Page 26 of Our Moon (JACT #1)

Things are heating up even more between Ally and me.

We still haven’t done more than make out, much to her disappointment.

The age difference and secrecy clearly bother me more than her, not that she’s completely unperturbed about it.

Anytime I say anything that alludes to it, she gets distant.

It’s like she wants to stay in our own little bubble when we’re together and forget the outside world exists.

It’s all well and good in theory, but not so much in practice.

It’s a Saturday night and we managed to arrange some alone time.

The band doesn’t have a gig because the restaurant we normally play at is closed for renovations this week.

Ally managed to convince Alex to ask out a girl he’s been eyeing at school, Joey picked up a shift at work, and Trevor is hanging out at home.

I told him I had a date, which wasn’t a lie, and Ally said she was going out with Lucy.

I’m taking her out to Mountain Island Lake. I packed a picnic-style dinner, complete with a red and white checkered blanket. We lay on the blanket, feeding each other cheese cubes and grapes, talking and laughing.

It never gets old. Every single day is a brand new day with Ally and times like these, when we get to share real dates, it’s even more amazing.

I know how cheesy that sounds, but it’s true.

We could share the same story over and over again, we’ve done it, and it’s like hearing it for the first time.

She’s talking about graduation, which is only a month away now, and she’s so animated about it. She has the biggest smile on her face, and she’s moving her hands around as she talks. It’s fascinating, and I can’t get enough.

“Stop staring at me like that, you creeper!” she laughs, throwing a grape at me. It bounces off my nose and falls to the blanket between us.

“Hey now, don’t you waste the fruits of my labor,” I tease. I pick up the grape and pop it in my mouth, grinning at her. “And I thought you like it when I look at you. ”

“I do, but it was like you were participating in a one-sided staring contest.”

“It’s because you’re so beautiful I can’t get enough of you,” I tell her.

She sighs dreamily and her eyes cloud over.

‘Swoon,’ I believe is the term. “You’re such a romantic.

” She leans forward and gives me a quick peck on the lips, but I surprise her by pulling her down onto me and deepening the kiss.

I hold back my groan as she moans in response.

She pulls back just enough to look in my eyes and say, “I can’t get enough of you either. ”

We alternate between making out, snacking on the remaining fruit I brought for dessert, and talking while looking up at the stars and the moon.

“Every time I look at the moon, I think of you,” she says.

I roll my head to look at her lying beside me. “I think of you, too.”

She rolls her head over to look at me and smiles. Just as I’m leaning in to kiss her, her phone rings. She grumbles something under her breath about ‘timing’ and I laugh. She sits up and digs in her bag for her phone.

“It’s Lucy, I better answer it since I used her as my cover tonight. I hope my parents didn’t call over there looking for me because I’d be in so much trouble.” She makes a face, then slides her finger across the phone to answer the call. “Hey, Luce, what’s up?”

I’m not listening to what she’s saying, just watching her mouth move as she speaks. I can’t even stop myself from sitting up and kissing her.

She pulls away from me and swats at me. “Sorry, Luce. What were you saying? Nothing, just hanging out. I’m not doing anything.

What noise? I don’t know what you heard, but I’m just watching some TV.

” She’s glaring at me the whole time and I can’t help but laugh quietly.

“No, I’m alone. Look, the movie is getting to a good part, and I can’t find my remote to pause it.

I’ll call you later? Okay, tomorrow. Yeah, bye. ”

She taps the screen to cut off the call and puts her phone back in her bag. “You think you’re so cute, don’t you?” she scolds as she lays back down and then rolls on top of me.

I smile at her, “You’ve got a purdy mouth.”

She busts out laughing at my Deliverance impersonation, though it was geared more towards Woody Harrelson in Zombieland , one of our favorite movies. I start laughing, too, and pretty soon we’re kissing again.

“Will it always be like this?” she asks after a while.

“Absolutely.”

“Promise me? ”

I look over at her, the moonlight making her blue eyes shine. “I promise, baby girl. As long as we’ve got our moon, we’ll have each other. I love you.”

Her eyes fill with emotion, “I love you, too, Chase Baker. Forever.”

“Forever,” I agree and then she laughs. “Care to share what’s so funny about that?”

