Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.
The Boys Next Door
Chapter 9
Knee-Deep In Romance
By the time I got downstairs, Sasuke was already standing in the foyer talking to my father. I didn't even pause as I reached the bottom of the stairs. I grabbed Sasuke's hand and bolted out the door, hollering a quick "Bye, Dad!" over my shoulder. I had no idea what my father and Sasuke had been talking about, but I knew that it was best not to linger, for fear of my father's reaction should he find out about Sasuke and I. If my father had it his way, I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be allowed to date until I was at least 35. Or married.
Sasuke and I walked to his truck in silence, the only sound being that of the gravel crunching beneath our feet.
Well, this was awkward. I began to wrack my mind for something to say to fill up the uncomfortable silence between us.
"Hey, did you know that –" I began.
"Why didn't you tell your dad about us?" Sasuke asked, abruptly. I gapped at him. He refused to meet my eyes, choosing instead to gaze off at some point far in the distance. If I didn't know any better, I would think that Sasuke sounded almost hurt.
I stopped walking.
"What are you talking about?"
Now he looked at me, his expression set in a scowl. "Why didn't you tell your dad that we were going out? I told my mother."
"Yeah," I said. "Thanks for that, by the way! She intercepted me in the office this morning and gave me the third degree about it."
Sasuke scoffed, "Yeah, when I told him I was here to pick you up for our date, he almost slammed the door in my face. After he threatened to have me arrested. Your dad said he thinks I'm trying to steal your virginity."
I tittered uncomfortably at the thought of my dad and Sasuke having any type of discussion about such matters. There are some things that should just never, ever happen.
"Shizune does too, apparently."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow in question.
"I was talking to her on the phone earlier," I clarified. Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "Wait, are you a virgin?"
Sasuke stared down at me disapprovingly. Then he turned his disapproving stare off into the distance above my head.
"You aren't," I sighed. I hadn't even realized that I was holding my breath.
"N–," he started. "W– Ugh." He put both his hands in his hair, which only served to demonstrate how strong and well-formed his biceps were. "I am, okay? But you don't know that. And neither do my brothers. As far as they know, I've been doing the entire cheerleading squad since I was fourteen."
Okay, so they didn't have sex. That was a relief. And yet, why was I still picturing Sasuke's biceps straining as he braced himself over… who?
"And now your dad is thinking the same thing." Sasuke continued.
"About your biceps?" I laughed.
Then I slowly and oh-so-painfully realized that no one had made a joke out load about Sasuke's biceps.
Now would be as good a time as any for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
Sasuke cleared his throat uncomfortably as I desperately tried to avoid looking in his direction. He suddenly became very focused on his pockets, rummaging in them intently until he produced a packet of gum. He popped a piece in his mouth and thrust the packet in my general direction, all without looking at me. I took a piece, glad for anything that I could shove in my mouth that would prevent me from talking.
We walked on in silence until we reached Sasuke's driveway and the pink truck. I hopped up (literally, seeing as how the seats were level with my head) into the truck as Sasuke got in on the driver's side. I still found it weird that Sasuke was sitting in the driver's seat. I was used to sitting in the back with him while one of the older boys drove us around.
Itachi's new truck was gone, which meant that he was already on his way to pick up Hinata. We'd probably run into them at the movies, either in the theatre or in the parking lot. Our biggest problems right now would probably have to be deciding on where exactly to sit in the movie theatre and whether or not we were going to awkwardly attempt to make out like all the rest of the couples. I wasn't too worried about it right now though – we would cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, we were taking a detour by the dirt track, probably so that Sasuke could show off to some of his friends the new (to him) pink truck and the prize of a hot girl inside! Okay, so probably not the last one. However, instead of parking in the parking lot like I thought we would, Sasuke continued on to the mud field, which was basically just a huge pit of mud that the owners of the property had lovingly sculpted into valleys and bumps and watered daily, to maintain its muddy consistency. The local boys loved to take their pick-up trucks and splash through the mud. But this was not something that was done with their girlfriends. Most girls wouldn't stand for it. It was not date appropriate.
And yet, here we were lined up at the edge of the mud field, listening to Kiba Inuzuka blasting some awful rock music from his jacked up F-150 behind us. There was no backing out now.
