That Summer
Rating:
T-M
Summary: In August Joan & Adam are
crossing the country to Stanford in CA, Grace & Luke are heading to
Cambridge for their schools. What are their plans for their final summer before
parting? Can they pull it off without their normal drama? Obviously G/L &
J/A
Disclaimer: If the characters were mine
I'd be getting paid to write TV scripts, now wouldn't I? So…you know the drill.
To reviewers: Glad you like it so far, keep letting me know how you feel. If there's something you want to suggest I do with a character let me know, I'm open to suggestions! Thanks again! Much love to ya! Read on witcho bad self!
Chapter 3 – I Can't Keep My Eyes Off Of You
"Oh for the love of God…" Grace sighed, resting her head back on the hot leather backseat from her spot behind Adam who was sitting shotgun. "It is far too early in the morning to have to listen to country music for three and a half hours." She rolled her head to the left and looked at Luke, who was slouched with his knees scrunched up from being too tall for the crammed backseat and he looked like he was somewhere between a state of sleep and zombification. "What happened to hooking up the CD player we bought so we wouldn't have this problem in this hunk of junk?" She grimaced.
"Hey don't look at me, if someone wouldn't have turned every car tune-up into a greasy make-out session maybe it would have gotten down-oww!" Luke rubbed his arm tenderly.
"Dude!" Grace warned. She glanced at the front seat. Adam and Joan exchanged glances and looked at the two before laughing.
"Hey…it's not my fault!" Luke defended himself.
"And don't be calling Squiggy a hunk of junk, he won't appreciate that!" Joan retorted.
"Why exactly did you name the car after someone on Laverne & Shirley?" Adam asked.
"I didn't get a vote in the naming." Luke defended himself.
"My vote didn't count because of my "lecture" on how cars are killing the planet even though I helped pay for it…" Grace shrugged.
"I didn't think you would mind, and so the choice went to my decision by default." Joan grinned happily.
"Yeah, well woohoo," Grace put her hand up as she dryly mocked the name Joan picked. "Schlemiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated." She half-stated and half-sung dryly. "Now that we've relived our Laverne & Shirley days can we get a move on? Your mom's starting to get all weepy…it's freaking me out, yo."
Luke lifted a tired hand and waved reassuringly at his parents who were standing on the porch, watching them. They had stuffed the trunk full of their belongings as best they could in their beat-up, faded, maroon GTO. It had been in impound when they had gotten it. All 4 of them had chipped in to buy it and as such had agreed on sharing it. They all had keys and they would simply trade off the car. So far in 4 months of owning it, there hadn't been many problems. Of course that's not counting the 3 weeks it took of Luke, Kevin, Adam and Mr. Girardi 'bonding' over making the engine run successfully. Now, if only they could reupholster the cut black leather of the seats instead of sealing them shut with duct tape. The outside of the retractable roof was still in tact in good shape, but the interior side was a different story. But they had come to love the car.
Grace looked at Luke. He looked horribly uncomfortable. After all he had sprouted up to 5'10" and though that might not have been tall per say to most, it was a reach for Grace's neck at 5'5". He had barely enough room between the back of the driver's seat and the seat he was in, to squish his legs in. His knees and shins were pressed against the back of the seat and he looked plainly uncomfortable. Grace couldn't help but smile slightly at his predicament. Leaning so her back was against the side of the car and her shoulder hit the leather of the cushion she lifted her legs up and rested them across Luke's lap. He turned his head to the right and looked at her as Joan turned the car on and with a hoot and holler of excitement, waved to her parents and pulled onto the street, heading for the highway.
Grace rolled her eyes so Luke could see as Joan launched into the chorus of 'Redneck Woman' by Gretchen Wilson, turning the radio up.
"Oh make the insanity stop!" Grace covered her ears and groaned desperately. Adam laughed as Joan danced as she pulled up to a red light. The top was down and Grace squinted in the sunlight. She pulled her sunglasses down and tried to tune out Joan who had succeeded in getting Adam to dance mockingly along with her as they waited for the light to change. She felt Luke's left hand reach across her feet and place his hand at her ankle just above her converse sneakers. A tiny hint of a smile extended across the right side of Grace's lips.
"Are you fondling my ankles, Girardi?" she asked him. Joan and Adam couldn't hear them speak over the sound of the radio and the noise of the wind as they drove. Grace was glad she'd bothered to put her baseball cap on backwards or else she'd be eating her hair at this point. Luke smiled slightly.
"I believe I am…" He replied. His right hand crawled its way up the shin of her ratty jeans to her knee where it stopped there. He grinned wickedly before he started singing their 'song of songs.' "Cellllebrate good times, come on…" He wiggled his eyebrows. Grace couldn't help the laugh that came out.
