Handsy

Joe- 16 Years Ago-2

“Where is your mother?” Miss Aspinall asked. I could hear someone locking the doors behind us.

“She’s not picking me up. Our driver, Gerald, is.” I’d been waiting outside of the building for him to show, and he was about half an hour late. The only people left were me, Luke, and a few of the chaperones. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon. He’s never late.” I lied. To be honest, I wanted them to all go away and leave me and Luke alone. He was waiting for his dad to be done with cleaning up and had been hanging outside with me. We were sitting on the brick steps not really saying much, just leaning into each other. That was okay, not like when I was stuck with one of the other guys and felt like I had to talk about soccer or cars.

“Do you need to borrow my phone?” Miss Aspinall opened her purse and dug around in it.

“You know what, I’ll get him home.” Luke’s dad spoke from behind us. “Joe’s in my biology class. I’ll call his folks and let them know.” I felt Mr. Taggart’s hand on my shoulder. When I turned my head toward Luke he was beet red, but a slight smile danced across his face too.

“Call them now, I can’t leave until I know everything’s the way it should be.” Miss Aspinall sighed. She seemed very put out by the whole thing, as if she had somewhere very important to be. All I could imagine was bible study, or an all night marathon of Little House on The Prairie.

I punched Mom’s number into Mr. Taggart’s phone, and while he explained to her that he was taking me home, Luke whispered in my ear. “Thanks for saving me tonight. You know,” he glanced at Miss Aspinall, “from her.”

I shrugged my shoulders and felt embarrassed. Not because of his thanks, but because of all the trouble I was causing. Mom probably forgot to tell Gerald he was picking me up, and now I was the center of attention.

“C’mon boys.” Mr. Taggart said. “I’m taking Holly home too, so you guys climb in back, okay.”