I stood there, nervous, wondering whether or not I should just turn around and head back across the street. I turned to look back at my house. I'd never been nervous about coming here before. I'd been here a thousand times, why now all of the sudden?
I turned my head back to the door. "No," I told myself. "I'm going through with this. We're doing it today."
I reached out and placed my finger to the doorbell, took a breath in, and pressed firmly.
"I got it!" I heard Finn call out followed by a clatter of noise as he clumsily tripped his way down the stairs. The front door swung open.
"Hi Emily!" Finn said with a smile. "I, uh, I'm glad you're here! I wasn't sure if you were going to come or not."
Finn seemed excited but I could tell from his voice he was also just as anxious about today as I was.
"Hi Finn!" I said, smiling and trying to sound confident. "Honestly, I thought about turning around and heading back home, but, well," I paused for a moment. "I'm ready," I told him.
Finn turned to the side and I stepped in, took off my shoes, and followed Finn up the stairs. I watched Finn from behind as we climbed, his butt lifting up and falling with each step under his knee-high athletic shorts. Finn played soccer the last four years of high school and although his arms weren't amazingly strong, his stomach was tight and his ass looked amazing from running around all the time. Finn had a light skin tone in the winter time but was now a nice, even bronze from the summer sun as mid-August approached.
Finn and I reached the top of the staircase and I looked up to him. Finn was thin but also tall. At 6'1" he stood a whole foot taller than me.
Finn looked down and I imagined myself from his eyes. The short, thin blonde haired girl with blue eyes and tan skin with freckles he'd grown up playing soccer with across the street.
"So, um," Finn started, his voice a little shaky. "Want to go to my room?"
I smiled. I could tell from his voice that Finn was just as nervous as I was. I think we were both pretending not to be. And somehow that made me feel more comfortable about the whole thing.
"Yeah," I said. "I mean, where else?"
Finn laughed lightly and we started down the hallway to his room.
"Hey there, Emily!" I heard a voice call out as we passed the kitchen. It was Finn's mom.
"Finn didn't tell me you were coming over today. How's everything? Are your parents well?"
"Oh, uh, Hi, Mrs. C! I didn't realize you were home today!" I said as I nudged Finn with my elbow. "My parents are doing well, I'll tell them you said hello."
I started to pull Finn down the hallway towards his room, but Mrs. C kept talking.
"Are you all ready for college? Finn's started packing already. I can't believe you two won't be living across the street from one another anymore, what with Finn going to Delaware and you going off to New York City."
"Yeah, thing's will sure be different," I told her with a smile.
"First time since you moved here, what, when you were 8 years old, I believe..." Mrs. C trailed off a bit in thought, clearly reminiscing about Finn and I's youth, and Finn tugged at my arm to come with him.
"We'll catch up later, Mrs. C, it was good talking with you," I told her, and followed Finn down the rest of the hallway to his room, closing the door behind me.
"Finn! You told me no one was going to be home today!" I scolded.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. She's usually at work but she switched her week off with a coworker for this week and I didn't find out until this morning."
"Were you going to tell me?" I asked, a little angry with Finn. "I mean, this kind of complicates things, don't you think?" I threw my hands up over my head. "Maybe we should put this off..."
"No, no, we can still do it today. Why don't we just go to your house instead?" Finn eagerly suggested.
"Are you nuts? My dad's home. That'd be MUCH worse."
"Damn, yeah I forgot about that."
I thought about this for a moment. It would be so much easier to just go home. Put this off for another day. But I was so anxious about this all week, and I really didn't want to prolong it any further. And, now that I was in Finn's room, even though I was mad at him for not mentioning his mom was home, I realized I was starting to get excited about it.
"Listen," I said. "We can still do it here."
I could see the relief in Finn's face as he relaxed as I spoke.
"We'll just, keep the door closed," I continued. "We can be quiet about it. It shouldn't be too hard, right?
Finn smiled and nodded excitedly.
I took a deep breath in and walked over to Finn's bed, taking a seat next to him. We were silent a moment, so I broke the tension with something lighthearted.
"Oh yeah, I forgot! Did you hear Kyle is going to Northwestern? Can you believe it?" I asked. "I swear that kid's going to cure cancer one day."
"Oh, yeah I heard. I got in there too, didn't I tell you that?" Finn said slyly. "Wasn't my first choice though. I was going to go to Community College but then I decided I'd settle for Delaware."
"Oh shut up," I said smiling and rolling my eyes. "You? Northwestern? 'Settling?'"
"I'm just saying, if I can get in, I'm not all that impressed Kyle got in too," Finn said trying to be serious, but allowing a small smirk to cross his lips.
"Finn don't pretend like I haven't known you my whole life. You wouldn't have made it into Northwestern in a million years."
"Man," Finn paused a second. "Here I was thinking Kyle was some kind of genius. I thought he'd go somewhere prestigious."
"You mean like Community College?"
"Yeah, exactly!"
"Oh shut up, Finn," I said laughing.
I put my hand on Finn's shoulder and shoved him a bit. Finn instinctively grabbed my arm as he fell onto the bed and pulled me on top of him. My hands fell on his chest and he caught my hips. We laughed a second more, and I looked up to him. Realizing the position we were in, with my body pressed against his. We both paused. We looked at each other. It was awkward for a moment, and I quickly sat up.
"Sorry," I said.
Finn sat up too.
"Don't be," Finn said with a comforting smile. Another moment of silence passed between us. "Listen, Emily," Finn added. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Do you not want to?" I asked back.
"Don't get me wrong. I really want to. I've actually been excited since I realized you were serious about doing this a month ago. I just, want to make sure you're not just doing it because you don't want to chicken out or go back on your word."
"No, I want to do this too, Finn. I'm really excited too, just a little nervous. I mean I've never done this before."
"I mean, that's the whole point!" Finn said enthusiastically. "Neither of us has. We can do this together and then we won't be so nervous and terrible at it when we get to school in a few weeks. I mean, that was the deal, right? We do it together, and then it'll be easier to get into it once we get to school."
I didn't say anything back to Finn, I just nodded in agreement while trying to calm my nerves a bit.
"And, honestly, I can't think of anyone else I'd want to do this with," Finn said to me.
I looked into his bold, brown eyes. The eyes I've known since we were kids growing up. Warm and charming and sweet. I knew I wanted my first time to be with Finn, too. And I stared to feel more comfortable.
"You're right," I told him. "This is going to be awesome, don't you think?"