"It's a celebration…" She sung in the lowest, mocking voice she could. Luke laughed back at her. Grace found she couldn't hold her compulsions in and she leaned over and granted Luke the kiss she knew he so desperately had been waiting for.
"Whoa! Hey! Keep it out of the driver's line of vision!" Joan ordered after she'd glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted Luke and Grace's lip lock. Both pulled away, turning slightly red.
After two hours of driving, Joan pulled into a gas station, which looked so rundown that it hadn't been used in decades. The four teens climbed out of the car. Luke walked around the car and stood next to Grace. He stretched with his arms over his head.
"Great…anyone ever seen Deliverance?" She said before muttering out the banjo notes of the dueling banjos.
"Headline. Teens die at murderous hands of gas station owners in boondocks." Adam said as he followed Jane towards the door of the station.
"OW!" Luke yelped as he all but fell back, grabbing at his calf. Joan screamed and Adam spun around as Grace jumped back for a second with a scream. She went over to Luke.
"What? What's wrong?" She asked leaning down to inspect his leg, expecting to find that a zombie had bitten it and he was gushing blood all over.
"Charlie horse." Luke scrunched his eyes up as he rubbed the cramped calf muscle.
"Christ, Luke, don't do that!" Joan called to him. Grace smacked Luke upside the head.
"OW!" Luke complained. "I'm starting to see how abusive this relationship is…" He teased her as he stood up and rubbed his head.
"Don't act like you're attacked when we're in the middle of nowhere at the run down gas station from hell, dude!" She couldn't hide her smile at finding the humor in it all.
"Can I help you folks?" A man in a greasy jumpsuit said from the open garage door of the workshop connected to the gas station store. He was rubbing his hands on a greasy rag. Joan grabbed her heart and turned again.
"People! Can we not give Joan a heart attack today?" She begged.
"We just need some gas sir." Adam said.
"Well then, I am at your service." He replied. "Tell ye what, you kids look hungry, help yourselves to some of the junk food in there and I'll fill 'er up for ye." He said. Adam, Grace and Luke went into the station eagerly. "Why don't you help me Joan?" The attendant said. Joan put her head back dramatically and rolled her eyes.
"Why must you do this to me?" she asked as she walked over.
"You need a tank of gas." God shrugged.
"Great…God shows up to give me gas…" She scrunched her eyebrows. "There's definitely some great cosmic irony and comedy in that…" She threw her hands up and laughed.
"Huh…" Grace mused from the window of the station.
"What?" Luke came up behind Grace to see what she was looking at.
"Do you suppose that's God?" Grace asked. Luke followed her line of vision.
"Who?" Adam's interest peaked and he walked over behind both of them.
"The gas station guy?" Luke asked.
"No way…" Adam said. Grace shrugged and bit into a Twinkie.
"Hey, she's the one chatting up a storm with him. Maybe he is?" she smiled as she looked at them. "He does work in mysteeerrriousss ways doesn't he?" She asked. Adam and Luke laughed as they waited to pay for their food and fuel. "I got five in my pocket, what've you boys got? Ante up." She slapped her five-dollar bill on the counter.
"Aw, kids I don't need no money for the food. Just the gas. That's 18 bucks even little missy." He said to Grace. Grace's face hardened.
"You don't wanna call her that man." Luke warned.
"Ohh, well I don't mean to offend there miss. It's not in my nature." He nodded kindly to her. Grace's eyes narrowed slightly as he tipped the rim of his worn out baseball cap to her.
"Are you divine?" She asked almost mocking him. "Can you tell me the future?" She asked.
"Well there miss, I ain't always much to look at." He chuckled. "I enjoy yer spunk though. As fer the future, well, I never saw the future in terms you think of, but I can tell y'all are heading for the beach for the summer and I'll spotcha back here on yer way home at the end o'the summer, for sure." Her grinned and winked at her. Here ya go, two buckaroos back." He handed it to her. Grace actually smiled to him and tipped her head.
"See you on the flip side." She said as she led the others out.
"What just happened in there?" Luke asked Adam.
"I have no idea." Adam replied.
"Relax boys-I'm down with the G-O-D." Grace chuckled.
"Okay, Adam, it's so your turn to drive." Joan tossed him the keys from her spot in the passenger's seat now.
