One Saturday

"Take her bowling," Grant said. "Especially if she's got shorts on."

"What? Why?" Graham asked as he pulled on a pair of khakis.

"Dude, bowling? They got to bend over, means they'll be putting their butts right in your face," his brother said.

"Dude, you need professional help," Graham said.

"Uh huh, at least I'm not the world's oldest virgin," Grant said.

By the time Graham was backing his Kia out of the driveway, Angelle had come to her senses.

Manny's was not Radcliffe's. But at least, at Manny's, she could get something better to eat than the burned country fried steak Tad's grandmother normally fixed for dinner on Saturday nights. Manny's would be better than eating the food out of a can that Carmen usually served.

And Graham had said he almost had enough money to buy her that Omega watch she'd been dying to have, ever since Tad bought his watch from Cash For Gold Pawn Shop.

So she sent Graham a text message.

She stared in disbelief as Graham's reply was a few minutes in coming and told her he was sorry, but he had already made plans to go to Manny's with a buddy.

Graham frowned at the house that he now knew was Thaddeus Bell's house, then parked in front of Shelly's house. His phone chimed; Angelle had sent another text message, offering to come along with him and whichever guy Graham was going to Manny's with.

His phone rang as he was sending Angelle a reply that it was going to be just a 'Guys Night' but he'd talk to her later.

"Hello?" he said; not recognizing the phone number.

"Hey Graham, won't keep you long; know you're on your way get Shelly," Michelle said. "But uh, just uh, you know, uh, wanted you have my phone number, you know, uh, if you ever need it or want it or..."

Graham listened to the girl ramble, almost amused.

She sounded just as tongue tied, just as insecure as he normally did.

With a 'oh, okay, talk to you later, all right?' Michelle hung up, and Graham rang the doorbell.

"Going have to knock," Shelly's voice called through the door. "Doorbell don't work."

Graham laughed out loud and knocked. Shelly opened it immediately.

He met Shelly's mother, a slender white woman whose smile revealed a missing front tooth, and Shelly's step-father, a hulking black man. The man's hand swallowed Graham's hand when Graham stuck out his hand and Graham's eyes went wide. He was average size, but Mr. Delbert towered over him.

"Come on, Pop-Pop, you scaring him," Shelly easily said.

"Trying scare him," the man laughed.

"I'm scared, I'm scared," Graham said and Mr. Delbert placed a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Treat her right? You ain't got nothing ever be scared of," the man said.

"Treat her wrong?" Shelly's mother said, letting the threat hang in the air.

At Manny's, Graham soon lost his stutter as Shelly gently teased him, but made sure to compliment him often, touch him frequently.

"Bowling?" she asked. "You uh, you ain't going cry when I beat your butt, huh?"

"Not too much," Graham smiled.

She shocked him when she took his hand in hers and held it as they walked across the parking lot to the bowling alley.

"And that was what?" a chubby young woman was bragging as she and her older husband left the bowling alley. "One hundred and thirty nine? And you got... Oh yeah, one hundred and fifteen."

Both Shelly and Graham had to smile as the young woman insisted that she didn't have to carry her bowling bag; after all, she'd won.

"Be quiet Britney; cannot believe I married such a sore winner," Brian smiled as he unlocked the door to his 1972 Chevy Malibu.

The woman that assigned them a lane did scowl slightly at the mixed couple, but did not say anything.

Graham had to give Grant credit; bowling was a much sexier sport than he'd imagined. Shelly bent, wiggled, gyrated and bounced when she hurled the ball down the lane. She had an incredible backside in the distressed jeans.

And when she knocked down all ten pins on a total fluke, Graham got one hell of a kiss. That kiss mashed her large chest against him.

But when Graham managed a spare, he got a shrug and a pretend yawn from Shelly.

Again, she took his hand as they returned to the counter to turn in their sheet and their rented shoes.

"And don't be crying I beat you," Shelly whooped as he unlocked her car door.

His cell phone chimed from its perch in the cup holder. Graham ignored it. This simple gesture earned him a nod of approval from Shelly.

At Clark's, Shelly got a banana split, ate the strawberry and chocolate ice cream scoops and suggested he could have her vanilla.

The kiss she gave him when he pulled up to her house had him melting down in his seat, his cock throbbing painfully in his khakis.

"Damn, Vanilla Boy, you kiss good yeah," she praised.

The porch light flicked on and off twice and Shelly quickly got out of the car.

"Later, white boy," she cheerfully said and skipped to her door.

