It was the day after I lost my virginity. Jesse had woken up before me and come upstairs. I awoke to his face and his hand pushing my hair behind my ears.
"How you feeling?"
"Sore as hell. You?"
"Same, but probably not as bad as you."
"What do we have to do today?"
"Your mom said something at dinner last night about the aquarium. Want to go?"
I moaned. "Noooo. Don't make me walk around all day. It huuuuurts."
"I could push you around in a wheelchair."
"Yeah. I'm sure that wouldn't raise some eyebrows in my family," I said sarcastically.
"Well what do you want to do?"
I smiled at him without saying a word. He had obviously taken the hint.
"I thought you were sore."
"You could make it feel better."
He laughed and dragged me out of bed only to find that I had undressed myself completely in the middle of the night. I laid out some clothes and went to take a shower. Getting ready usually takes me about an hour and a half, but that day took at least two hours. I wanted to look extra sexy for Jesse because, let's face it, he was extra sexy all the time.
I went downstairs to find my brother, my parents, and Jesse all laughing at something. Apparently my brother had been giving the stand-up comedy monologue about his first day of high school. I'll never forget that story. I don't think I'd ever laughed so hard in my life. We all piled up in my dads truck and headed out to Nashville to look at thousands of different types of fish. I was still really sore, but I wasn't so focused on it being out of the house. We went to the dolphin show, rode on the moving walkway through the giant tank of sharks and sting rays, and stood there watching the baby otters for at least ten minutes. Every time Jesse touched me, even if we just brushed each other, I couldn't help but think about the night before. The way he held me as close as he possibly could when he kissed me, the warmth of his skin, the way he worded his sentences like a poet. I guess that kind of comes with the package with songwriters. They're amazing with words. I tried to push the thoughts away, though. I didn't want to accidentally end up saying something about it later.
We spent the last half of that afternoon eating lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I had only been to the one in Nashville once and had some awful memories there, but I was sure Jesse would help me write over those. We sat next to each other in a booth, my parents on the other side, and my little brother at the end of the table nearest Jesse. Lil bro told more stories and jokes that included his hilarious impressions of the ghetto people in our new place of residence. We were all laughing and having a great time when my mom got a phone call and had to get up and leave to talk. Our family always knew that wasn't a good sign. When she came back she told us that Granddad had checked himself into a temporary rehabilitation center just to improve his health, but she wanted to go to Louisiana to make sure everything was okay. When we got back to the house it was about 3 PM. Mom packed her bags and left, Dad went to the office to finish up some work, and my brother went to hang out with friends. Jesse and I had the house to ourselves for a while. I was pretty down about my granddad even though I was sure everything was fine. I had told Jesse I was going to go change into some shorts, but I was taking too long. He came upstairs to find me going through my scrapbook and looking at pictures I'd taken over the years of my granddad. He sat next to me on the bed, put his arm around me, and kissed my head. I laid on his shoulder, but he laid me on my back, crawled on top of me, and kissed my lips.
"You don't have a thing to worry about. You know that, right?"
I shook my head. I always loved the way he reassured me about everything any time I was worried.
"Let's go to the store."
"For what?"
"What makes every gloomy day better?"
"Ice cream?"
"Exactly."
We got in his car, drove to the store, and came back with more sugar than we could ever possibly eat by ourselves. There was vanilla ice cream, caramel syrup, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, chocolate chips, sprinkles, whipped cream... You name it, we probably bought it. We carried the sacks into the kitchen and laid everything out on the counter, got out the bowls and began creating our own custom sundaes. I was just about to put on my chocolate chips when I felt something hit my face. I looked over to see Jesse smiling big with the bottle of strawberry syrup pointed directly at me.
"Ha. Ha. Very funny. But you know what this means..."
He gave me a bewildered look.
"This means war."
