Chapter 12
As the summer progressed, Sydney and Michael weren’t able to see each other as much as they’d hoped. As it turned out, their work schedules weren’t as flexible as their class ones during the school year. This meant that they had to resort to mostly communicating over the phone, which wasn’t nearly as good as in person, but they had to deal with it as best they could. The times they were able to get together, they mostly spent making out in their corner of the library.
One afternoon in early August when Michael walked into the library, he was surprised to find, instead of the usual elderly librarian, a significantly younger blonde woman, a woman who Michael would have called attractive had Sydney not been walking a few feet behind him. “Good afternoon,” the blonde woman said to him. At the sound of her voice, Michael stopped dead in his tracks, causing Sydney to walk right into the back of him.
“He-hello,” Michael squeaked.
“Where’s Mrs. Smart?” Sydney asked the blonde woman.
“Oh she’s retiring. I’m her replacement. My name is Cindy,” she grinned at them.
Sydney gave her a polite yet extraordinarily fake smile. Then, when she looked up to Michael and saw his jaw hanging slack, she pinched the back of his arm painfully. “Stop drooling or I’ll hit you,” she said in a cheerful yet menacing voice.
“Yes dear,” he said obediently before walking off towards the other side of the library.
“Oh, um, can I help you with anything?” Cindy asked.
“No, we’re fine,” Sydney assured her with a smile.
“You… have blankets,” Cindy said in a suspicious tone.
Sydney looked down at the blankets in her arm and then back up at Cindy. “Yes, yes I do. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it tends to get rather chilly in here. That’s why I have blankets.”
“Oh, okay,” Cindy said with a slight giggle. Again, Sydney gave her a fake smile before walking over to the table where Michael was sitting and obviously trying not to stare at the new librarian. To spite him, Sydney smacked him on the back of the head as she walked by him to sit at the table.
“Why did you hit me?!” he demanded.
“Why are you drooling over the librarian?!” Sydney countered.
“I was not!” he defended. She gave him a look. “Okay so I was a little bit but I was just trying to figure out why she’s here and not that old lady.”
“Well obviously it’s because the old lady was at death’s door!” Sydney hissed to him. “Let’s go upstairs…I think she’s eavesdropping.” Michael nodded and followed her up to the third floor. He helped her spread the floor blanket down on the ground and then the two of them sat down on it.
“I can’t believe you were staring at her,” Sydney muttered under her breath as she folded her arms over her chest. “You check out women all the time don’t you?! I’m not around so you just ogle them…picturing them naked…”
“Excuse me I do not ogle or picture them naked!! I don’t picture anyone naked!!” He insisted.
“Not even me?” she questioned.
Michael stared at her blankly for a moment, not sure how to answer that very dangerous question. He decided it was best to ignore it completely. “And I don’t check out other women. If I look at them, I compare them to you and you’re always much more beautiful than them.”
Sydney grumbled under her breath, hating that he had to say the most perfect answer. Sensing she hadn’t quite forgiven him yet, Michael leaned over and began kissing her hairline and then down to her jaw and neck. “I promise I’ll never look at another woman again. I’ll even gouge my eyes out if you want.”
Sydney laughed. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Oh good… ‘cause then I couldn’t see you,” he smiled. She laughed again and kissed him. A moment later their kissing was interrupted by an obnoxious throat clearing. Sydney and Michael broke their embrace to see Cindy hovering over them.
“You know, this is a library,” she said in an annoyed tone.
“Yeah, I got that from the books,” Sydney muttered.
“You can’t do this in here!” Cindy exclaimed.
“Okay lemme just explain somethin’ to ya here Cindy,” Sydney said as she stood up. “I’m from East Lasonvia and my boyfriend is from West Lasonvia and, judging by your accent, so are you. Maybe that’s why you’re being so…whatever, but the point is, this is the only place we can spend any time together, so if you’ve got a problem with that I suggest you get over it,” Sydney told her sharply. Cindy glared at Sydney for a moment before turning around and stomping away. With a satisfied smile on her face, Sydney then sat down next to Michael, who was slightly dumbfounded. “What?”
“That was really hot,” he told her. “Any chance you can do it again… in jello?” This comment earned him a hard smack on the chest, though Sydney was smirking when she hit him. “I was kidding,” he laughed, “but seriously that was hot… you were all… commanding.”
“Michael stop,” Sydney laughed, embarrassed, as a red color crept into her cheeks. Michael leaned over and kissed her rosy cheek before nuzzling his face into her neck and holding her tightly.
“You know I was thinking,” Sydney began a few minutes later, “about going to Italy again.”
“Oh yea?” Michael smiled.
“Yeah,” Sydney said. “Only this time I thought… I thought maybe we could spend the whole weekend there, like…overnight,” Sydney suggested in an almost quiet tone.
“O-overnight?” Michael croaked, his heart rate increasing.
“Yeah… I mean, we’ve never spent the night together but it could be nice, right?” she asked with a hopeful smile. The fact that he was looking white as a sheet was not helping her nerves at that moment.
“So, um… this overnight…would that be, um, overnight in a hotel room with two beds or more like a one bed romantic-like situation?” Michael asked.
“Um,” Sydney began blushing, “well… I was thinking the second one.”
“Oh,” Michael squeaked. “Well, um, in that case you should know that I’ve never really, um, been in that sort of, um, situation…”
“Oh thank god,” Sydney sighed with relief. “Neither have I!”
“Really?” Michael laughed, relieved as well. Sydney nodded. “Well that’s good… but you should know I was kinda close to doing it before….”
“How close?” Sydney asked.
“Mere moments away close,” he said, cringing slightly. Sydney gave him a curious look. “Well… see it was this girlfriend of mine from first year of university and… well long story short she was all like ‘yeah we should do it’, so me being a guy agreed and then we started fooling around and my mom fully walked in on us…”
“NO!” Sydney gasped while Michael shuddered, recalling the event.
“Yeah it wasn’t pretty,” he cringed. “That sorta turned me off sex for a while, especially after the lecture she gave me,” he shuddered again.
“Understandably so,” Sydney laughed. “So… we’re really gonna go to Italy for a long weekend?”
“Definitely,” he smiled at her.