Mr. Delbert opened the door before Shelly could dig her key out and nodded, no smile on his face. Graham waved and drove away.

"Pop-pop, why you got to be like that?" Shelly complained.

"You a beautiful young lady; them boys need see they better be treating you like the queen you are," he said, putting a loving hand on her shoulder as they entered the house.

"Well, don't worry, Vanilla Boy treats me right," she smiled and recounted the whole date, even the kiss at the end.

"Vanilla Boy, huh?" her mother smiled. "He call you Strawberry Girl?"

In his car, Graham looked at the multitude of text messages Angelle had sent him.

He almost felt like gloating; normally it was he that sent text after text, only to have her answer an hour or two later. And usually, her text messages were terse answers, rebuffs of his attempts to communicate.

"Sorry, left phone in car," he responded.

"So where have you been?" Angelle angrily responded. "Manny's don't take that long."

"Oh, after we ate, we went bowling," Graham glibly replied.

"And who's 'We?'" Angelle demanded to know.

And Graham declined to answer, employing Angelle's own trick of changing the subject. He told her about the work he'd done that day, about the ruined blue jeans.

"Almost got enough for your watch," Graham concluded.

*.*.*

Even as self-involved, as narcissistic as Angelle was, she did notice that Graham was not being as dutiful a drone, was not hovering around, waiting on her next command.

"Huh?" Graham said when she nastily asked what was going on. "Nothing; just busting my butt, trying get that six hundred and...Shit! Forgot all about taxes! Tax is what? Eight and a half?"

From their table in the cafeteria, Michelle, Shelly, Melanie and Stephanie smirked at the displeased Angelle.

"I am still so mad at you," Michelle assured Shelly, stealing a French fry from Shelly's tray.

"Why? You snooze, you lose," Shelly shrugged.

"But I wanted him first," Michelle whined and grabbed Shelly's hand before Shelly could steal any of Michelle's nachos.

"Really?" Shelly said and looked over at Trent Fourcade. "Tell you what. You get Trent take me out? I'll let you have Vanilla Boy."

"And quit calling him that!" Michelle laughed.

After class, Graham did dutifully drive Angelle home; her car was being repainted.

"What'd they write on it with?" Graham asked.

"I don't know, Graham, forgot to ask them when they did it," Angelle said sarcastically.

"Because if it was just a Marks-A-Lot? W.D. Forty would have taken it right off," Graham said and Angelle actually felt a little sick with that realization.

Her dad had said he wasn't paying the three hundred dollars Huvall's was charging. Her insurance wasn't covering it either; she'd neglected to get a police report. And she had a deductible of a thousand dollars anyway.

"Had to buy some new jeans; you know how expensive jeans are?" Graham was telling her, but Angelle wasn't listening.

Tad's own car had a different colored front right quarter panel and a rear passenger door that was also a different color than the rest of his car. So, Thaddeus did not see any reason Angelle should get the car repainted. And he certainly didn't see any reason why he should pay for the paint job for his girlfriend's car.

She could get Graham to pay for the paint job. But then he wouldn't have the money to get her that watch.

"Take me to Clark's?" she cooed.

"Sure," Graham shrugged.

He hoped the girl, whoever they got, wouldn't recognize that he'd been there twice just this past Saturday.

He did get the same girl that had brought Shelly's banana split and his hand-dipped cone out to them. But the girl did not recall him or his nondescript Kia.

"Watch. Or car," Angelle debated with herself.

Angelle finally made the decision that the watch was more important because it was more expensive. Angelle decided she'd steal her father's credit card to pay for the paint job.

"Your dad's a long distance trucker, right?" Graham asked.

"Yeah, about to go out on another run uh, next, no no, this Thursday," Angelle said.

"They make a lot?" Graham asked.

"Not a whole lot," Angelle shrugged.

"I mean, I been thinking, I'd probably like that," Graham said.

Angelle looked at him and smiled.

Her father did make a fairly good living. He bitched and complained about the alimony he had to pay her mother, plus how much Carmen and Whitney were costing him. And he never ceased to run out of complaints about how expensive Angelle's clothing and shoes and car and gas and insurance were. But he kept the bills paid.

And if Graham became a trucker, she'd be able to have a house of her own. And when Graham was out on a run, Tad could come over and...

"Yeah, you'd love being a trucker," Angelle smiled widely and actually squeezed his hand happily.

When he dropped her off, Graham did not even suggest that he could pick her up for school the following day. Fortunately for Angelle, she did think of that before getting out of his car.

"For a kiss," Graham bargained.

