This Is Our Story Ch 02

Since the moment Conner had seen that academic decathlon picture change, he'd been beside himself with the need to talk to Miss C about the

This Is Our Story

program. Questions, considerations, implications... It was the most exciting development in yearbook since he'd first picked up the craft.

That had been before he realized that he had body-swapped the nobody girl crushing on him with one of the hottest girls in school.

So instead, when Miss C asked him at the start of class if he'd had a chance to try it out yet, Conner avoided eye contact and mumbled a made-up excuse. He felt bad about it - and not just because he wanted to know more. He was lying to Miss C, one of the people he respected most in the world. Or at least, evading the truth, and about something darned important. This had huge implications. After all, even if everyone who knew Hailey looked at her and saw nothing different, what about strangers? What about things like genetic predispositions, immunizations, blood type... Conner being the over-thinker that he was, he'd missed his entire government class lecture while caught up in imagining a scenario where Hailey's little brother needed a kidney someday, and when he got Hayleigh's instead of Hailey's, it killed him.

He tried to tell himself that was why he felt already felt guilty, but deep down, that wasn't it. The fact that he was already subconsciously planning on taking advantage of Hailey had a lot more to do with it.

Miss C, however, didn't seem to skip a beat, and told him not to worry, that she'd be running a tutorial for everybody tomorrow. Today was a work day, and so after a quick check-in with the staff, Conner dispatched them to go do what needed doing. He found himself looking long after Heather. Could he turn Hailey into

that

? Not that she was hotter, per se, just that he'd had his eye on her for so long. And if nobody even knew or cared, would it be so bad to...

No. He didn't know what he was messing with yet, and he wasn't about to go risking any further weirdness until he better knew what he was doing. It almost literally pained him to sign in the school laptop with TIOS on it, knowing it was that much longer he'd have to wait to explore deeper. Doubly so as Miss C wanted his help working with the freshmen today, showing them how to use some of the camera settings and shadowing while they got a few shots done. So by the time the school day ended, he didn't even had a chance to open the program.

He saw Hailey in the distance down the hall as she made her way to her bus; she waved enthusiastically before turning away, her smile practically visible through the back of her head. His whole drive home, he barely heard Owen's punk rock blaring out of the speakers. He was just picturing himself and Hailey - this new, incredible Hailey - on their date. Conner's first ever

date

date, not counting school dances, which were basically just hanging out with friends in fancy clothes. Then, he'd gone with friends of friends who needed a date, and then most of their group just swapped dance partners willy nilly, heedless of who was officially whose. Tonight, it would be just him and a single girl, one who no doubt had high expectations.

Needless to say, by the time he dropped off Owen and pulled up in his own driveway, Conner was terrified.

Both his mother and stepsister were home, the former as usual and the latter as day one of her fall break from college. Without even meaning to be melodramatic, Conner made it no farther than the living room before falling face first on the couch in dread. What had he done? He had no idea how to talk to girls. Not

romantically

, anyway. What was one supposed to talk about? Or was one supposed to talk? If not, then what to do? He couldn't just sit there... looking at her. She was too damn beautiful. He could feel his tongue drying up (apparently to allow sweat to flow to his palms) even now in his own house just thinking about it.

Actually sitting face to face with one of the premier goddesses of Northside High might kill him.

"Hi there, sweetie. Rough day?" came the concerned voice of his mother.

"Unghahaduh," came his incomprehensible reply into the throw pillow.

He could hear a gasp from the only woman on earth who could've understood him. "Conner, you have a

date

!" She squealed in delight, then fell on top of him, tickling him until he finally broke into giggles.

"Mom! Quit it!"

She at last relented, though by that time Angelica had joined them. "Did I hear that right? Goner's gone and got himself a date?"

"Don't call me that, Angelica," Conner said, laughter retreating under the condescending smirk of his pretty stepsister. She'd probably never had trouble getting a date in her life. "And yes, I do have a date. So what?"

"We-he-hell, don't get your skimpy little panties in a knot, I was just popping by to make sure I'd heard the good news right."

"Angelica..." his mother warned.

"Sorry, Shannon," came the patently insincere reply.

"So," asked his mother, sitting beside him on the sofa, "who's the lucky girl?"

"Hailey McManus."

