Just Friends - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

Ethan's POV
Today went by slowly.
Seconds dripped into minutes and those minutes leaked into hours at an incredibly sluggish pace. And I wasn't close to complaining.
After much convincing, begging, debating and back and forth, Spencer had agreed to ditch school with me and go for a drive.
Not to any particular destination; just drive because it was something we both silently needed. A day with just the both of us together where nothing stood between us; where one of my hands gracefully interlocked with one of his as I drove down the highway, where his chocolate hair danced chaotically in the rushing wind and the subtle smile on his lips made up for the lack of contact between us in the car.
Spencer's warm hand would every once in a while tighten in mine and from what I could see from the corner of my eyes, it would be done unconsciously. His brown eyes weren't resting in my direction with love and warmth when I felt them clamp down into mine near the shifting gears at the center of the two seats we sat in.
He would be either staring out the window at the great multitudes of fields that sat along the side of the road that morphed into forest along the way or would be eye and mind deep inside some book he brought with his feet in my lap from his side of the car and his back resting gently on the door when he would release our hands.
The comfortable silence was perhaps the most relaxing thing about the spontaneous drive. Knowing that no words needed to pass between us – silly banter or the reconfirmation of shared love and gushy feelings of some sort– for there to be some type of connection was perhaps the best feeling in the world. It suggested, to me at least, that there was no need to.
We were kids but we were adults now. Spencer's impending departure made us age at alarming speeds. Quicker than the regular teenage couple who may have been all over each other and having to park on the side of the road becuase they ran out of gas or at gas stations along the freeway to make out and lock eyes and kiss some more.
Time couldn't allow us to take the sweet time we wanted to. As young couples were supposed to.
We had to go through what all couples went through in a matter of a few months that were only filled with 4 weeks, only saturated with 30 – 31 at most – days. We needed to experience the puppy love, the honeymoon phase and the relaxed married couple phase to feel as though this relationship meant anything when it would come to its inevitable end.
As though staying together rather than simply just letting go because of the fated culmination, the bitter conclusion, the dangerously close finish made some sort of coherent and sane sense. That this wasn't crazy at all even though it seemed and felt that way.
But we weren't going to talk about that today. Spencer made me promise, for his sake and secretly mine, that there was going to be no one mention, not one silly slip of the tongue of him leaving by the start for the New Year.
I kept those thoughts chained and bolted to the floor in my mind and I could only think that Spencer did the same.
We were going to share sporadic and treacherously soft kisses, vacant and vague stares that spoke volumes, giggles and snickers at just the thought of us dancing and laughing and screaming how in love we were and only would cease when nature called and we had to stop at a rundown, health hazardous gas station that would provide tainted sandwiches, rest for our sore behinds and relief for our full bladders.
By the time forest had turned into buildings and buildings transformed into just plains of grass and flowers with the occasional sporadic cow, afternoon lazily approached. My dad had called and yelled at me for ditching school and I could only believe that mom was close and so he had to put on his fatherly voice and could not face her because she would see that he was smiling proudly the entire time.
Spencer's parents had yet to call but Suzy, Abby and Karla had all called him a while ago and after confirmation the both of us were alive and no crimes were being committed other than the usual ones, he hung up.
"That looks pretty." He muttered, eyes and head arching out of his window and onto the field of daisies that took up what green land lied on the side of the road. I slowed the car down to witness what he was – the sun drenching the field of white and yellow flowers, stalks of tall grass and the wind softly hitting and inviting them to dance.
"It does." I responded and allowed a few seconds to elapse between us, "It's called the River Daisy Field. From what I know, there is supposed to be lot of daises and a river at the center of it all."
"That's creative." Spencer retorted but with amusement rather than cynicism falling from his tone. "Let's go."
A brief second crept passed, "You mean continue driving or..."
"I meant let's go in the field and see what's there."
"The name isn't cryptic, Spence." I snorted, "There is literally just a bunch of flowers and a river that leads out into the ocean."
"Don't' be a smart ass, Ethan. It doesn't suit you."
I snorted. "But it does on you?"
He looked back at me with a little smirk. "Yes." he retorted an opened up the car door and got out.
With a small eye roll and a smaller chuckle, I got out of the car as well. Spencer was already running towards the open field when I got to the side of the road and hastily dashed in after him.
For a kid with his personality, he was incredibly quick and it took me four minutes to even see him once we entered the maze of flowers and about seven to realize that I wasn't supposed to.
The little shit wanted to play tag! And I had yet to meet a game of tag that I didn't like, or loss for that matter.
But this one - oh - this one was a slippery one.
Spencer knew just how to dodge when I had him cornered. He knew just how to act his way out of me catching him by faking my past ankle injury or claiming menstrual cramps to inspire sympathy so he could race passed me with a little evil grin.