'Is this our date?" I ventured.
"Aa," Sasuke nodded.
I had been lead to believe (through teen fashion magazines and romantic comedies) that on most first dates, guys took girls to the movies. Sometimes they even went to dinner first. But not me. Instead of taking me to the movies like any normal boy would, my blockhead best friend decided to take me mud riding. Typical.
"Right, so correct me if I'm wrong here, but the whole purpose behind this 'dating' thing is to make Itachi and Hinata jealous, yes? How pray tell are we going to do this if they're not even around to see us together?" Mr. Uchiha used to take the boys – and by association me – to the dirt track to watch races when we were younger. That was all well and good. But nobody ever came here for dates. This was definitely not how I imagined my first date would be. Then again, I had always thought that my first date would be with Itachi, so really nothing was going according to plan. "Didn't Itachi take Hinata to the movies?"
"We want to make them jealous," he agreed. "But we can't follow them around. That would be a dead giveaway."
He had a point, but I wasn't willing to let it go just yet. "But still, mud riding? Do you do this with every girl, or am I a special exception?"
Sasuke stared straight ahead, his expression a blank mask. He was sulking. Then I thought about all of the times I'd gone over to the Uchihas' to watch movies. Sasuke would get up after the first thirty minutes, asking us to call him back in for the good parts. Then we would constantly be telling him to quiet down as he played his drums, then made milkshakes, or blasted music from his CD player. "You can't sit through a whole movie, can you?"
He frowned, which made cute little lines appear between his brows. He fished a lighter out of his pocket and flicked it, studying the flame.
Either he couldn't sit through an entire movie, or he didn't want to be around Itachi and Hinata because it hurt too much to see them when they were together. I could understand that, seeing as how it had only been two days since the freaking shock of seeing his big brother and his hoe-bag girlfriend making out at the party. Poor Sasuke. His heart must be breaking every time I made him talk about Itachi and Hinata (which was admittedly a lot. I am a terrible friend). I needed to give him time for the wound to scab over.
"We don't need to go to the movies," I relented, "but we do need to go somewhere that girls will see us. Otherwise Itachi and Hinata will never hear about us going out. Boys don't gossip."
Sasuke looked at me seriously. "You don't know us as well as you think."
This was a disturbing concept.
He stuffed the lighter back in his pocket. "What if we actually enjoyed hooking up?"
I blinked owlishly. "Um, what?"
"What if we made it productive?"
I nodded emphatically. "Yes, now you're talking! Producing envy and anger, preferably without any water works."
"Forget about that, Sakura. It'll come without us trying so hard." He dug around in his pockets, withdrawing a box of fishhooks and rattling it. Seriously how much shit did this guy have in his pockets? "You're turning sixteen in less than two weeks."
I winced. "Okay, you don't need to rub it in that I forgot your birthday. I already apologized, what more do you want from me?"
He waved me off. "Didn't your dad stop teaching you how to drive after you backed his car into the woodpile?"
"Yes, but that was only partially my fault! He told me to back left, and I thought I was but again, you really don't have to rub it in–"
"I can teach you how to drive."
Wait, what? This boy must really have a death wish. "Around town?"
"Hell no. I'm not an idiot." Sasuke scoffed. "I'll teach you right here. It's much safer."
I stared out at the mud field and pondered my options. "I might ruin your truck."
"Who could tell?"
"What if I hit someone?"
"If they're one of the idiots here mud riding, chances are they'd probably enjoy it."
As if in agreement, Kiba started honking along to the music blasting out of his stereo.
"Ah, what the hell." I said, spitting my gum out the window and starting to slide over to the driver's seat. Sasuke crawled over me and nose close to his chest, I caught a whiff of his cologne. Mmm. All too soon he was on his side of the truck, and I was sitting in the driver's seat. "Is it in first gear?" he asked. "Are your feet on the brake and the clutch?"
I nodded.
"Look both ways to check for traffic before proceeding carefully into the mud hole."
I screamed as I felt the earth fall away beneath us. Then I bit my scream off as we bounced over a little hill that sent us flying. Now I was giggling.
Sasuke grinned, fastening his seatbelt. He did an amazing imitation of the calming announcer voice from the films we watch in driver's ed as he instructed me on how to get out of the mud hole.