She broke out in grins. "Oh good! You've talked so much about her, and she sounds like such a nice girl. Did you ask her or did she ask you? Girls do that nowadays, you know."

"Yeah, we even drive our own cars and vote, when we're not too cranking out babies," said Angelica. Conner's mother chuckled and rolled her eyes, unflappable as ever.

"I asked her. I guess I figured I may as well take your advice."

"Smart boy. So what are you two going to do tonight?"

"I'm not too sure yet. I sort of asked without having a plan."

She rolled her eyes in that adoringly motherly way of hers. "My Conner. He has his future planned out in ten-minute blocks through graduate school, but doesn't know where he's taking his young lady tonight. Well, if you want my advice-"

"Yes please!"

"-you'll take her out to eat somewhere nice, but not too nice. You don't want to over-do it on a first date, but don't take her to that, ugh, hole in the wall you kids are always going to."

"The Bean Bag Cafe?"

"Ew, yes. That place is just dirty. Take her someplace nice, like TGI Fridays. Not the east side one, the one downtown. Then you can take her to the movies, and let

her

pick, understand? No Super-Hero-Man vs. The Garbage Monsters, or whatever it is they put out for boys like you and Owen. And you offer to pay for everything. In fact, let me get my purse..." She shuffled off to find it.

Angelica, to his surprise, replaced his mother on the opposite end of the couch. "OK, so, do you actually like this girl? Want to get anywhere with her?" she asked in a muted tone.

"Um, yeah, I guess," Conner answered, cheeks coloring.

"OK, so ignore most of that. I mean, dinner is fine, but... good lord not TGI Fridays. Take her to Il Parata - that Italian slash seafood place. You know it?" He nodded. "Good. Don't order anything greasy or too garlicky. You don't want digestive issues, and you don't want kissing you to be a chore if you get that far. Let her look over the menu, and order something she sounded interested in but didn't order so you can be Johnny Gentleman and let her try some."

"Wow, that's good."

"That's actually obvious, but you're new at this. Then after,

don't

go to a movie. You know what you can't do at a movie? Get her bra off. You're lucky if you can even make out comfortably, wedged into two seats side by side, and if you haven't fucked it up by that point, it'll just mean two hours where you can't talk, you can't do anything to each other. It's fucking edging bullshit is what it is."

Conner had long known his sister was not a fan of going to the theater; at last he began to understand why. Sort of.

"So where do I take her?"

"You go up to Makeout Point."

Conner blinked. "Makeout Point? Where's...?"

"I was kidding, moron. God you're hopeless. No, you read the room. Probably dinner isn't gonna be enough to loosen her panties, so find a place you can hang out." She named off a few local places: a pool hall, coffee house, and a bookstore with a nice little cafe in it. "And if she's not into those, you know, you can go the 'trust me' route and take her anyway. Then just don't fuck things up, and she'll feel like you're Mr. Smooth Operator, surprising and take-charge."

"OK. So... what then?"

She rolled her eyes. "What, you want me on bluetooth the whole date?"

"No, I mean, like... what if things are going... well?"

She made a face. "OK, I am not doing the birds and bees with you. Just don't be a dick and rush things, and equally important, don't be a pussy and let it peter out. And... here." Conner watched in shock as his stepsister opened a drawer in the end table, rooting around under pens and nail files and loose bandaids and breath mints and AA batteries, until finally coming up with a small square package.

"Is this a...?!" He cut himself short as his mother strode back into the living room, hiding the condom under his leg in a flash.

"Now here's forty dollars for dinner, and... is fifteen enough for a movie?"

"I think he's got everything he needs Shannon," Angelica answered. She gave her stepbrother a wink.

At six o'clock sharp, Conner pulled up at Hailey's house. It was a modest-sized house in a modest neighborhood, yet he couldn't help but smile at the brightly painted "McWelcome to the McManus Home!" near the front door. From previous interactions, he knew a few things about Hailey's home life. That she had a little brother who had some health issues, that she was raised by a single mom after her dad walked out on them when she was six, that her mother was a florist whose business had gone under when a national chain opened up in town, and now she worked there for way less money. Like everything else about Hailey, her family life was pretty normal, but still somehow pretty sad.

