Boone felt good about his talk with Hurley the night before. It had helped him come to a few decisions and cleared up some of his uncertainty.
They had, of course, discussed his new dating adventures at length. When Boone confessed that he'd been unprepared for so many aspects of it, Hurley had been surprised.
"No way, Dude." He scoffed. "You over think every thing, you're always more prepared than a whole troop of Boy Scouts could ever be."
Boone had assured him that, in this particular instance, that was, sadly, not the case. He revealed how the whole sharing of personal information and the kissing, which he knew was going to inevitably lead to increased intimacy, had caught him completely off guard.
"But, Dude, you've dated before. Come on. You can't tell me that Shannon was your first. You know the routine: boy meets girl, they talk, tell each other all about themselves, decide if they like each other, then….well you know. Jeeze, Dude, even I know, and you're way better looking than I am." Hurley protested.
"Yeah man, of course I know the routine. I just forgot it, is all. I focused more on the thought of actually asking someone out than the consequences if she said yes. The last time I dated was a lot of years and a ton of baggage ago. How do you handle it? You've been through a lot of what I have." Boone wondered.
"I just tell 'em." He shrugged, "Though a lot of the time, they already know."
Boone frowned, the question obvious.
"Ma, she sets me up a lot." He shrugged again. "That's actually why I'm here. The last chick had more facial hair than I've ever had even after a year on the island. It was gross, Dude. But Ma kept pestering me to ask her out again." He rolled his eyes and made a face.
Boone laughed in commiseration and became thoughtful, mulling over the big mans' words.
He decided to come clean with Pamela. He certainly couldn't tell her everything, but she deserved to know more than the little bit he'd revealed.
Hugo stayed for a week and, after getting a promise from his mother that she'd ease up on the dating pressure, he went home.
Boone set up a date with Pamela for the night after Hurley's departure. She invited him over to her apartment for dinner. She'd never been to his house, or even to the store, wanting to limit Andrews' exposure to her strictly to school so as not to undermine her authority or cause the boy any embarrassment or discomfort. She knew how awkward it would have been if one of her teachers had been a guest in her own parents' home.
She buzzed him up and opened her apartment door in anticipation of his arrival, going back to the kitchen. They'd eaten together often enough that she'd gotten a pretty good handle on his tastes and hoped that what she was preparing would meet with his approval.
"Pamela?" Boone called after entering the seemingly empty apartment.
"Kitchen," she replied, loudly.
He took off his boots and hung his leather jacket on the coat tree just inside the door.
"Hey," he greeted her in the kitchen with a kiss, and held out the bottle of wine he'd brought.
The dinner was delicious; Boone complimented her several times, acknowledging that she'd obviously paid close attention to what he liked to eat.
She cleared the table, with his help; then they moved to the couch, tea and coffee in hand.
"So what's up with the guy who was at the school with you the other day? That's a pretty extreme vehicle." She tried to make it more about the car than his friend, hoping not to provoke a flight response in him and avoid the guarded, frightened look with which she was so often met.
"He won a lottery." Boone shrugged, downplaying it. He was going over in his mind what he was going to tell her, how to start, when she put her mug on the coffee table, then took his out of his hand and did the same with it. Pamela had learned that if there was going to be any action, even if only minimal, she had to be the one to initiate it.
She looked at him briefly; he was staring fixedly at his mug, seeming to be thinking about something, more than just avoiding looking at her. She wanted to kiss him badly enough that she chose to ignore the signs and leaned in to press her lips to his, shifting on the couch to make it easier.
Boone tore his thoughts away from his musing and met the pressure, opening his mouth to deepen the kiss. He really liked this woman and thought, along with his decision to tell her more about himself, he might be ready to increase the level of intimacy as well.