Angelle almost told him that he had no right to make any kind of bargain; she was the one in charge.

With a sigh, she leaned across the small console, gave him a soft kiss, and then got out of the car.

*.*.*

With her father out of the house, Angelle decided she would spend Friday night at Tad's house. His grandmother was extremely hard of hearing and was damned near blind as well.

Carmen, she was sure, would try to object, might even tattle to her father, but Angelle would just make up a lie about spending the night at a friend's house.

(Angelle did not stop to reflect, she had no friends, no female friends.)

But what to do about Graham? She'd already used 'Mother's Weekend' as an excuse last weekend. The one time she tried to use Whitney as an excuse, the lummox had actually suggested taking her sister with them.

So, she decided to have a tiff with Graham, a lover's spat.

"Got that watch yet?" she asked when he picked her up to bring her to school.

"Almost," he agreed. "By the way, these are them jeans I got; like them?"

"Perfect," she thought.

"So, uh, you would have that watch, but you decided you'd get you some jeans, huh?" she shrilled.

"I uh, I needed..." Graham stuttered.

She was still 'enraged and disappointed' in him when they pulled up to Northside High School.

"Hey Vanilla Boy," Shelly said as an almost smiling Graham put his books into his locker.

"I told you, quit calling him that!" Michelle hissed.

"Hey Shelly," Graham agreed. "Hey Michelle."

"So, you taking Angelle anywhere tonight?" Shelly asked.

"Don't think so; she's kind of mad at me," Graham shrugged.

"Well, I uh, Trent's taking me to Manny's and uh..." Shelly said and Graham lost his good mood.

He nodded his head glumly and prepared to push past the two girls.

"So uh, why you don't pick Michelle up and we'll double date, huh?" Shelly quickly suggested.

"You uh, you'd be all right with that?" Graham asked the attractive red head.

"Yeah; about six? That all right?" Michelle suggested.

Graham was in his Earth Sciences class when a slow smile crept across his face.

On Saturday, Michelle had told him, there were four girls just dying to go out with him. But she'd only named Shelly, Melanie, and Stephanie.

"So, who's the fourth girl?" he asked himself as he smiled widely.

At 3:15 that afternoon, Angelle stomped out of the school building and stopped, stunned.

Graham's Kia was nowhere to be seen.

The busses had all left; school let out at 2:45 but Angelle had made Graham sit and wait for thirty minutes, to let him know she was still mad at him. But obviously, he had not waited for her.

"Where the fuck are you?" she snarled into her cell phone, then pressed 'Send' to send him that text message.

Graham laughed out loud when he got the text message.

"You didn't talk to me all day, figured there was no point in waiting around for you," he responded.

"Your ass isn't here in five minutes..." Angelle started, then realized she really had very little bargaining power here.

"Just come get me," she demanded.

Graham drove up ten minutes later and Angelle got into the car.

It wasn't until Angelle was in her room, begging Tad to come pick her up, she didn't feel like walking to his house that she realized, Graham had not begged for a date that night, had not asked her if she had plans.

Tad told her he'd need five bucks for some gas and Angelle agreed to pay for gas if he'd just come get her.

Tad did come get her and a very surly Angelle slapped five dollars into his hand.

"Hey, hey, ain't got be like that huh?" he spat at her.

*.*.*

Trent Fourcade felt extremely uncomfortable around Shelly's mother and step-father. It actually turned his stomach, a white woman with a black man. ('Black Man' was not the word Trent used to describe Mr. Delbert.)

If anyone had pointed out that he was going on a date with a half-black girl, Trent would have shrugged and said he was just going to fuck the stupid bitch, not marry her.

It also made him uneasy, Graham Ungelle and Michelle Theriot actually seeing him, on a date, with a half-black girl. But the four teenagers ate at Manny's, Michelle, Shelly, and Graham, with his intolerable stutter doing most of the talking.

For the short walk across the parking lot to the bowling alley, Shelly attempted to take Trent's hand but he kept his hands firmly in his pocket.

Michelle, however, grabbed onto Graham's arm and smiled when he put that arm around her slim waist.

Bowling with Shelly had been fun. Bowling with Shelly and Michelle, however, was a loud, raucous party. Trent beat them all in the first and second games, but he didn't seem to have much fun.

"Okay, we taking Vanilla Boy's car to Clark's," Shelly decided.

"I told you quit calling him that!" Michelle said.

"Oh, okay, we taking Graham Cracker's car to..." Shelly smirked at Michelle.

"That is it, we are not friends anymore," Michelle declared.

