ON THE JOB TRAINING
"What is all this?" Rory's muffled voice comes from my closet as he rummages about looking for. . .I'm not sure what. Maybe he's after my keepsake box with the Raggedy Doctor doll I made when we were kids. Shows how much he knows, though, because it's under my bed.
"What's all what?" I look up from the calendar – work schedule really – I'm reading on my phone.
"These. . .These costumes." He holds up the sexy nun and sexy nurse ones. "Having a little trouble deciding what to wear to the Halloween party, Amelia?
I roll my eyes. "Amelia is a a chubby cheeked little girl who eats fish fingers and custard till she hurls. That's not me anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. You know that. Not since I stopped believing in strange boys dropping from the sky in telephone boxes."
"Amy."
Rory always says my name soft as a caress – softer really, if you consider the boys I normally go around with aren't interested in being soft and gentle. But not Rory. Whenever he says my name like that – all soft and breathy – it gives me flutters. Real flutters all up and down and not the pretend kind you can get with too much booze and a good imagination in the back seat –sometimes boot – of random fella A, B, or C's car.
"They're uniforms." I wave a hand at the costumes. "For my new job."
"I hope you're going to say at the Party Store."
"Of course not." I roll my eyes again. "How boring! You are looking at the newest kiss-o-gram from Big Mike's Fantasy Needs." I do a mock bow. "Fulfilling men's fantasy needs since 1993."
"A strip-o-gram?"
Rory looks confused...or interested. With him, it's usually hard to tell.
"No, silly, a kiss-o-gram."
"What's the difference?"
"I don't take my clothes off, just kiss fellas while I'm dressed up as their dream girl."
He holds out the sexy nun costume. "Some fellows have weird dreams."
I shrug. "I don't judge, just pucker."
"And you actually get paid for this?"
"Quite a lot, thank you very much. Well, I will make quite a lot as soon as I start. My first day is next Tuesday."
I watch him watching me. We have weird moments like this all the time. When there's so much unsaid that should be said. Ever since Mels outed him as not gay, things have been strange between us. Hopeful but scared all rolled into one and no one saying what needs to be said.
"What's your fantasy, Rory?"
"You."
"Don't be daft. I'm not going to answer till you go."
He shakes his head and purses his lips in the way he gets when he's unhappy at something. "No, that's my answer. You. My fantasy is you. No fancy get ups or disguises, just you. Amelia Jessica Pond."
I blink back tears, trying to hide the fact that I'm crying – or almost crying – behind a curtain of my hair. I'm supposed to be the strong one. I don't cry over things boys say to me, even if they're the best boy in the entire world (aka Rory).
"I've been waiting forever for you to say something like that to me."
"Now it's said."
He crosses my room in record time and – just like in a TV show – we're kissing. Really kissing and not the puckered lips kids or grandma stuff.
"Wait," Rory says as I'm working on untucking his shirt and pulling him over to my bed at the same time. "Since you're my fantasy, does that mean I have to pay you for this?"
I have his shirt untucked and set to work on his buttons next. "Consider it on the job training."