Spaghetti had never been a food Rocky would instantly think of as romantic. Yet, somehow, watching his dork of a girlfriend slurp up the noodles and accidentally cover the area around her mouth with marinara sauce was absolutely adorable. It seemed to be a tradition.
Their first official date, they'd been thirteen years old, and Rocky had maybe been doing a few extra chores so he could formally ask her out to dinner and be able to pay for their food. The real problem wasn't even being able to pay, it was building up the confidence he needed to actually ask. It had taken him three whole weeks to finally tap her shoulder in the middle of English class and pass her a note. He watched as she unfolded the small piece of paper, reading the invitation in his scratchy handwriting. Lucy had turned around, putting her hand on top of his and mouthing the words, "Why not."
She'd shown up at Jean Juan's French-Mex Buffet half an hour early, and Rocky had found her sitting at a small table looking down at her cellphone and frantically firing out texts at an almost inhuman speed. He remembered she'd looked up and shot him a small smile, and Rocky's jaw had practically dropped. He didn't realize it before, but she was gorgeous. Her dark hair had been pulled back into a slightly messy braid that draped over her left shoulder, and he found himself speechless at the dark lipstick she'd never worn to school. Not to mention, she'd traded her usual sweatshirt and jeans for a thin-strapped black dress. Rocky suddenly felt himself looking down at his too-small dinner jacket and neon green tie, and felt a bit intimidated.
Stimulating the conversation had been the tricky part. They both sat there hiding their faces behind menus for a while, before Rocky ended up clearing his throat. Lucy had looked straight at him, and he felt obligated to speak. "You, uh...wow." poured out of his mouth, and he could have sworn she let out a small giggle, before folding her hands in her lap and looking at her feet.
"You look nice." she'd mumbled, and both of their cheeks had turned pink. They hadn't spoken for a while after that, Rocky preoccupying himself with playing a little song on his water glass with the utensils, and Lucy subtly trying to send out more text messages. The next time they spoke was when a waiter had come to take their order. Both simultaneously mumbled "Spaghetti" and found themselves looking at each other.
Rocky shot her a small smile. "Spaghetti, huh?" he asked, and Lucy shrugged.
"It's what I usually get here." she replied, tapping on her glass nervously with a black fingernail. That was the moment Rocky found himself looking at her hands. He tried not to show any signs, but he just wanted to reach across the table and grip her hand with his. Her hand looked so small, so...delicate and fragile. Rocky was afraid that being the nervous and awkward klutz he was he'd end up crushing it if he tried anything. That had been his motivation to resist the urge.
"Me too. Weird." he commented, looking around the restaurant nervously. There were tons of couples, old and young and in between, and they had no trouble talking. What was he doing wrong?
"So...my sister's having a baby." Lucy brought up out of nowhere, and Rocky furrowed his eyebrows for a second as he mentally scanned through her list of sisters. "Lori." Lucy clarified, a small smile crossing her lips as she clearly realized he was confused.
"Oh, uh...thanks. I'll get it one day." Rocky replied, and Lucy giggled. The metal from her braces reflected one of the fluorescent ceiling lights, and in Rocky's eyes it almost seemed as if she was glowing. "So, a baby?" he tried to stimulate the conversation again. "That's cool."
"I guess." Lucy mumbled, and that was the end of that conversation. The conversation began and ended a few times until their meal was brought out, which happened to not be two individual portions of spaghetti, but one large one.
Lucy looked down at the spaghetti and up at Rocky, who felt himself turning crimson from embarrassment. "I didn't know they were gonna do this." he felt the need to clarify, and then something strange happened.
"Well, I guess we have to share it." Lucy replied, picking up her fork and twirling a piece of spaghetti around it, putting the bite in her mouth and slurping up the rest of the noodles. "Come here, you're not going to be able to reach it from that side of the table." It left a little sauce on her face, and Rocky felt himself scooting his chair closer. He picked up her napkin, which still remained on the table, and reached over to get the marinara sauce off of the corners of her lips.
"You, uh...you've got something." he explained, and Lucy smiled again. Every time she smiled, Rocky ended up feeling a little bit giddy. She had the prettiest smile, he observed, and promptly picked up his fork and stabbed a portion of the noodles, cramming them in his mouth before he could say anything stupid.