By the time I had caught him, we were both too tired to even continue and once we decided that we had had enough of running up and down in a field of flowers, we headed back to the car.
Except I forgot to turn the ignition off.
And the car stayed on.
And the engine kept running.
You get the picture.
"You're such an ass." Spencer mumbled, guiding me through the field of flowers.
"It's not my fault." I blurted for the sixteenth time. "If we never stopped in the first place, running out of gas in the middle of nowhere wouldn't have happened." I grumbled. "Plus, I've already called the wrecker and they said they'd be here."
"In the morning." He added, angrily so.
"I was getting to that part." I mumbled. "Where is this river anyway?"
"Here" Spencer mumbled as he pushed back a stalk of grass and entered a bald spot in the field that was just low cut grass, a few ducks and a body of water. "This isn't a river, it's a lake." He remarked, stepping closer to the water and scaring a few little ducks away in the process.
The water was round and didn't quite lead anywhere so I understood that, but it didn't exactly look like a lake either. "Maybe it's a pond. I mean, it does have ducks."
"I think it's a lake." He repeated and then the argument started and went on and on until we both came to the decision to Google it when we got back.
The sun had started descending when we decided to push the car on the side of the road and head back to the lake and sit down to watch the little ducks swim. It was a quiet kind of relaxing experience where Spencer would chuckle every time one of the ducks wagged their tales and I held my breath when one of them somehow strayed away too far from the group; sighing in relief only when he or she found its way back to the rest of the coup or whatever a group of ducks are called.
It wasn't long before I got bored with that and turned my attention to my boyfriend. He must've felt my manic eyes on him because he turned to face me and narrowed his own. "Why are you staring at me liking crazy person?"
I snickered and just before he could get up to run, I launched forward and gripped him, holding him down and tickling him under his ribs. At first he asked me to stop through fits of little laughs, which I did, but after a while of just sitting there, I started up again in short, random intervals.
Spencer's laughter came out short and reluctant as his hands fervently swiped forward at mine in defense anytime they would leap out to try and tickle him but after I got under his rib a few times, those small cute burst of strangled laughter turned into snorts and fits of giggles while those hands that tried so much to protect him slowly but surely stop trying as hard.
"Stop" he would giggle with enough cuteness to create a full bright rainbow made of out sprinkles and unicorn dust. And because I so loved to hear him laugh so boisterously and without being embarrassed by it, I continued.
At every chance my hands would creep up and my index finger would rub right above his navel that would make his stomach cave in from the touch and force this heavenly sound to flow from his lips.
My hands worked their way up his body, making sure to tickle every major part of it. From his navel, to his stomach, to his chest until we sat up and he tried to defend himself. Then on to the dimple in his shoulder to the crook of his neck until the tickles melted into soft touches. Then on to his cheeks, earlobe, nose, forehead, lips, I stopped.
My heart was pounding, his lips were quivering, my finger was frozen and his eyes looked heavenly. They were deep and slightly shaking and what lied inside them was an emotion that I couldn't define. But love – true love – had to be one of its synonyms.
The sun had descended, the water was sparkling and silent, the grass shook lightly under the light breeze and for what felt like three eternities, we sat there; with my finger on his lips and his eyes sinking into mine, his hands lazily latching onto my extending arms and our bodies just inches away from one another's embrace.
A gap that would be filled the second I saw Spencer moved forward. He took in a breath at my sudden jerk forward when our lips connected because he was slowly leaning in and I was too starving and hungry to play by the clichés of a romantic comedy any longer.
He got the message somewhere in between my lips devouring his and came back with just as much intensity as our fingers hotly swam through hair, as our palms heatedly latched onto chests, as our hands lightly played on hearts.
So intense that it took me a while to notice that my back was pressed up against grass, dirt and rock with Spencer's body pressing on top of me. Too busy to realize that somehow my shirt had gotten over my head and Spencer's buckle was loosed. Too spaced to understand that my phone had been ringing for the past ten minutes or so. Too lazy to reach into my pocket to pull it out. Too in love to care.
By the time we had finished and our clothes were scattered across the field with Spencer's orange colored shirt floating in the lake or river or pond or reservoir or big puddle or who the hell cares at this point, it was way past eleven pm. Spencer's parents had yet to call and mine had been calling nonstop.
He rested his head on my shoulder as we overlooked the glittering water that somehow went from from sky blue to a dimmed dark hue of the same color.
"Do we have to go back?" I finally asked somewhere in between kisses to the top of Spencer's head and incoherent mumblings of affection.
"Unfortunately." He breathily replied after a little period of lapse time that I could only sum up was he himself contemplating the proposed.
"I don't wanna." I mumbled, pout in place and hands childishly roaming through his golden hair.
"Me neither, but we're big boys and big boys have to face their problems." He responded with a sigh heavier than his head on my shoulder.
