Out Of Hours

23. Call things off

The car creeps the final distance up my road before coming to a stop a couple houses up from mine. Daniel is trying his best to stay under the radar not wanting us to be caught, by anybody who might get this back to my Dad not just him himself. I'm hoping that thanks to it being earlier than I'd told my Dad I'd be home he wouldn't be peering out at every car noise on the road.

"I've enjoyed today Allister. A lot." I pause, my hand on the door handle ready to make a hasty escape, us already saying see you Monday to each other whilst at the other end of the street.

I turn to him with a shy smile and light nod. "Me too." I wanted to say more. How I loved seeing him a little more carefree. How I liked that he told me more about him and his family, but I became too shy suddenly. Perhaps because of the way he was staring at me.

"You should go." He chuckles.

"Bye." With that I open the door and throw myself out into the cool air. I don't look back as I jog across the road to get out of traffic, not that there was any and then I start a slow pace towards my house. After a few steps I can't not look back smiling when I see him wave from the car again. I feel giddy but know this means nothing. We have hung out before outside of work and it never progressed to anything then.

Monday would more than likely go back to being the same only now I knew he liked today enough to hoping want to do it again. And if we made this a regular thing, it could turn into something in time.
I try to wipe the look of love struck off my face as Daniels car drives past me now at a much normal speed. I only just noticed it was him as I caught sight of him in the drivers seat and couldn't see it was him. Nobody else would of knew.

I'm now at my front door. With a final breath to try act as normal as possible I push it open knowing my Dad kept it unlocked, calling to him in an instant that I'm home.
"Hey! Have a good night?" He calls from towards the living room letting me know where to find him.

"Yeah not bad." I again smile at the memory as I stand removing my shoes. I'm surprised when I hear him suddenly greeting me in the hallway leaning on the living room door as he crosses his arms and looks at me.

"Not drunk?" He smirks raising an eyebrow. I roll my eyes. No surprise that he thinks I've been drinking with friends.

"No Dad. We just hung out, ate some food..." I don't exactly lie. He hums as he eyes me up and down. I knew he was trying to spot something that said otherwise but he wouldn't find anything. At least nothing that said I'd been drinking, taking drugs or having sex.

"I'm going for a shower Dad." I tell him just wanting to get out his gaze. He nods and says nothing more as I walk by him to head to the stairs.

I shower for longer than I usually would, at first just letting the hot water run over me as I replayed this evening and cute things that were said or done like when Daniels hand grazed against mine when we were walking and instead of acting like it didn't happen he swirled his fingers with mine. Just for a few seconds he held my hand that that before letting go. All while we spoke like nothing was happening.

My entire body had lit up to that touch and as I thought about it similar feelings arouse in me again. Enough so that I decided to please myself right there and then under the stream of cooling water, using the soapy bubbles as lube.

Me and Daniel had made no contact with each other all weekend even though I kept hovering over our brief previous chats tempted to message him, just not sure what exactly.

Monday morning and I found myself nervous again. A giddy excited nervous that I was starting to like.

I wore my usual smart clothes and rode the bus, listening to music like nothing was a miss. I got off at the same stop and walked the same road to the office smiling at the front desk worker who I knew still didn't like me so I didn't give a second thought to the judgemental look up and down that she gave me then the huffed laugh as she moved to answer the phone.