Within minutes, they found themselves nearing the bottom of the bowl, and without thinking, Rocky poked the end of what he thought was one of two noodles left in the bowl, watching as Lucy followed suit with the other. It was only once he felt a little resistance on the end that he realized that it was not, in fact, a separate noodle, and Lucy didn't even seem to notice. In a moment of panic, Rocky realized exactly what was about to happen. He felt her nose bump up against his, his bottom lip just barely brushing against hers, and quickly bit his end of the spaghetti strand, letting her finish the last of the piece. It was then that he realized her face was an inch away from his, and even though the area around her lips was covered in marinara sauce, the thought of kissing her flew through his mind. It was tempting. Accidentally brushing his lip up against hers was enticing enough to make him want more. But that would be moving way too fast. After all, this was the first time they'd actually done something not as friends, and in all honesty Rocky wasn't even sure that they weren't eating dinner as friends.
"I, uh, I have to-" Rocky started, turning away, and then he felt Lucy grab his wrist.
"Did we..." she muttered quietly, and a faint blush brushed its way across her cheeks. Rocky looked down at her hand, still tightly grasped on his wrist, and couldn't look up.
"Almost." he mumbled.
Neither said anything for a good minute, and the next minute was packed with frantic apologies from both. Rocky watched as Lucy looked down and realized that she was still holding onto his wrist, and quickly pulled her hand away, actually going so far as to sit on top of her hands. Rocky pushed his chair back to its original position, and sat there nervously as they waited for the bill.
That was all that happened on that one night. A couple of months later, on Valentines' Day, coincidentally, she did end up kissing his cheek, and Rocky couldn't focus on anything else for the next...well, every time he saw her before school ended and they were freed into the summer as high school freshmen.
The next time Rocky saw her was in his second period Geometry class on the first day of ninth grade. Her hair had been cut shorter, skimming across her shoulder blades, which were left bare by her collared tank top. The makeup she'd only worn the one time had made its return, however more subtle than it had been on that first date, and a thin black choker snugly rested around her neck. He quickly claimed the seat beside her, awkwardly stumbling into the chair as he approached the desk from the wrong side. Lucy had smiled at him, and he noticed the colored squares on her braces were now red and white. Last year they had been yellow. He wondered why, but wasn't going to interrogate her about something so subtle.
Rocky had undergone a few changes himself during that summer. He'd shot up a few inches in height, and although it still cracked on a daily basis, his voice was slightly deeper. And he'd been practicing day and night for the day he'd finally see Lucy again, and be able to ask her on a second date after so many months.
He realized shortly after that first date that leaving the almost-kiss lingering without addressing it had just made everything much more awkward. Rocky knew he should have either apologized immediately, or genuinely kissed her, and option two seemed a little more enticing.
He had a whole plan mapped out. He was going to ask her on a second date, right here in the middle of Geometry class. He even had bought a Bat Orchid, which he'd learned was Lucy's favorite flower through her brother, who told it to Rocky's brother, who then shared it with Rocky after about fifteen minutes of teasing. It had taken forever to find, but he felt it was worth it.
Maybe he should ask when the teacher finished talking. Even though it was the first day, and nothing important truly happened on the first day of school, Rocky knew he should at least be paying attention. Yet he couldn't draw his gaze from the dark flower tucked into the water bottle pocket of his backpack.
They were in one of the middle rows of desks. Nobody would notice if he just casually slipped a note and a flower into her hand, would they?
"Hey." he whispered, and Lucy looked over, setting her pencil down on her desk. She seemed to be looking at his facial features, not that Rocky could really tell as her eyes were still hidden by her bangs.
"Hi." Lucy whispered back, the edges of her subtly red-tinted lips turning up into a very small smile. She really did have the prettiest smile. Rocky picked up his pencil and quietly tore a piece of paper from his notebook, scribbling down a few words and putting it face-down on her desk. She reached for it, but he held up a finger, to signify that she shouldn't look yet. He pulled the flower from the pocket in his backpack and placed it in her hand, and he felt his fingers brush against hers gently. Lucy looked down at the flower, turning over his note and scanning the messily-scrawled words. She set the items down on her desk, then turning her head to look at Rocky, and grabbing his face between her hands. He should have known what was about to happen, but the only thoughts what flooded through his mind were about how she was touching his face and she was doing it on purpose.
