It's a Love Thing (9 page)

"This one is way too boring," she
said, setting down the gray ten pound ball. She reached for her
sleeve, but not only did she not have a wand, she didn't have a
sleeve.

She laughed. "Oops. I
forgot."

Her first few throws went straight
into the gutter. Her face looked cute even when disappointment
etched her features. I gave her a few pointers about using the
arrows on the lane as a guide and keeping her wrist straight and
she did better.

"Look, I knocked over half the pins
this time." She jumped up and down as if she'd gotten a
strike.

During our second game, Elise Delyser
showed up with her family and took the lane four down from us. Tink
saw her first. "Hey, it's the girl from the yearbook."

I looked over as Elise came toward us.
"Hi, Pete," she smiled. "You look great. I hardly recognized you.
I'm guessing summer's been good to you."

"Yes, thanks. This is my friend
Tink."

She and Tink nodded politely, each
sizing up the other. Elise's dad called her back over so they could
start their game. She smiled at me and left.

"I was right. She seems very
nice."

I nodded and took my turn. I didn't
want to talk about Elise or anyone else today. I only wanted to be
with Tink. Thankfully, she dropped the subject.

After two games, we called it quits.
"Okay, Tink, how did bowling rate?"

"I loved it, except for the rented
shoes," she shuddered.

"I thought maybe we could go eat lunch
at my house. Sound good? Then we'll drain the rest of that bucket
list of yours."

"As a matter of fact, that's on my
list. I want to make a meal without using magic," she said as we
drove to my house.

I gathered all the ingredients for her
and she made chicken salad sandwiches. They had a little too much
mayo, but other than that they tasted pretty good.

"This is a lot of work for a five
minute meal," she said as we started cleaning up. "I should have
made peanut butter and jelly. They look a lot easier."

"They are. I picked chicken
salad because I wanted to see
you
sweat for a change," I teased.

She grabbed a grape from a bowl my mom
had set out that morning, and threw it at me. It only took two
seconds before a full-fledged grape fight broke out, and thirty
minutes to clean all the grapes up afterwards.

"Next, Ms. Tink?" I asked, tossing the
last of the abused fruit in the trash.

She looked at me and scrunched her
face while mumbling something.

"I didn't catch that."

She sighed. "I said I want
to play a game of
Laser Wars
with you." Her face turned bright red.

I laughed. "Are you
serious?"

"Yes, and stop laughing."

"Okay, but if we're going
to play
Laser Wars
, we'll need Spongy Crèmes."

I grabbed a box and we raced up the
stairs. She unwrapped a Spongy while I set the game up. Within
seconds she ran out of my room and into the bathroom. I followed
her down the hall and stood in front of the open door as she spit
out the Spongy Crème into the toilet.

"Those are disgusting. I can't believe
you eat them." She scooped a handful of water from the faucet and
rinsed her mouth out.

"Spongy's are the food of the god's,"
I declared nobly.

"Sick, deranged god's
maybe." We went back to my room and I beat her soundly at
Laser Wars
. I couldn't
decide what was more enjoyable, watching her face as she tried to
shoot Simon Crawford, or her screaming at the game when it didn't
respond the way she thought it should.

"That was a letdown," she
teased.

"How can I make it up to you?" I hoped
she'd ask me to kiss her; surely kissing was on her bucket list.
But she didn't.

"Ride a bike. Do you have any?" she
asked, her pretty green eyes wide with excitement.

"I believe my sister's old bike is in
the shed, mine too probably. Let's go see."

Tink practically skipped to the back
yard. I found the bikes and hosed the dust off them. Tink mastered
the bike within minutes.

"I can't believe how fast you picked
up on balancing," I said as we rounded the corner and pedaled to
the bike path that ran along the Erie Canal.

"It's a lot like flying," she pointed
out. I hadn't thought of that.

We rode along the path, racing the
second half. My legs were stronger thanks to all the exercising
she'd put me through the past months, but I let her win. Squealing
with delight, she jumped off the bike, leaned it against a tree,
and did a victory dance around it.

I stood and watched her celebrate. My
heart about broke knowing that soon she'd be little again and gone.
And I wouldn't even remember her.

She glanced over and stopped her party
of one. Coming over next to me, she placed her hand on my
cheek.

"What's wrong, Pete?"

I don't know what came over me. I
don't know if it was the hot sun, or seeing her delight at winning
the bike race, or the fact that my heart ached, but I kissed her.
It felt awkward and clumsy, and it was the greatest moment of my
life, despite our bumping noses.

"How did you know that kissing you was
on my bucket list?" she said softly when I pulled away.

"I hoped, I guess." And I kissed her
again. This kiss was much better. I held her close, and buried my
hands in her soft auburn hair.

She sighed. "How am I going to survive
without you, Pete?" Her soft hand caressed my cheek. "Did you know
I should have been done with my assignment a month ago?" I shook my
head. "I told them you were a slow learner so they'd let me keep
coming." She blushed. "Are you mad?"

"Nothing that another kiss wouldn't
fix," I teased.

This kiss was even better than the
last one. Practice does make perfect.

"So I'm guessing that the assignment
will end soon?"

"Tomorrow will be my last day, and I
had to beg for that."

Even though I'd felt the end rapidly
approaching, I still had a hard time with the news.

"Let's not think about it, Pete. Let's
enjoy this last little bit." She stretched up and kissed me again.
When it ended, way too soon in my opinion, we rode the bikes back
to the house and put them away.

