Page 225 of Something Rad
She laughs, shaking her head as she steps out of the shower. “Remind me to never ask you for anything again.”
“No chance, Cooper.”
forty-seven
SARA
Robbie throws open the bathroom door and we’re met with a wide-eyed Grady Fisher clutching Robbie’s blue and yellow duffle bag and car keys to his chest.
“Oh,” Robbie says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Fisher, what are you still doing here? I told you to just leave the bag.”
Like ten minutes ago, I add in my head, slightly mortified at what this freshman might have heard from the other side of the door.
“I…I was afraid someone might take your stuff… I–I didn’t want to…” Grady stammers, trailing off as he tilts his head at us.
A weird feeling settles in my chest at how wrapped around his finger Robbie has so many people. How this boy just spent the last twenty minutes finding Robbie’s car, rifling through his trunk in the dark for his bag, and standing in this hallway holding said bag in the midst of a party without question, just because Robbie asked him to. I’m not sure what I would even do with that kind of power. How I would even act simply knowing I have that power. But I guess that’s just Robbie. Just his life. I’m not sure at the moment whether I feel envious of him or sorry for this freshman before me.
“How are you guysmorewet than you were before?” Grady asks.
My blood drains from my face, my mouth falling open as I raise my hand to stifle my laughter. Robbie snatches the bag and keys from Grady, muttering a quick, “Thanks, Fisher. Bye, Fisher,” before slamming the door in his face. Robbie rolls his eyes, shaking his head to himself.
Once my chuckles fade out, we’re left staring at each other in the silent bathroom, and everything sort of just hits me. Like reality crashing down, whatever little bubble we were inside of in the shower popped wide open. Without our hands on each other, without the heat between us, there’s nowhere to hide. No more walls. Nothing to shield us from each other.
And I have no idea what to do with that.
I don’t regret what happened between us. Not at all, actually. Everything I told Robbie was true. I’m tired of trying to fight my feelings, tired of running away from him, tired of letting my fear consume me. We may come from different worlds, we may have lived different lives, but I’m not sure how much that matters anymore. Because all I know is that my world is brighter with Robbie in it, and my life is so much more exciting. He makes me feel alive. And I don’t want that to stop.
But I also know that it isn’t quite that simple. I can’t just rewire my brain over the course of twenty unexpected, eye-opening, earth-shattering minutes. And trust isn’t something that can just be given. It takes time. It has to be earned. But faith… Faith is something you choose. Something that has to be given for trust to ever be earned. I guess the only question is if I’m willing to find my faith. To dig it out of the box I shoved it in, locked, and buried deep inside my heart.
Robbie clears his throat, breaking me out of my spiral of thoughts. When I look at him, I see he’s holding out a dry set of clothes to me, his open duffel bag on the ground between us and another fresh outfit in his other hand which I presume has to be for him to put on.
Robbie pushes the clothes closer to me, prompting me to take them from him, and I robotically do, words currently escaping me. I glance from the worn t-shirt and gym shorts combo in my hands to the jeans and golf shirt Robbie is holding, raising a brow at him.
“What?” Robbie questions me.
“Oh, nothing,” I say. “Your outfit just looks a little more…presentable than mine.”
“Well, what do they say?” Robbie asks, turning away from me to peel his wet shirt over his head and dry himself off with a towel he grabbed from the rack. I tilt my head at him, wondering why he’d feel the need to turn away when we just exposed far more than a little skin to each other mere minutes ago. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
I scoff out a laugh. “I don’t remember begging.”
“Really?” Robbie asks, quirking a brow at me as he finishes slipping on his dry shirt, fixing the collar. “That’s not how I remember it.” He pushes off his wet jeans, running the towel over each of his legs before stepping into his fresh pair. “In fact…” he says as he turns back to face me. I force my eyes to stay on his face even though they are being drawn to his still undone jeans like the strongest magnet money can buy, pressing my lips together and praying my face doesn’t look as warm as it suddenly feels. Robbie’s face morphs into the slightest smirk as he approaches me. “You’ve actually been quite demanding ever since we stepped into this bathroom.”
He suddenly leans in, coming so close that I’m sure he’s about to kiss me, but then he stops his movement when his lips are only an inch from mine. My hands holding the change of clothes are suddenly pushed up into my chest by Robbie’s hand gripping my wrist. My eyes, which I didn’t even realize I had closed, snap open, meeting a new variation of Robbie’s right in front of me.
Caramel milk chocolate?
“Your turn,” he whispers against my lips before flashing me a grin and releasing me, spinning away like the gentleman I think he’s trying to pretend that he is.
I blink at Robbie’s backside several times, knowing fully well that he has a self-satisfied smile plastered across his face even though I’m staring at the back of his head. I shake my head, biting my tongue as I turn my attention to the clothes in my hands. I slowly unravel the blue gym shorts and heather gray t-shirt, my jaw coming unhinged when they are fully revealed to me.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I say.
“What’s that?” Robbie asks, appearing to play dumb.
I turn around the shirt and shorts, which I now realize are a set of his basketball practice clothes, so the fronts of them are facing him.
Robbie purses his lips, fighting a smile. “What’s the problem?”