"Sweet, that means a less bumpy ride." Grace cheered as she hopped over and into the backseat. Luke climbed in on the driver's side. He had been starting to feel some motion sickness and Grace could tell. She remembered the time they wound up having to pull over on the side of the highway the first time the two of them had just gone Sunday driving to get away from Grace's house. She waited for Adam to pull away to lean closer and inquire about Luke's well-being. She ran her hand through his hair. Luke looked over through his sunglasses and Grace let on a little smile, remembering how excited he'd been when he'd first gotten his contacts.
She remembered thinking that she'd never seen quite how blue his eyes were until that day. She had been lying at the end of the slide in the park, staring up at the sky with her headphones on, listening to one of his Metallica CDs even though she had sworn she never would. She had closed her eyes, not wanting to deal with her thoughts about her mom, her friends, and the tumbling walls she'd worked so hard to build. She opened her eyes and there, staring her right back in the face were eyes that rivaled the bright dazzling blue of the sky behind them. She'd been caught off guard that moment, in the proud look in his eyes and the bright smile lighting up his face. She thought she was dreaming. He had climbed up the ladder of the slide and leaned down the slide until he was upside down over her face to face. When he leaned down and engulfed his mouth over hers, she knew she wasn't dreaming, and that she was experiencing something like the kiss she'd seen between Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst when Luke had made her watch Spider-Man with him.
"Yeah?" Luke asked when he looked over after feeling her hand roll through his spiked hair. She didn't quite pull away when he looked at her like she usually did as if he was catching her in some horrible act. Instead she stared at him distantly, her hand left on the side of his face with her thumb moving back and forth just slightly against his cheek. He could see she'd gotten lost in her thoughts. Grace blinked slightly and tightened her lips together for a second before running her hand through his hair again.
"You look a little green, brain." She said solemnly.
"I'm all right…" He assured her. She noticed his hand on his stomach.
"All right, c'mon, lay down before you barf on everyone, dude." She patted her leg to let him know he could use her as a pillow. Obeying Grace gratefully, Luke swung his body around. She had been on an angle against the side of the car and the seat. Luke laid his head in her lap, with his ear and his temple touching her stomach, which was showing just a tiny bit at the bottom of her t-shirt. He swung his legs out over the side of the car so he wouldn't twist his spine too horribly. After situating himself, he looked up at Grace. She was looking down at him as she calmly let her left hand, alternate between running it through his hair to sliding it down his shoulder and upper arm in an effort to calm his nerves and get his mind off of the motion sickness. She let herself smile when she saw him looking up at her. Luke reached his right hand out to her right hand and entwined his fingers through hers. She wanted to speak to tell him so many things, but she knew that right then, she didn't have too.
"Close your eyes." She told him. "It'll make you feel better." She assured. Luke did as he was told and within no time, his breathing had slowed to a rhythm and he was asleep.
"So, uhm, Jane?" Adam asked after glancing in the rearview to see the intimate moment between Grace and Luke and feeling awkward.
"Yeah?" Joan looked over at Adam as he drove. He glanced between her and the road as he spoke to her.
"Was that God?" Adam asked. Joan's mouth hung open in shock as she had her arms wrapped around her knees, which were up because her bare feet were on the dashboard.
"Excuse me?" She asked after a minute.
"The gas station dude." Adam clarified. "You know…was he God?"
"What makes you say that?" Joan asked nervously. The God aspect had just become an unmentionable constant in everyone's life. They tried to help her in what Adam, Luke and Grace had labeled as her Holy Grail Quests. Usually it meant they made a lot of jokes in reference to Monty Python and The Holy Grail to make her feel better.
"Oh, no, I-I didn't. Uhm, Grace saw you talking with him when we were inside." He explained quickly. "She talked to him when he came in, b-but I don't know exactly what their exchange was. Me and Luke were kinda chowing down Doritos…He called her Little Missy."
"And she didn't put the pump down his throat and fill him full of fuel?" Joan asked.
"Don't change the subject, you're cheating." Adam stated.
"How am I cheating? I can't even ask God questions! Why can you ask questions of me about God? That's so unfair!" Joan noted. Adam glanced at her. She sighed. "Yes…it was…"
"What'd he tell you to do this time?" Adam asked. Joan bit her lip.
"Not now, okay? I'll tell you soon though…okay?" She asked. Adam smiled slightly.
"Unchallenged." He nodded. "But I'll hold you to that."
"Thanks." She smiled and leaned over and kissed his cheek. Adam smiled as he merged onto the highway.
AN: Sooo my hit counter says that as of right now, 1:40 am on June 8th, 223 people have read this story, but only 4 have reviewed what's up with that? Do I suck that much? I need feedback. Don't be afraid to tell me what's wrong with it too, it doesn't have to be just nice reviews...although I do love nice reviews...) Much love to you and yours! Peace!