"My parents are home. Do you want to
go somewhere else?"

"No. Meeting the family of one of my
assignments is on my list. I never get to meet them. I see them all
the time, but they never speak to me or me to them, of course.
"

"We'll need to come up with a cover
story. I don't think 'Hey mom and dad. Meet my faery’ will go over
very well."

She giggled. "How about telling them
I'm here visiting a friend for the summer and this is my last day
before I go home? I don't really want to lie to them."

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my
throat. I didn't want to think about midnight.

We walked in the house and
both my parents stopped dead and turned to stare at us.
Smooth, parents, real smooth.

"Mom, dad, I'd like you to meet my
friend Tink. Tink these are my parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Pancerella."

My mother rushed poor Tink and
practically tackled her in a hug. "Hello, Tink, and please, call us
Peter and Connie. It's so nice to meet you. Won't you come in?" Not
waiting for an answer, my mom escorted her to the living room
couch. They sat and mom began with the questions. Tink was on her
game. She answered each one as vaguely as possible without lying.
Quite impressive to watch, really.

"So you are going home tomorrow,
then?" I think mom was as sad as I was. "Well, in this day and age,
what's a little distance between friends? You can Facebook each
other, and maybe we'll upgrade our computer so we can have Skype.
Wouldn't that be nice, Pete?"

"That would be awesome,
mom."
I wonder if faeries use
Skype?

Mom talked Tink's ear off during
dinner too. She spilled all the family secrets, actually they were
my secrets, much to my chagrin.

"Pete wet the bed till he was six, he
has a small bladder."

". . . He snorted milk all over the
poor waitress. She started crying."

". . . We found Pete in the neighbor's
pool, completely naked."

". . . She punched Pete square in the
nose and broke it, but to be fair, she was a big
four-year-old."

". . . And then Pete threw-up on his
teacher."

" . . . Pete's swim trunks dropped to
his ankles right there on the beach in the middle of July. Remember
that, Pete?"

"Yes, mom. It happened last summer, of
course I remember it. Can we stop with the true confessions
now?"

"Sorry, dear. I didn't mean to
embarrass you." Thankfully my grandmother called and needed mom's
help with her medicine bottles. She left as dad began
cleaning.

Tink jumped and started clearing off
the table. "No. This is your last night here. Go enjoy each other,"
dad said, scooting us out of the kitchen.

I took Tink by the hand and we walked
outside onto the patio. The night was clear and balmy. We looked at
the hundreds of stars twinkling in the heavens.

"Just think, all this started with a
wish," Tink said softly.

Her words sparked a brilliant idea in
my head. "Which one is the wishing star?"

"I can't tell you."

"Tink, I'll make a wish and then you
can come back."

"It doesn’t work that way. Besides,
you'd probably get a different faery anyway." She looped her hand
through mine and brought it to her lips.

"What if I wish for you, then they'd
have to grant it, right?" She shook her head, drowning my
hope.

"Tink, I love you. I don't want to
live without you." I wrapped my arms around her and tugged her
close.

"I feel the same. It's like my heart
is going to burst."

"I'd give anything to be with you. I'd
give up all my tomorrows for just one more day with you like this."
I kissed her forehead. "Can you take me with you to your
world?"

"No. Even if I could you'd still be
five-ten and I'd still be five-and-a-half inches."

"Can you stay here, stay a human?" I
looked at her. Her face went white. "Never mind. How selfish of me
to ask you to give up magic and your world. At least we'll have
these memories, right?" She didn't answer. Then I remembered. "Oh
yeah, you will, I won't."

Tink slipped her hands into my hair
and pulled me into a kiss. The best one yet. I wrapped my arms
around her waist and tugged her closer.

Everything went just fine until my
father began clearing his throat. Tink and I stepped
apart.

Dad smile apologetically. "Sorry. I
have some strawberry short-cake for dessert. Would you two care to
join me?"

"No, thanks," we both said. He nodded
and went back inside.

"Did we get everything on your list
done?" I asked, trying to forget we only had an hour
left.

"Almost."

"What's still left? We have some time.
If we hurry maybe we can get it done."

"Not unless you can make it snow in
July," she answered.

"I'll bet you can't do that even with
your wand." I brushed a stray piece of hair from her
cheek.

"Nope. I can't."

"Did you want to build a
snowman?"

"No. I wanted to go skiing. And I
wanted to make snow angels."

"Oh, the wings would get in the way,"
I said, as a thought came. "I can’t do anything about the skiing,
but I have an idea I think will work with the snow angel." I took
her hand. We quietly walked over to the next door neighbor's
backyard and went straight to their sandbox in the
corner.

"I know it's not snow," I
said.

"It's perfect. I can make angels and
not have to get cold." We both knelt outside the box and smoothed
out the sand. Tink climbed in and lay in the sand, swooshing her
arms and legs. When she finished, I took her by the hands and
pulled her up so it wouldn't mess up the angel. We stood at the
foot of the box and looked down at her creation.

It looked perfect, just like her. We
kissed a few more times before walking slowly, arm in arm, back to
my house.

"Twenty minutes." I tried to pull her
closer, but she shook her head.

"Wait. There is a way," she said
soberly. "I'd have to give up being a faery, but at least I
wouldn't have to give up you, because truthfully, I don't think I
can do that."

"No. Being a faery is what you are,
Tink. I can't ask that of you."

"You're not asking. I'm offering."
Excitement filled her voice. "I'd need a place to stay, at least
for a while."