a splash and held my breath again. Tom’s aftermath of his jump hit my face with full force. I reached up and wiped the water off of my face. The summer breeze started up and sent shivers running down my spine. I waded through the water to get to the ladder and out of the pool. I would get in again in a second.

Tom climbed out right after I did. He shook his head like a dog and I laughed. I was alone with a boy I had never physically met before today, but he seemed like a good guy, you know? He looked around the darkened pool deck with interest.

“You going back in?” He asked me.

“In a minute or two.” I said, shivering, I grabbed a towel from the green bin and wrapped myself in it. My teeth were chattering horribly because of the drastic temperature difference. I had to admit – swimming was not the best idea that I ever came up with.

“You know it’ll just get colder if you stay out here.” He said. I nodded. “Hey, Storm – can I jump off of that stool over there?” He asked, pointing to the white plastic stool underneath the slide. I shrugged.

“Don’t see why not.”

“Awesome!” He said and pulled it out from under the slide and flipped it over so it was right side up. He stepped on it tentatively, trying to make sure it wasn’t going to break. He shifted his weight onto it, and nothing happened, so he stepped up completely on to the stool. He hopped on it to test it.

“Okay, cool. Want to see me dive?” He asked me.

“Sure.” I said, letting the towel drop from my waist. I had to get in again. I set the towel on the bench lining the back of the deck.

“You go, then I’ll go.” I said, gesturing to the icy pool of water waiting only feet in front of me.

“Okay.” He said, and hopped once on the stool, as if getting ready to do a professional dive. He hopped twice, and Crack! One of the stool legs broke underneath him. The stool fell crooked towards the water, dumping him into it in the process.

I watched with amazement. I wasn’t sure if he was hurt, but if he was, I was never going to let him live it down. Moments later, he surfaced, sputtering. I burst out laughing and sat down on the bench, curled up, so I wouldn’t fall over in my laughter. He looked like a wet dog that had just been pushed into the water.

He climbed out indignantly, which only made me laugh harder. He wiped his hair out of his face and cocked his head towards the stool like Sam would towards us when we spoke to him.

“Can you do that again?” I asked him between gasps of laughter. He turned around, shaking with silent laughter himself. He sat down on the deck and let his laughter out, rolling around like an idiot. Which only made me laugh harder.

“That was awesome!” He said when he got his first burst of giggles under control. “I don’t know why the stool broke, but damn!”

“Did you get hurt?” I asked, still laughing. I could tell he wasn’t really hurt, but I had to ask. “It looked like you hit your shins against the pool deck for a minute.”

“No, I’m fine. I think I’m done with the pool for the night though.” He said, still laughing. If he did something that stupid every day I hung out with him, then the two weeks were worth it. I hadn’t laughed that hard since Roger had kept me up late telling me jokes for an hour straight.
“Me too.” I decided. I wrapped my wet towel around me again, shaking my head. “My parents are going to probably be wondering why the hell we’re laughing.”

“I’m sorry about the stool.” He said, calming down a bit. “Will they mind?”

“I doubt it. The towels are in that bin over there if you want one.” I pointed to the container of beach towels that we kept on the pool deck. He got up from the deck and walked over the bin, grabbing a towel from the top.

“Make sure you close the lid in case it rains.” I said, still laughing. He snapped the lid shut and I led the descent down the pool deck’s stairs. I walked inside with him close behind.

“I’ll go change and be back down. You okay changing down here? You know we have two bathrooms.”

“I’ll just shut all the blinds, you know? I’m going to end up changing in here for the rest of the time. Why do you have so many windows?”

“It gets really hot in here in the summer, I’m not really sure. Its pretty, but it makes doing anything during the day impossible.”

“I bet. It was pretty hot in here when we got here. That might have been all of the people though.”

I stood in the door, towel wrapped around my mid section like a strapless dress. I was curious.

“What did you think of all of them, anyway?”

“They were…interesting. Loud, really.”

“They tend to be loud and boisterous and overall, silly. I should have told them to wait a few days.”

“It was fun.” He said.

“Yeah. I’m going to change.” I said, turning around and shutting the door behind me to give him some semblance of privacy. The room he was staying in had about twelve windows lining each side, plus two screen doors with glass sliding doors providing protection from the outdoor elements.

My parents had already gone to bed, and I walked up the stairs still laughing to myself. The image of Tom falling indignantly into the water would stay with me for the rest of my life.