She looks at my serious expression and laughs harder. “I’m sorry,” she squeaks out. “I’m not laughing at that. It’s just, oh my God, this is embarrassing.”

“Did you fart?”

She sits up and her eyes widen as her mouth forms an ‘O.’ “Chase!”

“What? Everybody does it,” I say, completely straight-faced.

“I can’t even believe you right now. That is not why I was laughing.”

“Well, you said it was embarrassing.”

She sighs, “That would be mortifying. Embarrassed isn’t even the right word.”

“They’re synonymous.”

“Thanks for the English lesson.”

“Sorry, what were you gonna say?” She actually looks a little shy now. I sit up and pull her into my arms. “What is it, baby girl? You know you can tell me anything. Forever, remember?”

“It’s lame,” she says quietly.

“Nothing you say is ever lame.”

“That was lame,” she laughs.

“Tell me,” I insist.

“If this is really forever, then one day I might be a baker named ‘Baker.’ Told you it was lame,” she says so quickly I can barely make out the words.

I’m stunned silent. Ally having my last name? Allyson Baker. Allyson Marie Baker. Mrs. Chase Baker. Now who is the lame one?

“Say something?” she asks nervously.

“Allyson Baker,” I say. “I like the sound of that.”

“Really?” she looks up at me.

“Hell, yeah,” I nod. “Someday, Ally. Someday you will have my name, and I’ll give you everything you could ever dream of.”

She smiles at me. “Just give me you. You’re everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”

“I promise,” I say as I lean in to give her a quick kiss. Then I jump to my feet and reach out my hand for her to take.

“What are you doing?” she asks, giggling .

I pull my phone out of my pants pocket and scroll through the songs until I come to the playlist I made for tonight. I press play and put it in my shirt pocket so we can still hear it, then I pull her in close. I mirror our positions from that night in her bedroom and she quickly catches on.

“I love this song,” she says as “Easy to Love You” by Theory of a Deadman starts playing.

I start singing the words to her, about moonlight and wishing she will never leave because she’s all that I’ll ever need. When I look into her eyes, they’re full of tears. I frown.

“They’re happy tears, baby.” She rests her head back on my chest, and I continue singing to her.

Yeah, I made a playlist of love songs just for our date tonight. I’m not ashamed. I hold Ally in my arms, and we dance through all ten songs, right there under our moon and its stars.

***

It’s a few days before Ally’s graduation and I have finally come up with a plan.

I’m meeting her outside of her house tonight after practice to share it with her.

She’ll either love it, or it’ll totally freak her out.

It really could go either way and with Ally, you just never know. She’s always surprising me .

Like the other day when I gave her an early graduation/birthday gift, a necklace with matching earrings.

The gemstone was alexandrite, the less common birthstone for June.

She whisper-yelled at me for spending so much money when I was trying to save up to get out of my mother’s apartment.

Then, because she loved the jewelry so much, we made out for an hour in the dark in her backyard.

In that case, she loved it and she totally freaked out.

I was about to find out what response I was going to get since we just wrapped up our last song and started putting our instruments up.

“Just a few more days left,” I say to Alex, referring to his graduation on Saturday.

“Thank God. It’s ridiculous that they even require attendance this week.”

“Can’t you just skip that shit?” Joey asks.

“No. If any seniors miss a day this week they don’t walk on Saturday.”

“Can they do that?” I ask. I don’t remember that rule from when I graduated. Shit, I was probably the reason they came up with that rule with the way my attendance record was as a senior.

“Yeah. We’d still get our diploma and all, but we wouldn’t be able to participate in the ceremony. ”

“And mom would freak the fuck out if that happened,” Trevor adds, and Alex nods.

“Crazy,” Joey says, shaking his head. I think some days he regrets dropping out, but other days he loves the freedom too much. Plus, I know he needs the money from his day job, and he couldn’t get that while going to school, too.

“Yeah, but just three more days, and it’s all over. I can’t wait. No more ‘Alex, time to wake up,’ or ‘Alex, it’s a school night.’ Or my favorite, ‘Alex, don’t forget to do your homework.’” The guys and I laugh at his damn near perfect impersonation of his mother.

“Okay, well, I will see you guys tomorrow for dinner,” I say as I pass out fist bumps. “See you Thursday, Joe.”

“Later, man.”

I leave the garage and head down the driveway to my car.