Later, as we waited in line for our seventh run through the mud pit, Sasuke spoke up. "You drive fine."
"Really?" I squealed, delighted.
"Aa, but I haven't told you to turn left or right yet."
I deflated. I thought I had been doing rather well but that's because Sasuke hadn't asked me to do anything hard. Like tell my left from my right.
"It won't really matter when you're driving on your own," Sasuke reasoned. "No one is going to be sitting in the passenger seat telling you to turn right or left. The only time anyone will be doing that is when you take your driver's test."
"That's also the only time anyone taking their first road test can be banned from driving for life." I edged the pink truck forward as another pick-up dropped into the pit in front of us.
"Hold your hands like this on the steering wheel." He placed his hands on the dashboard with his first fingers and his thumbs up, pointing to each other. "L is for left."
"Won't the instructor notice?"
"Not if you hold your hands like that during the inspection," he said. "By the time you start the instructor will just think you have arthritis or something and that it's none of her business."
I looked over at him. "You're a lot sneakier than I thought you were."
He smirked. "Perks of having ADD: you learn how to cheat."
"Shizune still hasn't forgiven you for exploding her homemade cheese."
Sasuke laughter rang out just as we plunged into the pit. It gave me a huge boost of confidence. I veered off the well beaten path into the uncharted territory of bigger, better mud puddles. I kicked up splashes so high that Sasuke asked me to put my window up to salvage what was left of the truck's interior. We bounced around from corner to corner, and were on our way back when the truck sank lower than I anticipated, sending a huge wave of mud over the hood and up the windshield. I pressed the gas and heard a ripping sound.
I turned to Sasuke in horror. "Oh my god, I broke your truck."
"We're just stuck. It happens." He unfastened his seat belt. "Switch back."
I started to crawl over him. I figured since he had crawled over last time, it was my turn this time. Clearly we weren't thinking along the same lines, because we met in the middle, both trying to crawl over. I moved to my right and he to his left and we met again, laughing. Finally, he asked, "Do you want to be on top or bottom?"
"Either's fine." I heard myself saying. I had to remind myself that this was Sasuke, not Itachi. This was the baby of the Uchiha family, who up until a few days ago I had always thought of as being the littlest. You do not make sexual jokes with babies.
He picked me up and before I could wiggle or protest, removed me to the passenger seat. He slid into the driver's seat and pressed the gas, harder than I'd pressed it. There was another awful ripping sound, and the truck didn't move. Sasuke opened the door and jumped out, sinking down much lower than he would have on solid ground. He gestured for me to slide over. "They'll probably call someone to pull us out, but it might take a while. We can wait by the concession stand."
Sasuke and I both looked down at my feet, which were clothed in cloth slip-ons. My poor little shoes. They would never be the same after this. I sighed and kicked my shoes off, sliding over, only to see Sasuke waiting by the open door, his back to me, waiting for me to get on. When I didn't get on immediately, he looked over his shoulder as if to say, what are you waiting for? I hadn't been on a boy's back since middle school, and back then I was so worried that I would crush the boy who was carrying me (understandably so, seeing as how the boys were all so tiny) that I couldn't even enjoy it. But it wasn't this way with Sasuke. I felt like a dainty, weightless snowflake when I slid onto his strong, solid back. A snowflake in the middle of a mud field. Sasuke nudged the door closed with a hip, and looked down at his feet. Or rather, where his feet should have been. They had completely disappeared in the mud. "Sasuke, what about your shoes? Your mother is going to kill you."
"They're Itachi's." I could hear the smirk in his voice. "I'm going to put them back in his closet just like this."
I felt a momentary pang for Itachi, then I almost burst out laughing imagining the look on his face when he found his shoes. If there was one thing that could make me dislike Itachi, it was how much he cared about his clothing. I cared about my own wardrobe only through great effort. Itachi's shoes made a schlep sound every time Sasuke took a step. He struggled getting up the hill to the lip of the mud hole, and I thought I would have to get down after all.
Sasuke felt me start to slide down, "No!" he said, holding my legs more tightly. "We're fine." With one last schlep we made it to the top. Waiting at the top was a tiny trailer, blowing smoke out of an exhaust fan. The air smelled like fried food. "Are you hungry?" Sasuke asked.