In the following moment, she kissed him, pulling her hands back after a second and then turning her head back to the front of the room. Her cheeks were bright red, Rocky noticed, and he felt lightheaded and giddy, viewing the same classroom almost...differently. The boys sitting behind them made a few quiet cat-call whistles, and despite not being intimidating in the slightest Rocky shot them a glare. This hadn't been their first kiss, that happening when they had both been twelve and accidentally bonked their heads up against one another, but it was their first intentional kiss. Rocky only wished he would have been more prepared. However, if she'd kissed him once on purpose, that must mean she'd been thinking about it. That alone was enough to make Rocky smile.
Rocky turned back to the front of the room, mouthing the word, "Wow." to nobody in particular. He felt something brush against his hand, and found that it was, in fact, Lucy's hand, and she looked over at him inquisitively. This was no accident, Rocky figured out quickly, and then gently intertwined his fingers with hers.
Many dates had come and gone through high school, along with many additional "on-purpose kisses", as the pair affectionately called them. Most remained insignificant, just a few details to differentiate one from another from another. They'd spent seemingly endless nights snuggling on the couch while watching horror movies with ridiculous plots, laughing about the stupidity of the characters. All of these nights seemed to end the same. Lucy would fall asleep, Rocky would carry her up the stairs to her bedroom, he'd lovingly kiss her goodnight, and then he would go home. It was almost a routine.
As they neared the end of their senior year of high school, Rocky began to notice all the posters for a particular event plastered around Royal Woods High. It was over-commercialized, Rocky knew, and his girlfriend would despise the idea altogether, but if he never asked he would never be able to get a response, be it positive or negative.
As cliché as it was, Rocky had spent most of his evening looking for one very specific type of flower, and even driving around thirty miles out of town before finally locating what he was looking for. It was late when he returned home, but the least he could do was hope that in the morning this entire adventure would not have been in vain. The next morning he actually went so far as to attempt running a brush through his tangled mop of hair, and put on a shirt that didn't have a graphic of a video game character on it.
When he entered the school, he saw her standing at her locker picking out the books she would need for the day. She hadn't lost her love of bats, still wearing small bat-shaped earrings on a daily basis, which Rocky would never tell her he found adorable, sort of like she was clinging on to her inner eight-year-old. The same inner eight-year-old he'd fallen in love with nearly ten years before.
Love. Rocky blew out a puff of air, pulling his hands from his pockets. Today was the day, he told himself. Today was the day.
His heart was palpitating with each step he took, slowly approaching the dark-haired girl. The words he planned on saying fluttered through his mind on repeat as if part of a rehearsal, and yet he seemed to have forgotten them by the time he stood behind her. Rocky took a deep breath, and then wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing her cheek and feeling her flinch.
"You can't just sneak up on people like that." Lucy said, however the words were meaningless. This was another tradition. One of them would just seem to appear out of thin air, surprising the other. It was never enough to scare each other, just very minor spontaneous displays of affection. Rocky moved to let go, and felt her hand on top of his arm, so instead he squeezed just a little tighter and rested his chin on top of her head.
"Hey." Rocky mumbled after a minute, finally forcing himself to let go. "I have a question for you, milady."
If Rocky could have seen Lucy's eyes he would have sworn she was rolling them. She sighed, taking his hand in hers. "I guess once you ask I'll have an answer." she replied, and gently rubbed her thumb over the top of his hand. Rocky rummaged through his backpack for a second, pulling out a flower and tucking it behind her ear. Lucy smiled, but something was different that Rocky hadn't noticed before.
"No more braces, huh?" he asked, and she shrugged, her dark ponytail falling over her shoulder as she looked down at her feet.
"Yeah, I guess." she mumbled, and Rocky put a hand under her chin, gently tilting it upwards before kissing her. He could feel her smiling up against his lips, and pulled away, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose and smiling in return.