"You can do this. Remember, she's Hailey, not Hayleigh," he said, once more repeating in his head

Hailey not Hayleigh

. It wasn't doing much. Hailey had never made him nervous in his life. Hayleigh had been doing things to his mind - and other parts - since he'd hit puberty. One was the stuff of idle annoyances, one was the stuff of sweaty fantasies. And now, no matter how much he told himself this was the former, his eyes were only going to confirm the latter.

There was no escaping it. Girls that hot were simply terrifying.

He could do this. He'd been over the plan in his head a hundred times since talking to Angelica. Il Pirata, no garlic no grease, share something she likes, go hang out, insist, don't rush don't puss out. Simplicity itself. With his heart in his throat, the editor-in-chief made his way up the front walk and knocked on the door.

"Conner!" Hailey squealed as she opened it almost immediately. Conner swallowed nervously at the sight of this redheaded goddess. She even had green eyes, he realized. He'd never noticed her eyes before. And she was wearing a little red dress that... wow. It wasn't skimpy, or flashy, or especially revealing. It was a simple testament to the reality that a girl like this simply made anything look tantalizing. She could've opened the door in a sweat suit and made him realize how sexy sweat suits could be, in the right light. Though the red dress didn't hurt.

"Hi, Hailey. Um, wow, you look... really nice." He tugged at his suddenly strangling shirt collar.

Her cheeks colored. "Oh, stop. I look... bleh. But you, you look so... handsome!"

Conner was simply glad he'd dressed up enough that he'd look about right alongside that dress. "So, are you ready? Not that you don't look, you know, ready."

Her smile evaporated, replaced by a panicked expression. "OK, let me just say I am SO. SORRY. But, um, I might not be able to go out. I only found out like ten minutes ago. My mom called and she has to work late tonight because... well nevermind why, but it means I have to stay home and watch my brother."

As much as he was relieved to get out of all this pressure, just looking at her made him appreciate what a shame this really was. "Oh. Yeah, that's too bad."

Suddenly Hailey snatched his forearm in her hands. "But... I dunno, I guess I was thinking, like, if you wanted to hang out here? My brother just sits in his room playing his games all the time, and he'll probably be asleep soon, and we could, like, hang out?"

Conner processed it, the gears of his mind turning like they'd been lubricated with molasses instead of grease. So instead of a public dinner and forced awkward socialization in order to get her to want to be alone with him, she was proposing...

"That sounds great," he said.

"Really? I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. Like, I'm sure you have way better things to do than babysit Doug with me." Still, she didn't let go of his arm.

"Really. I'd love to. Your mom won't mind?"

"Mom would never even believe I have a boy over." She giggled, then it cut off as she realized how pathetic it must have sounded. Only a step behind how his own mom would react if he'd brought her home, believing but giddy with the novelty of it. Hailey ushered her date inside, instructing him to take his shoes off at the door. From there it was into the living room.

"So, you wanna, like, watch something? We have Netflix." Both of them felt the heat bloom in their cheeks as the phrase "Netflix and chill" reverberated in their heads.

"That'd be cool, sure."

Hailey ran to the kitchen to get drinks, telling Conner to pick out whatever he liked. When she returned, he was waiting for her, nothing selected. "Why don't you pick? I don't wanna make you watch some dude movie."

"I don't care. I'll watch anything you want. It doesn't matter. I like everything. Whatever you want."

At those words -

whatever you want

- from that face, he could feel the blood running back out of his cheeks and trickling somewhere else altogether. Conner tried not to think about it - or her - as he scrolled down and selected a semi-recent comedy. When Hailey reiterated she was fine with it, he hit play, then sit back and let his date, alone with this girl in that body, commence.

Had a time-lapse camera recorded their viewing experience, it would have revealed an entire hour of two teenagers sitting side by side, not quite touching, movements mostly confined to blinking and, in Conner's case, scratching an itch on his shoulder for a few seconds. He wanted so badly to turn to her and say something charming, if only to have an excuse to look at her, but he couldn't come up with anything. Hailey was just as quiet. She sat with her legs crossed at the ankles, hands in her lap, staring at the screen and laughing as appropriate to show she was enjoying herself.