Pamela's hand moved to his hip and crept up under the hem of his sweater to rest on the bare flesh of his side just above the waistband of his jeans. She felt him shiver slightly as she kneaded the spot lightly and was surprised when he also slid his hand up under her top. It moved upwards, his fingers tracing lightly over her skin until he reached her breast. He cupped it gently and brushed his thumb over her nipple through her bra. She took a chance and moved her hand from his side and across the top of his thigh and down into his crotch.
Boone forced himself to stay in the moment, feeling a little panic. When her hand moved more insistently, he pulled away and removed his hand from under her shirt.
"Oh, Boone," Pamela said, frustrated and disappointed. She sat back on the couch.
"I'm sorry." He meant it, this wasn't fair to her and he knew it. He was about to make a counter offer though, substituting a 'figurative' carrot. "Look, Pamela, you don't know anything about me."
"It's not for lack of trying," she replied, sarcastically.
"I know. It's just that there's so much, so many things, it's overwhelming." Boone met her eyes.
"So start with one thing, the easiest thing." She prompted, expecting a hesitant 'no.'
Instead, to her surprise, he nodded, "Yeah, that's what I'd decided I'd do."
Wow, she thought, so this wasn't second base with him, but maybe it'd be even better, it certainly seemed just an important to him. "Okay," she smiled in encouragement, "I'm ready, hit me with it," expecting that whatever he'd say, it would probably be trivial; she'd noticed he had a penchant for over blowing things.
"I was in a plane crash." Boone thought of all the things he'd kept hidden, this would probably be the easiest to reveal and explain.
Okay, she thought, so it wasn't a big deal. The aircraft had maybe slid off the runway on take off or landing, scary sure, but he'd survived it. She was about to find out just how wrong her latest assumption about him was.
"We were at thirty-five thousand feet. I was travelling with my sister Shannon, bringing her back from Sydney to LA, when the plane hit a pocket." He went on to describe the crash, it wasn't hard to bring to mind, the details were etched in his memory like it was yesterday.
Pamela's eyes got wider as he related the incident. Oh my god, she thought, trying to picture it in her mind, but not able to even come close to the horrible reality of it.
"Anyway, there were forty-eight of us that first night; then we learned that we were off course and no one knew where to look for us." A synopsis of the first few days followed. "It was a year before anyone found us." He looked up at her, his whole recitation having been given with his elbows on his knees, his chin resting in his hands.
"Jesus, Boone." She had tears in her eyes, not able to comprehend in her wildest dreams what he'd been through.
"Thirty-five of the original forty-eight got on the rescue boats, we were two of them." He had a far off look in his eyes. "These friends I've mentioned; Jack, Hurley, the guy, Charlie, in Drive Shaft, the Korean couple…there's a few more, they're all from the island. We're closer than family, really."
She shook her head at the enormity of it, and reached for his hand, he let her take it and smiled at her support. "It sounds familiar, I'm..I'm sure I've heard of it, not the crash so much as the rescue, after so long how miraculous it was, just when was this?"
"The crash was a little over six years ago, so the rescue just a little over five." He reached for his tea with his free hand, closing his eyes at the memories.
Something about the time line bothered her and it seemed like there was other information buried in what he'd revealed that was tugging at her logic centre, but she was too overcome by the story of the experience to try and make sense of it right then.
They talked about it a little longer, until it was obvious that it was too much for him and he suggested doing the dishes as a way out.
On reflection she considered that she'd told him to start with the easiest thing he had to tell her. If this was the easiest then what the hell was the rest?
"So," she said as they stood in front of a sink full of soapy water, "wash or dry?" She asked knowing him well enough that she knew he'd enjoy helping her with the dishes, almost as much as he'd enjoyed the meal.
Boone shrugged, "Doesn't matter, wash I guess." He moved to the sink and went to stick his hands into the foamy water.
"Hey! You'd better push your sleeves up, they'll get all wet." Pamela warned him.
"I changed my mind, I'll dry," He said quickly, not wanting to reveal his wrists, the scars, the tattoo, the bracelet. He'd told her enough for one evening he thought.
He'd leave the story behind all of them for another night.