"Being a man sucks. Girls don't have to make all these hard decisions." I responded, a little irritated (and sexist) but that hardly made the former less true.
"Then get a sex change." Was his solution and I could only snort in response the moment that it rolled sarcastically of his tongue.
"I want equality not a vagina."
There was muffled laughter from Spence, an eye roll from me and a little bit of nostalgia to bring things full circle. I nuzzled Spencer's hair and inhaled its salt-water induced scent. Strangely euphoric and intoxicating.
So much so that I did it again and again and again until Spencer's little "creep" that shyly exited his mouth stopped me momentarily to let out a little "I know" in response with just as much meekness in my voice as well.
A minute passed. A then two. And then three. And then four. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty. Forty-Seven. Sixty.
We had long but decided to lie on the grass with our temples slightly touching and look up at the sky and up at the chaotic formation of stars and stars that Spencer probed could be planets and I saying maybe they were alien ships and him smacking me on the side of my head opposite the one he was touching with an open palm.
After which, Spencer's phone finally rang and he cursed when he saw the number. He huffed and open it to answer and I huffed along with him. "The beginning of the end." He mumbled, more so to him rather than to me, although I was sure I was also meant to hear it as well – even if it was him trying to be snarky. "Hi, Mom."
There was an angry voice on the other line. I couldn't make out what she was saying but the way her voice escalated and descended and flew up and drowned out again was telling enough that Mrs. Haynes was angry. She tried to control it but it still found a way to come out anyway.
"Fine." He huffed after she had finally stopped and presumably asked him to defend himself for missing school and whatever else. "I'll be there and soon as possible." He hung up after that and with an overly exaggerated eye roll, he fell backwards and landed harshly on me.
"Break a rib, why don't you." I muttered in response to the sharp pain of his large head smacking my bare chest.
"Not my fault you have a girly chest." He retorted and I snorted.
"As if you're in any manlier. You hardly have hair under your armpits and on your legs."
He dipped into quietness after that and maybe I had crossed a line and went to apologize but I only managed to get out "I'm Sor-" because he picked up his head and slammed it again back down hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
"It's call shaving, douche."
"What kind of guy shaves under his arms?"
"Hygienic ones that know that hair traps sweat and sweat causes body odor which probably explains your natural scent of musk and ageing mildew."
"That hurt, jerk." I retorted.
"Don't you mean hurted? And deal with it." He responded.
"Okay, I should probably get that reference, but whatever. You'll have to deal with it as well." I lashed out, albeit amusingly.
"Not for long." He snickered.
And things kind of went dead after that and I waited for enough guilt to build inside of him for that "I'm sorr-ow!" to echo through the field as my open palm smacked his chest.
"Not my fault you have a girly chest." I mocked and he growled and I laughed and he snickered and I sighed and he huffed and we both fell silent afterwards to watch the sky aimlessly.
One minute passed. Two minutes floated on by. Three came and went. So did four. And then five. Six. Seven. Twenty. Thirty-Two. Forty-Nine. Seventy.
Spencer's phone rang again and again he picked it up and answered with a low, bored voice. A deeper voice was on this time; less frantic than the first but still by the sound of it, fairly upset.
"I'm almost there, Dad." Spencer replied-slash-lied with annoyance in his tone. The voice spoke. "We were out of town." There was a pause and then a lighter tone. "Dad, no" Spencer huffed, "we're not being Bonnie and Clyde." He responded with a brand of mockery that sounded as if he was imitating his dad. "I'll be there soon. Bye." He hung up before there was a response.
He huffed again and lied the phone on the grass next to him.Sensing his bad mood, I scrambled to look for something to make him happy again.
"That one looks like an elephant." I remarked a few minutes later, idiotically might I add, guiding one of Spencer's arms and thus his pointed finger to the cloud in question.
"Hmm..." was his response. "I guess." He followed, before shaking his hand out of mine and grabbing hold of it to lead it to another one that floated just east of mine. "And that one looks like a clown's face." He snickered.
My other arm gripped his other arm and pointed him towards another one a few small clouds over. "And that one looks like John McCain ate something sour."
He fell silent. "What does that even look like?"
"Like that." I responded, "Duh."
"Ass."
"Your ass."
"Unfortunately." He mocked and I emitted a growl that made his body slightly quiver in laughter.
Another minute swam by. Two minutes floated pass. Three followed in a daze. So did Four. And did Five. Six. Seven. Thirty. Fifty- Nine. Eighty.
Spencer's phone rang again only this time, he didn't huff – he growled, sat up off of my chest, picked up his phone and threw it. It was only until the sound of something heavy landing in a body of water that we realized where it had gone.
"Bummer." Was my only possible retort.
Spencer shrugged and lied back down onto my chest. "You owe me an IPhone anyway."