No matter how crazy it gets around here or how crazy I can get, seeing my mom always brings me right back to the ground. There’s something about just seeing her that makes me feel like I’m back in Tennessee and everything about me and my life feels totally normal. I wish she’d just move out to LA permanently but I doubt that’ll ever happen cause most of my family’s in Tennessee. And you know, when I really think about it, maybe it’s good my mom doesn’t live in the city with me. She’d smack me upside the head if she saw some of the things I do. But she was here for a week and it felt great to be picking her up at the airport. It had been almost two months since I last saw her.

“So how has your time off been going?” my mom asked once we were in the car and leaving the airport. “Are you bored yet?”

I smiled. “A bit. But I’m actually relaxed. It feels great to not be doing anything.”

“Granny and Poppy keep asking when you’re coming down again.”

“Soon probably. You know, I offered to buy them tickets to come out here but they said no.”

“Well you know how they don’t like to travel a lot.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is Trace at your house?”

“Yeah. He said he’d be there by time we got there.”

“Good. I have a package for him from his mom.”

“Trace’ll love that. His mom always sends cookies in her packages.” I glanced over at my mom and smiled. “How come you never send me anything like that?”

“I send you stuff sometimes.”

“Never homemade cookies.”

“Well I just must not love you as much as she loves Trace.”

I laughed. “I guess not. But you’ll make some cobbler while you’re out here, right?”

“I suppose. I could make some for tonight unless we’re going out to eat.”

“I was thinking we could stay home. I was going to barbeque. And Trace and Emily are going to come over to eat.”

“Oh good. I haven’t seen Emily in a while.”

My mom absolutely loves Emily. She has ever since the first time I introduced them and Emily embarrassed the hell out of me by telling my mom she raised a very polite and respectful man. I like getting compliments as much as anyone but Emily came out of nowhere with it and then they were both staring at me and it was awkward. But it made my mom immediately fall in love with Emily and almost every time I talk to my mom on the phone, she asks about her.

“So are her and Ben still broken up?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty much for good. But they’re finally on civil terms with each other.”

“They’ve talked?”

“A couple days ago.” They had ended up talking at my house and it had gone pretty good. Emily had been really mature about it all and I was really proud of her for deciding to forgive Ben. That must not have been an easy thing to do. “Emily wanted me there when she talked to him.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. I think she kind of wanted a mediator just in case.”

“This wasn’t the first time they’ve talked though.”

“No but Emily decided she wanted to forgive him and kind of just put everything behind her.”

“Good for her. That’s a very mature decision.”

“It is.”

“She’s a very smart girl.”

I smiled. “I never knew you had such a crush on her, Mom.”

“Oh stop. You should be happy I like your friends.”

“I am, I am.”

There was a short moment of silence before my mom spoke again. “So is Emily still at that modeling studio?”

“Look, how about I just give you her number and you guys can go on a date and then I don’t have to be the middle man.”

All I received was a light hit on my shoulder. “Shush, boy.”

* * *

“Here’s your beer, Chief.”

I looked away from the hot bartender to Justin. “Thanks, man.”

He sat down beside me. “Have you seen my mom?”

“Bathroom.”

You see, this is why Lynn is the coolest mom ever. She was all over coming out to a club with us tonight and the best thing is she completely blends in. She’s been tearing up the dance floor with Trace ever since we got here an hour ago.

I took a drink of my beer. “Where’s Trace?”

“He’s flirting with some waitress downstairs.”

“And you’re not with him?”

“The girls here are a little too plastic for me.”

I began to laugh. “Dare I bring up Amanda? She was like Barbie and you dated her for two months.”

“I was young.”

“It was last year.”

“She wasn’t THAT bad. She was a nice girl.”

“I’m sure she was but she was plasticy.”

“Well what I’m saying is now I prefer a more natural girl.” He gave me a cheesy smile. “Just like you, darling.”

I flipped my hair behind my shoulders. “Well I guess I am pretty sexy.”

“Sure are. Right down to your calves.”

“Hey, you leave my deformed calves out of this.”

“I can’t help it. They’re too abnormal.”

He was making fun of me but whatever. There’s something wrong with my calves. “Leave me alone, jerk.”

He laughed and stole my beer from me to take a drink. “So are you just going to sit here all night or are you going to come dance with me?”

I smiled. “I was just waiting for the invitation.”

“Well here it is. Let’s go, girl.”

I giggled and stood. “Okay.”

There was seriously like a million people at the club and getting down to the dance floor was no easy task. But once we were there and in the middle of everyone, it was all good. Like I’ve said before, dancing with Justin is always a fun time.

Justin and I go to clubs all the time. It’s like our thing. I’ve danced with him more times than I can count. And it’s always been fun and playful and innocent. Tonight though…what was tonight? It didn’t even start out normal. It was different right from the beginning.

He was keeping his hands away from definite ‘more than just friends’ areas but other than that, he was touching me everywhere. My waist and my hips and my back and my shoulders and my arms and my neck and my hair. Seriously, what was going on? Since when do Justin and I dance like this?

His eyes were trained on me for what seemed like an eternity. He was looking at me like I was the only person in the entire club. Like he wasn’t even aware of all the people pushing around us or the smell of body odor in the air. What is going on?

It’s not like I mind, cause I don’t. He’s making me feel like I’m the only person in the world and I love all the attention he’s giving me. What girl wouldn’t? But this is just so weird. It’s not like it was overtly sexual but if Ben and I were still going out and Ben saw us dancing like this, he’d kick Justin’s ass.