"It's been so long since I've been able to kiss you without your braces. It's nice." he awkwardly grinned, and took a deep breath. "Actually, that, uh...that kinda brings me to something I've been meaning to ask you."
Rocky'd grown pretty skilled at reading Lucy's facial expressions even without being able to see her eyes, and he could tell that she wasn't convinced. "Braces brought you to something you've been meaning to ask me." she said monotonously, closing her locker door.
"Well, uh...no. But sort of. Actually, not at all." Rocky tried to clarify, and ended up groaning in embarrassment. "Luce, I, uh..,I know you hate these kind of things, but it's our senior year, and-"
"You're asking me to Prom." Lucy practically read his mind. She was good at that. She wasn't smiling, but wasn't frowning either, so Rocky couldn't find any distinguishable signs of whether she was going to agree to go or not. His heartbeat sped up again, as it usually did whenever he asked her a question that was a little out of the ordinary.
"Uh...yeah. Do you want...I mean, would you..." Rocky stumbled over his words. He'd known what he wanted to say before talking to her, and now his brain seemed to be a large convoluted mess. He could never really think straight talking to her. He clasped his hands together, squeezing tightly due to nerves as he waited for her response.
And then something barely short of a miracle happened.
"Sure." Lucy replied, and Rocky opened his eyes. What? He must have heard her wrong. There was no way that Lucy had just...agreed to go to a school dance, was there?
"Wha?" Rocky found himself saying. "I, uh...I mean, really?" He watched as Lucy shrugged, and then stood on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. No matter how many times she'd done that, it still tingled for a good while afterwards.
"Why not?" Lucy said, and Rocky was practically flabbergasted. He hadn't expected it to be so...easy. "Pick me up at seven on Saturday?"
"Uh...yeah, yeah, no problem." he stuttered, and watched as she turned to walk off towards her first period English class.
He still couldn't believe it five days later when he had actually arrived at her house, nearly slipping and falling on a conveniently placed skateboard on her front porch. There was no way that was unintentional. Someone had to have put that right at the top of the steps, maybe in hopes of getting a laugh out of it. Although Rocky wasn't sure who would do such a thing. Lucy's youngest sister was eleven, and in all honesty Lily was a little too mature for that kind of comedy.
He took a deep breath, straightening the same ridiculous green tie he'd worn on their first date, and knocked on the door.
One of the twins (Lola, he was pretty sure, even though she was wearing pajama pants and her face was free of makeup) opened the door a crack, looking up and down and finally opening the door all the way. "LUCY! YOUR BOYFRIEND'S HERE!" she screamed up the stairs, before her facial expression contorted and she looked at Rocky. The screaming had concluded it. That and the pink nail polish had convinced Rocky that this one was Lola.
"So, you got Lucy to go to Prom, huh?" Lola asked, raising an eyebrow. "What'd you do? Is she possessed? Did you bribe her?"
Rocky shook his head. "I...I don't know. She just...agreed. So now I'm here." He looked down at his watch, feeling the pressure as Lola's blue eyes practically stared him down. She was intimidating for a sophomore. All of Lucy's sisters were quite honestly intimidating. Rocky had actually been outright petrified of Lynn until he was about fifteen, mainly because she was so protective of Lucy.
He heard footsteps coming from upstairs, and turned towards the staircase. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
Suddenly Rocky felt thirteen again, gazing up at his girlfriend. He was at a loss for words, waiting for his brain to come up with something, anything, a single word to escape his mouth, yet his jaw dropped and no sound came out. She descended the stairs like a character out of a movie, the black fabric of her long dress swaying around with each step she took. It wasn't necessarily a teenage girl's stereotypical prom attire, but that made her look even more gorgeous in Rocky's eyes. He probably wouldn't have been able to help himself from laughing if Lucy had come downstairs in a short, pink, puffy dress like he knew most of the girls in their grade would most likely wear. Rocky had teased Lucy about looking like a vampire a few times, with her pale skin and dark hair, but now he was absolutely convinced. The dark makeup, the ball-gown-like dress...he could honestly have seen her in an old black-and-white rendition of Dracula.
