Just A Little Crush

When I got back to Chad’s house, he was home from work. We found the two of them in the basement taking advantage of being alone in the house. “Hey none of that, one baby is enough for now!” They jumped apart when I started to speak; the look on their faces was priceless.

As their kids went over to Susan to tell her about their day, Chad came over to me. “You couldn’t keep them away for a while longer?”

I shook my head, smiling. “Nope I have plans tonight and I don’t want to be late.” I told him about running into Josh and how he asked me out for dinner. “So if there’s nothing else that Susan needs my help with?” I glanced at Susan who had been listening to my conversation with Chad, I hoped that she didn’t have anything else for me; I wanted to go so badly.

“No I think we can leave the rest until tomorrow when you come over,’ she smiled at me.

“But I wasn’t coming over….oh” I realized what she meant. “Yes, we can finish it tomorrow!”

I started to get ready to go, I had my jacket and boots on, I was just waiting for my nieces to say their ‘good byes’ when I felt a tug on my jacket. “Aunt Anna?” I looked down at Conner; he was staring up at me with a hopeful look on his face. He showed me his truck, “Are we going to play now?”

“Oh honey,” I squat down in front of him. “I have a date tonight with Josh.” Conner lowered his head and sighed. “But I’ll tell you what,” I lifted his chin up so he could see me again. “I’m off work all day Saturday; I could come over and play with you then!”

Conner gave me a weak smile, “Can I go to your house?”

“Well I live with uncle Zack now Conner, so I’m not sure but I’ll ask him, if it’s alright with our parents that is.”

“Daddy can I go to Uncle Zack’s Saturday with Aunt Anna?” Conner runs over to Chad to wait for his reply.

My brother tells him he’ll have to see and check with Zack to see if it’s ok. “Maybe Aunt Anna would like to come over here for the night?” Chad raised a brow in my direction.

“Yeah!” Conner runs back over to me, throwing his arms around me. “Aunt Anna we have a sleep over?”

I told Conner that it sounded like a great idea, “We haven’t done that in forever.” He agreed and then rattled on about all the things we could do when I slept over.

It took about ten minutes to get him to calm down enough so that I could leave, so by the time I got to Zack’s I was frantic. The girls followed me to my room; they wanted to help me get ready for my date. They were sitting on my bed when I got out of the shower; they had picked out a couple outfits for me to try for my date. They watched me as I was running around trying to figure out which one to wear and wondering if I was going to be late meeting Josh.

“Aunt Anna!” Cassie jumped off my bed and grabbed me by the arms. “Calm down! It’s not like it’s the first date you ever had with Coach Baker!”

I stared at her for a moment, “Actually it kind of is.” I went on to tell her that Josh and I didn’t really go out that much when we were seeing each other before. She asked me what we did all the time and then told me she didn’t want to know. I laughed, “Cassie it wasn’t always like that, Josh and I just spent a lot of time at his place or mine. We work opposite shifts so he was half asleep by the time I got off work.”

“That’s no excuse!” Cassie stated. “There still should’ve been times when you to had days off together, I know you had days off on the weekends and he is always off on the weekends!”

“Yes but Josh has a little boy who comes to stay with him on the weekends, he tried to spend as much time with Jess as he could. And I don’t blame him!”

“Oh” Cassie sighed. “I forgot about his son.” She went on and said she didn’t know how I could date a guy with a child, “Especially when there was a single guy living under the same roof!”

“Jordan has a daughter and besides, I don’t feel that way about him.”

“I don’t know why,” Cassie sat back down on the bed. “He’s a great guy.”

“I know he is Cassie but he’s not the guy for me.” I turned to my other two nieces, who were giggling as we were talking. “What’s so funny you two?”

Through her giggles Natalie said, “Cassie loves Jordan!”

“I do not!” Cassie picked up my pillow and hit Natalie with it. “I have a boyfriend!”

“You do too!” Natalie cried out from the fetal position that she curled up in when Cassie started to hit her with the pillow. “It says so in your diary, you think Jordan is so dreamy and you wonder if he would ever think of you as anyone but Aunt Anna’s niece! You want to kiss him!”

“Natalie!” Cassie shrieked as her face turned bright red. “I’m telling mom on you! You know you aren’t supposed to go into my room and go through my private stuff!” Cassie took off out of my room and Natalie ran after her, begging her not to tell their parents.

I don’t know why, but I was a little shocked to find out that Cassie thought of Jordan like that. I turned back to Lindsay, who had said nothing during the little thing between her sisters. “So it’s true? Cassie does have a thing for Jordan?” Lindsay nodded. “Huh,” I tried to wrap my head around the idea of the two of them but I couldn’t. “You dad would freak if he found out.”