His hands were now settled on my hips, his fingers curled around them. Normally he’s singing the words along to the song when we dance but tonight all he’s doing is looking at my face and every once in a while down at my body. I have to keep looking away because it’s too intense. You know how some people will give you too much eye contact to the point where it’s awkward? Justin sometimes does that and usually I’ll just tell him to knock it off. But tonight I can’t bring myself to say anything. If I do, he might stop dancing because he thinks I’m uncomfortable. And I’m not necessarily. This is just different.

It’s actually been different ever since I got back from Ohio. Justin and I have been friends for years but for the past two months, it’s like we’ve been in this weird in between stage of friends and…something. Like when we were camping and slept with our sleeping bags together. We never would have done that before. Especially not when I was dating one of his friends.

It seemed like the club had gotten ten times hotter since we had started dancing. I was probably sweating. Justin still seemed as cool and calm as could be but his eyes gave him away. There was this almost nervous quality in them that I had only seen once before.

My stomach started churning. That one time I had seen that look was the first time he had met Brandy Wellis. Exactly fifteen minutes later he had asked her out on their first date.

Okay, I can’t think about this anymore. I must be reading too much into this all. I’m just going to stop and have fun. I’m going to exhaust myself by analyzing this anymore.

We danced longer tonight than we ever have before. My eyes felt like jelly by time we left the dance floor and joined Lynn and Trace back in the upstairs VIP area.

Lynn left at twelve thirty and soon after that, Trace went off to go further pursue the “hot waitress”. Justin and I chilled at our table for a couple hours before finally deciding to go.

He was driving me home and it was pretty silent in the car on the drive to my apartment. The night had just been so weird that it was like there was nothing to say. And in the silence, I couldn’t help but think about that look I had seen in his eyes when we were dancing.

There were all these weird emotions and thoughts flying through my head. I don’t know what Justin was thinking but I suddenly knew a cold hard fact about myself. I’m attracted to Justin. His looks, his personality, his character. Everything.

Oh man, this is bad. I don’t like to have feelings for someone when I don’t know what they’re feeling back. Sure, I can guess what Justin’s feeling but he doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve and I can’t really be sure.

“Are you alright? You look a little pale.”

My eyes jerked over to Justin and then back at the road. “I’m good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He laughed a bit. “What’s with you?”

I leaned my head against the back of the seat and covered my face with my hands. Smooth, Emily. Be a spaz and he’ll know something’s up. He’ll figure out I have a crush or whatever on him and he’ll laugh at me and make fun of me and I’ll never hear the end of it.

“Em?”

I dropped my hands. “I’m great. Maybe tired. Maybe it’s…tired probably.”

He was laughing and my brow wrinkled and I looked over at him.

“What?”

“We’re here? If you could stop babbling long enough, maybe you’d see that.”

My face went red when I realized we were outside my apartment and probably had been the whole time I had been trying to make an excuse for being weird. Smooth move.

As if trying to make up for my obliviousness, I quickly undid my seatbelt and opened the door. “Do you want to come in?” My mouth expelled the words in a blurt before I could even process them.”

“I better. Seems like you may not even make it up there at this point.” His eyes twinkled a bit. “Considering how tired you are.”

I can’t even imagine how red my face probably was. I opened my mouth to respond but who am I kidding. I have no way or responding without coming across even crazier so I stayed silent and got out of the car.

“Lola home?” he asked as we climbed the stairs.

I shook my head. “She’s at Mitch’s.” I fumbled for my keys in my purse and it took me a minute before I was able to successfully fit the correct key in the lock. Justin standing directly behind me wasn’t helping matters.

“So you’ve got the place all to yourself tonight.”

I glanced back at him momentarily at the way he had said that. Suddenly I realized I didn’t have to worry about being so out of it tonight because he was being weirder than me. And his weirdness was what was causing me to act the way I was.

When we entered my apartment, I immediately started flipping on lights just to keep myself busy. Justin headed for the kitchen and I followed behind him.

“So your mom leaves tomorrow?” I asked as I watched him pull a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water.

He leaned back against the counter. “Yeah. I wish she was out here for longer.”

I leaned my hip against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. “Did you ask her too?”

“She and Paul are going on a cruise in three days so she can’t.”

I nodded and glanced around the kitchen. I swear my heart skipped like ten beats when I looked at the fridge and saw that the stupid note from Lola was still on the door. Why hadn’t I erased it? This was bad.

My eyes moved to Justin and I saw that he was looking at the fridge. I couldn’t even hope he didn’t see it. He’d have to be blind not to. Maybe he won’t say anything. Maybe he’ll know it’s about him and won’t say anything to make things awkward. Maybe-

“What’s that note about?”

My stomach sank. Why? Honestly, why does he always have to question everything? I desperately tried to keep my face nonchalant as I made up something.

“Lola was being stupid.”

“Who’s that about?”

“Just…some guy. It’s nothing.”

The look on his face let me know that he knew I was lying but thankfully he didn’t say anything more and an awkward silence fell over us. Geez, this is uncomfortable. I’m totally convinced that he knows the note is about him. Who else could it be about?

I am going to kill Lola next time I see her.

Justin was still staring at the note, which at this point I desperately wanted to erase. I couldn’t even think of anything to say to make things normal. He solved that pretty quickly.

“I should go.”

I straightened and my arms dropped to my sides. “Yeah.”

He put his glass in the sink and moved past me. I trailed behind.

“I guess I’ll talk to you later,” he said as he opened the door.

I bit the inside of my life. “Sure. Say goodbye to your mom for me.”

“I will.”

Another awkward moment of silence followed and then he abruptly leaned in to hug me. Even the hug was different.

“See you later, Chief.”

“Bye,” I said softly.

He pulled back and left, closing the door behind him. As soon as the door was shut, I leaned back against it, resting my head on the wood.

This night just needed to be over.