When he heard a sound outside, Conner's head turned to look out the window just long enough to make him realize that, from this angle, he had a decent vantage point down the neckline of her dress. He could even just barely make out the color of her bra. Black. That was hot. Though with those breasts, what color wouldn't be? His eyes betrayed him, time and again glancing over, sneaking peek after peek. He knew it was wrong to look, rude and crass and shallow, but then again, it would be almost as rude to the entire male sex not to look. Owen would never forgive him - at least, not if he saw the Hailey Conner was seeing.

Then she caught him.

"Conner? Were you looking at my boobs?"

His heart was suddenly pounding so loud he couldn't even hear his own stammering voice. "N-no! No, I was just, um, glancing over, and..."

Hailey laughed. "It's OK. I don't mind. It's, um, kind of sweet, actually."

Sweet? Was she crazy? He was surreptitiously ogling her, and she thought it was sweet? He'd been raised to think he deserved to be slapped in the face for such behavior. His mom and stepdad didn't so much as hold hands in front of their children, for crying out loud. "I, um, I know I shouldn't..."

"Seriously! It's OK. Actually, do you wanna..." She stopped, then suddenly sprang up and darted down the hallway. She opened a door with catlike stealth, then closed it a moment later just as noiselessly. Then she was running back the hall and was sitting back where she'd been as if she'd never gone.

"Uh..." Conner managed.

"Sorry, I was making sure Doug is asleep, and is he ever. So anyway, do you, like, wanna see 'em? I don't mind, if you want. I mean, I totally get if you don't and everything. But since you were, you know, looking, I thought..."

He nearly lost it then and there. It wasn't just the offer, but the tone in which she offered it. So hopeful. Like she was offering not because she wanted to show off her rack, but because she was desperate to please him. Something deeply submissive that, in return, touched on that some part of his brain that had texted her to dress sexy for him. A primitive, confident inner voice.

When he handed it control of his outer voice, it said, "Show me."

Hailey nervously bit her lip - her plump, pink, glossy lip - as she lowered the shoulder straps down her arms. One agonizing centimeter at a time, the tops of her breasts were revealed to him, until soon, only her bra was in his way. Still, it was better than he ever would have imagined. And since asking her out this afternoon, he'd been imagining it nearly nonstop.

"Holy... Hailey, you're so... they're..."

Her eyes widened in what looked like panic. "I'm sorry. I know. I'll cover up. I'm sorry. Oh god. I can't believe I..."

Conner had to act quickly to stop her from pulling the top of her dress back up. "Hailey, let me finish. What I was going to say was, they're

incredible

."

She froze, and by degrees began to show signs she was understanding his meaning. "You... you like them?"

"They're incredible."

She giggled, lowering her hands and thrusting them towards him. "You said that already."

"It bears repeating," said Conner, who had abandoned any pretense of eye contact by now.

"Um, thanks. Do... do you want to touch them? Because you can. I mean, I want you to. Touch them, that is. If you want."

Conner didn't need to be told twice. His hands were cupping Hailey's bra-encased breasts in the next instant, and the satisfied look on her face mostly subdued the nervousness that slammed home the next moment. He'd never gotten to second base before, and with Hailey he'd leapt right past first. She sat there, perfectly content to let her crush fondle her to his heart's content.

"I can... you know. If you want," she said softly.

"Take your bra off?"

He'd meant it as a question, not trusting reality to gift him so. Hailey had heard exclamation point rather than question mark, and looked only too flattered by his interest. She was already undoing the clasp, and then...

There they were. Hayleigh McKnight's tits, superimposed on Hailey McManus's personality. "Tits" wasn't even a term Conner used in his own head generally, but ones this perfect deserved it. He wasn't a total saint; he'd seen enough breasts on the internet to know they came in all shapes and sizes, and there was no guarantee that simply because she had a pretty face, she would also have great boobs, how he'd long imagined them.

They weren't how he imagined them, however. They were better. They were tits.

Perfect, sumptuous tits.

They sat a bit lower than he'd thought, largely because they were also just a bit smaller. Hayleigh was fond of wearing shirts that showed ample cleavage, and so he'd always assumed they were huge. Now he realized (with a glance at the discarded bra) that they were a C cup, but her bra choice accentuated them. God bless that bra. They also showed that she evidently tanned wearing a bikini, because two pale triangles were pointing at him from the newly revealed skin. Not how he would've designed them, but so what. Those nipples... dark brown, and tinier than any he'd ever seen, an inch across, if that.