Again Lindsay nodded and added. “I don’t think Cassie really likes him though.” When I asked her what she meant she went on to tell me that she believes that Cassie only thinks she’s in love with him because she sees how he is with me. “She looks up to you Aunt Anna, she was so happy when she heard you were coming home, you’d think that you were her long lost sister or something.” There was a little bit of resentment in Lindsay’s voice, something I never heard before.

“Are you upset with me Lindsay?”

She stared at me as if she was trying to figure out the answer to that question. “No,” she said slowly. “I just feel left out some times when you are around, they seem to forget I exist.” She shrugged, “I guess it’s only natural, you are more fun than I am.”

I wanted to tell her that she was fun, I tried to think of examples where we did stuff together and had a blast but every time I thought of something the other girls were involved too. “I haven’t spent that much time with you,” I was shocked, I didn’t realize it before. And I was ashamed too, how could I forget one of my nieces like that?

She shrugged again, “It’s ok Aunt Anna I don’t really need that much attention, I know you love me.”

“I do,” I told her. “But we should do stuff together too. And we will,” I smiled at her. “I promise you we’ll do something, just the two of us ok?”

A huge smile spread across Lindsay’s face. “Really? Without Cassie or Natalie?” I nodded. “Oh Aunt Anna!” She threw her arms around me and hugged me. “I can’t wait!”

I told her that we would make plans tomorrow for one day soon, “But first, would you mind helping me choose an outfit? I have to get going before Josh thinks I’m standing him up!” It took only a couple minutes to choose a pair of soft burgundy jeans and a cream colored top to go with it.

I was dressed and heading for the door when Zack called down the stairs that I was wanted on the phone, when I told him I was about to go out, he told me it was Josh.

Lindsay gave me this look when I glanced at her, “I’m sure everything is ok,” she told me as I raced for the phone.

“Hey Josh?” I was a little breathless as I held the phone to my ear.

“Hello Anna,” he sounded a little distracted so I asked him if everything was ok. “Oh yeah, I’m just driving.”

“Driving? Where are you going?”

“There has been a tiny change in plans,” he said.

My heart sank as I sat down on my bed. “What change in plans?” I looked up to see my other two nieces come into my room, all three of them looked sad, like they were thinking he was canceling on me.

“Well, I’m on my way to get you right now; I managed to get us reservations at The Grillhouse for tonight.”

“The Grillhouse?” I gasped, not only was the Grillhouse the best place to eat in the world and very expensive; it was also the hardest place to get reservations for. I was a little shocked that he would want to take me there when we hadn’t even talked about our future.

“Yes honey, you don’t mind going there, do you? We could do something else if you want.”

“Of course I want to go there! I’m just shocked, that’s all.”

He laughed, “Well I wasn’t expecting to get reservations but it seems that I know someone who can pull some strings for me. So I’ll be at the house in ten minutes, will you be ready?”

I told him I would be and we said bye. I hung up the phone; my nieces were all talking very excitedly about where we were going and then they told me that there was no way I could wear what I had on to this restaurant.

By the time Josh got to Zack’s, I had changed my outfit three different times before the girls settled on a black ankle length flower print skirt and a form fitting burgundy shirt. I was worried I would be cold but they told me that’s why Josh was there.

We arrived at the restaurant shortly after 6 and were seated right away, it seemed that the staff was honored to have Josh as a patron that evening; we found out later that the owner of the restaurant was the uncle of one of Josh’s star players.

After we ordered our appetizers, Josh took my hand in his. “I know we still have to talk about everything that went on but I want you to know that I missed you so much, there’s pretty much nothing that will change the fact that I want us to be together again.”

I told him that I felt the same way, “But I have a question for you and I want you to answer it honestly, ok?”

He nodded, “Of course I’ll answer honestly. What’s on your mind honey?”

I took a moment to think about what I wanted to say. When I had the question straight in my head, I took a deep breath. “I received a bunch of ‘blocked calls’ while we weren’t talking,” I told him and his eyes left mine for a second. “I wasn’t sure who it could be but the other night I think I figured it out.” He raised a brow and I continued. “Your number has always showed up when you called me before but the other night when you called it said ‘blocked call’,” I’m not sure what kind of reaction I expected him to have but just sitting there listening to me wasn’t it, I knew that. I felt a little stupid but I continued on anyway. “Were you the one calling me and not speaking for the last month?”