"Not particularly, but that's never stopped me before."
He stepped up to the window. "What do you have?"
The clerk/cook/janitor/whatever looked up from a tiny TV in the corner. "French fries, homemade doughnuts."
Sasuke inclined his head toward me (as much as he could, seeing as how I was on his back) which let me know that I was the one who had the honour of choosing between this array of delicacies.
"Strangely, I have a taste for French fries."
Sasuke placed the order, and reached in his pocket for his wallet. It would have been much easier if he had just set me down on the bench next to the concession stand. But I was beginning to understand that Sasuke didn't want to put me down because he enjoyed having me on his back. Holding my shoes with one hand, I grabbed the fries. Sasuke held the soda.
Sasuke walked to the bench and set me and the soda down. I was still holding the fries and my shoes (which I threw to the ground. So much for caring about my clothes). I picked up the soda so that Sasuke could also sit down, then handed it to him. This whole situation felt like one of those questions on standardized tests at school:
If Itachi hooks up with everyone in school on Wednesday and Hinata on Friday, and Sasuke hooks up with Hinata on Thursday and Sakura on Sunday, on what day does the nuclear war commence?
Sasuke crossed his legs, as if he wasn't covered up to the knee in mud. He took a drink of the soda, offered it to me, and grabbed a fry. I took a tentative sip. I had never shared a beverage with a boy before. I mean, in the past Sasuke and I had shared popcorn when we watched DVDs and stuff. Once when we were little he offered to share his scoop of ice cream with me after mine fell into the lake. I was just about to take a lick when his mother and Shizune came running over. Realistically, I knew that Sasuke didn't have cooties, but I couldn't help myself from feeling weirded out. But I guess now that we were 'dating', I should get used to the concept of sharing drinks and stuff with him. I shouldn't read too much into it.
"Mmph." Sasuke grunted, his mouth full of French fries. Swallowing, he grabbed my foot and pulled it up into his lap. "You painted your toenails."
I swelled up with pride. Those toe nails were the product of hours of meticulous work. I wanted them to be perfect. This was my first date, after all. I opened my mouth to explain proudly about my beauty regimen, but when I looked up, my mouth just stayed open. Sasuke was looking at me intensely with his dark onyx eyes. A chill hit me out of nowhere. It raced down my body to my toes, which Sasuke was stroking absentmindedly with one rough thumb, before moseying back up my body again.
I took a slow, shaky breath in through my ridiculously gaping mouth. Then I realized what the problem was. Sasuke's resemblance to Itachi could be so creepy sometimes, especially since they had the exact same eyes. I managed to say, "You're giving me that look again. Stop it." Sasuke continued to stubbornly give me the look for a few more seconds, and I found myself unable to look away. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy his look, and what it did to my skin. He was like a superhero with his Massage-O-Vision. I was enjoying a bit too much for comfort, especially since Sasuke was just going to turn it on Hinata as soon as he got her back. The pleasant sensation I was feeling was not meant for me, and Sasuke would probably be horrified to know that he was giving it to me. I was just about to either find the strength to look away or pinch him (because I told him to stop giving me that look, goddamn it), when Sasuke let go of my toes and looked out at the mud field. The mud splashing off of the trucks sparkled in the artificial light. I know it sounds about as romantic as watching paint dry, or cement being poured. Nothing says romance like the smell of burning rubber. But being here with Sasuke, sitting on a tiny bench eating French fries outside of a dirty, old trailer, felt inexplicably romantic. I couldn't even bring myself to care what girls like Hinata, or Anko and Hana would say about me. And the mud that was smeared up my calves. I scratched at a spot as I heard Sasuke take a deep breath.
"Why does it have to be Itachi?"
End of Chapter 9.
This chapter has not been beta-ed, so if you see any errors, PLEASE let me know so that I can fix them! Also, thank you to everyone who left me a review last chapter. You are all so sweet. I love hearing what you think about the story, so please don't hesitate to leave me a review or PM me with your thoughts. I will do my best to get back to you once all of my finals are over/life is less hectic, etc.
Thanks for reading!
xx Bethany