"What? Why we taking..." Trent grumbled.

"It's a double date," Shelly reminded Trent.

She snuggled up to him.

"And it gives us the back seat," she said.

"My car's got a back seat too," Trent reminded her.

"Oh, okay, Trent. We going pull up to Clark's and get in the back seat?" Shelly asked.

Trent thought the date was turning out to be quite expensive; he'd better at least have Shelly's lips wrapped around his cock in the next ten minutes.

The quartet all decided on sundaes and Shelly and Michelle and Graham again did much of the talking.

Finally, Graham dropped Shelly and Trent off in front of Manny's so that Trent could retrieve his car.

"He's an ass hole," Michelle said.

"No joke," Graham agreed.

"Thank God you're not," Michelle said.

"Thought girls liked guys that are ass holes?" Graham asked.

"Know where Huvall's Levee is?" Michelle asked.

While Graham was driving to Huvall's Levee, Trent had pulled up to the Basin.

"What we doing here?" Shelly asked, looking around at the make-out spot.

"Hey, uh, what? Fifty bucks?" Trent barked.

He opened the car door and got out. While he was opening the rear door to his mother's car, Shelly quickly pulled out her cell phone and hit the number 2.

"Come get me; we at the Basin," Shelly said when Pop-pop answered.

Trent saw that Shelly was staying firmly rooted in the front seat. So he got out on the rear passenger's side of the car and used his key fob to unlock the car doors. He tried pulling Shelly out of his car but she clawed at his face, his hands, whatever she could reach.

Trent ignored the car that pulled up as he continued to struggle with the stupid bitch.

Trent's shirt ripped when Mr. Delbert used a handful of Trent's collar to lift him off the ground.

"Go on, Baby, you get in the car," Mr. Delbert said gently to Shelly.

The girl, now sobbing bitterly, grabbed her purse and got out of Trent's car.

"Thank you, Pop-pop," she sobbed and got into her step-father's car.

Mr. Delbert put Trent back onto the ground, twisted the young man around and glared at him. He almost smiled when he heard the unmistakable sound of an involuntary bowel movement exploding out of a nervous anus.

"Son, don't think you need come around my little girl no more, hear?" he growled then turned and got into his car.

"Thank you, Pop-pop," Shelly sniffled.

"No, Baby Girl, thank you for calling me," the giant said gently, taking her hand into his.

He held the girl's hand all the way home. With a loving squeeze, he let go of her hand and she got out of the car.

He walked into the house and found his step-daughter and wife crying, arms around each other.

"Thank you, Sweetheart," his wife said to him later that night as they lay in their bed.

"For...?" he asked.

"For going and getting my baby girl," she said.

"Uh, ain't YOUR baby girl," the man said and pulled her to him. "First time that three year old girl crawled up in my lap and called me 'Pop-pop' she been my baby girl."

While Shelly's mother and step-father made love, Michelle was laying in her own bed, mentally kicking herself.

They'd gone to Huvall's Levee; good God, shelly wasn't kidding, Graham Ungelle could kiss, and they'd kissed.

She'd even shrugged out of her top and bra and found out, Graham Ungelle could suck and lick titties almost as good as he could kiss. She'd actually had a minor orgasm just from the attention he'd given her sensitive nipples.

And then she'd said it.

She'd kissed him, hugged her naked breasts against him and said, "I love you."

On a first date, she'd actually said, "I love you."

"You dummy," she berated herself. "You big dummy."

She wondered if Shelly had been that stupid, that idiotic to say, "I love you" to Graham Ungelle.

Probably not; Shelly had been out on quite a few first dates and even a few second and third dates.

But this had been Michelle's second first date. Her first date had been with Conner Breaux and that had been a miserable date. Conner didn't even get a kiss, much less get to play with her breasts.

"I love you; what the Hell were you thinking, Michelle?" she again scolded herself.

*.*.*

Graham admired the new watch his mother had received from her current boyfriend.

This boyfriend, she was sure, would be the one to put a ring on her finger, make an honest woman out of her.

She'd been sure of that with the last guy, and the guy before that one.

"Man, that is, O.M.G, is that an Omega?" Graham asked, looking at the watch again.

"Yeah, that's a good brand, right?" Merline asked.

"Mom, please tell me, you kept the box right?" Graham stuttered so badly his mother had to make him slow down and repeat himself a second, then a third time.

"Well, yeah, think it's on my dresser," Merline agreed.

Graham dashed out of the room to get his book bag. The last thing he grabbed was his cell phone.