"You...wow." he mumbled, feeling his inner thirteen-year-old coming back and she smiled, exactly the same way she had five years ago, and twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger.
"Nice tie." she teased, and it was obvious that she remembered it from their first date, which seemed like centuries ago.
They'd certainly stood out among the stereotypical high school seniors at the dance, however, it wasn't a problem. It fit the exact depiction of what they'd pictured, and even though they hadn't danced a single time neither actually cared. Three hours had ended up feeling far too short, and although it hadn't been immensely eventful like any of Lucy's older sisters' proms, it was perfect. In its own unique way, that is.
As Rocky was driving her home, the thought crossed his mind that neither of them had eaten. "You want to stop for anything?" he asked, and Lucy had let out a long yawn, instinctively pushing her bangs away from her eyes. Rocky glanced over, and felt his heart speed up. She looked directly at him, and he had to pull over the car for fear of getting lost in her strikingly blue eyes and becoming distracted. He wasn't sure what to say. Rocky felt himself being absolutely captivated by how gorgeous her eyes were, almost reflecting the moonlight that hit the windshield.
Lucy blinked a couple of times, reaching up towards her bangs in a panic and then stopping herself. "Spaghetti." she said quietly, still looking directly at Rocky, before turning back towards the road in front of them and using her fingers to comb her bangs back in place.
"Okay." Rocky replied, taking a deep breath and pulling the car back onto the road. She'd let him see her eyes, for the first time since he'd known her, and they were beautiful.
Graduation came and passed in a heartbeat, and along with it came heartbreak when they hadn't ended up getting into the same college. Rocky was afraid he might never see her again.
And he was partially right. The extra stress of college stockpiled on top of the newfound stress of adulthood was definitely a little much. They talked almost every night for the first semester of heir freshman year, and then less and less. Rocky had to learn Lucy had finally received her Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts over a phone call as she was driving down a busy freeway. She hadn't specified where she was going, and the call had been short and sweet. He was currently down his own path, a year or two from becoming an environmental lawyer, and up to his eyeballs in student loans and taxes and rent. He'd been up until two in the morning trying to figure out how in the world he was supposed to find a way to pay for all of these expenditures and not have to survive solely on ramen noodles, and suddenly there was a knocking on his apartment door.
"The party is upstairs." he tried to yell, but barely had the energy to expel the words. The knocking didn't stop, so he pried himself out of the desk chair, slowly making his way over to the door and unlocking it. He twisted the knob, expecting to see some college freshmen outside playing a prank, but it was a pleasant surprise when it ended up being a dark-haired woman, and in her right hand she held the handle to a She must have been frozen half to death in her thin black sweater and jeans, and her chin-length hair probably hadn't done much to help. She seemed familiar, but Rocky couldn't put his finger on it.
"Are you lost?" he asked, stretching his shoulders and preparing to take her down to the front desk. She tilted her head in confusion, her bangs shifting around, and then his eyes met hers. Wait...he knew those eyes. "Oh my God." Rocky mumbled, opening the door even wider and pulling her into a hug. "Oh my God."
Lucy let go of the suitcase handle and wrapped her arms around his back, squeezing tightly before releasing and taking a step back. "You...you look so grown-up." she smiled.
"I didn't even recognize you without your hair in front of your eyes." Rocky replied, reaching out and pushing her bangs over to the side. "Well, mostly."
"It's a process." Lucy commented. "It's definitely going to take some getting used to." Rocky stepped out of the doorway, holding the door open and allowing her to pull her suitcase inside.
"So, how long are you staying?" Rocky asked, and Lucy shrugged, smirking at him.
"As long as you want me to stay." she replied, brushing her fingers up against his hand like they'd accidentally done as kids. Rocky took the hint, and laced his fingers through hers, looking around his slightly messy apartment. Oddly enough, he noticed his unfinished plate of spaghetti on the desk next to a few haphazardly placed papers. Huh. Spaghetti.
"I, uh, I've only got the one bed, and I don't have a real couch yet, so-" Rocky started, and was cut off by Lucy squeezing his hand.
"Subtle. Very subtle." she rolled her eyes, and Rocky rested his head on top of hers.
"I've missed you so much."