I shouldn’t have been so eager to get out of there, because I still have to wait for them to leave before I sneak back up.

I start my car and fiddle around with the radio for a little bit, waiting to see them to exit the garage so I can pull off and know it’ll be safe to come back.

On nights when I’m meeting Ally, I drive around the corner after Joey leaves and walk back.

Thankfully I only have to wait about a minute before they exit.

I roll down my window and do the usual, offer Joey a ride home.

He never drives, always walks, since he lives just around the corner.

And as usual, he declines. I wave and drive off, circling the block to give Joey time to get home before parking around the corner.

The anticipation gets the best of me, and I practically run back to the house. When I get around back, Ally is waiting for me.

“Hey there, good looking,” she smiles.

“Hey, baby girl.” I step up to give her a quick kiss, but she grabs hold of my shoulders and pulls me in closer. I groan and pull back. “I gotta talk to you.”

Her brows pinch, and she frowns. “Is something wrong?”

“No, baby girl. Nothing is wrong at all,” I assure her, pulling her back into my chest for a hug. “I have a plan.”

“A plan for what?” I pull back and brush her hair back behind her ears, which results in a glare. She hates it when her hair is behind her ears. She shakes her head out like a dog and I laugh.

“A plan to tell everyone about us,” I say on a big exhale.

She sighs. “Yeah? And what’s that?” I can tell she’s a little bit frustrated, I know she doesn’t like talking about this. But that’s too bad. I’m not going to continue to sneak around like I’m ashamed of our relationship. I love her and I want the world to know it.

“Let’s tell them on Sunday.”

“This Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“That’s your grand plan?” She looks at me in disbelief. “To tell them on my birthday? What, do you think they’ll be less upset with me on my birthday?”

Now it’s my turn to sigh. “No, you silly girl. Well, it’s part of it. But it’s not to cushion the blow.”

She raises an eyebrow at me. “Then, why then?”

“Well, you’ll be eighteen on Sunday.”

“I know, we’ve talked about the benefits of me turning eighteen,” she grins and wriggles her eyebrows.

We decided to wait to do anything more than kissing until after she turns eighteen.

And I mean anything other than kissing. We haven’t touched, groped, or fondled, and we’ve barely even caressed.

And she just loves reminding me about it.

I roll my eyes. “You have a one-track mind, baby girl.”

“You love my mind,” she smarts.

“I love everything about you,” I return, and she melts into me.

“How did I get so lucky?” she asks .

I know it’s rhetorical, but I answer anyway. “The same way I did.”

“So what else does this plan of yours entail?” she asks, getting back on point.

“Well, we tell them on Sunday because you’re eighteen. So not only does it look better that you’re eighteen and I’m still twenty-one, but you’ll also legally be an adult.”

“And? They’ll still kick our butts if they want to.”

“True,” I agree. Here goes nothing. “But if things go south, you’ll be old enough to come live with me.”

She lets out a short gasp and looks up at me, caution in her eyes. “Live with you?”

“Yeah. I have enough money saved to get my own place. And if things don’t go well with us telling your family, you can always come stay with me until things cool down. We could get a place near your school.”

“You want me to live with you?” she asks. That’s obviously the only thing she heard.

“Yeah,” I nod. “If you want to.”

“I want to,” she says immediately, surprising me. I think it surprised her, too, because her eyes widened as soon as she said it. “I mean, if you really want me to. ”

I laugh, “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. But I don’t want you to feel pressured. I want things to work out with your family on Sunday, but I wanted you to know that there was another option in case it didn’t.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen on Sunday, Chase. But I do know that I love you, and I want to be with you. And just knowing that you’re here on this path with me, it’s everything that I’ll ever need.”

I lean my forehead against hers. “And you by my side, that’s all I’ll ever need, too.”

She smiles up at me and kisses me. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she affirms. I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince herself or me.

I nod, “Yeah, it is.”

“You promise that no matter what happens, even if they get really, really angry, you won’t leave me?”

I lift her chin so that she’s looking in my eyes.

“I will never, ever leave you. I promise. No matter what happens, I will never, ever leave you. We will get through this together. You mean the world to me, future Mrs. Baker the baker.” I add that last part to get a smile out of her and she rewards me with something even better, a laugh.

“I love you, Chase.”

“I love you, too, baby girl.”