I was sixteen when I first met him. There were two types of kids in our school—those who had after school jobs, and those rich jerks who didn’t. I was neither. Technically, I fell into the second category since my parents had money for days, but they made me work. It didn’t matter to me, though. I liked working. I liked getting away from my parents for a while, so I worked part-time at a local grocery store that employed teenagers for cheap pay. It was hot, just a few days into the school year, and he was sitting in the freezer in the stockroom eating strawberry ice cream right out of the carton.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously.
“Eating ice cream,” he replied with a shrug.
His response annoyed me. Obviously, he was eating ice cream. That much I could see. It was that he was eating ice cream in the freezer while hiding away from our manager that concerned me.
“You’re gonna get fired. What the heck are you thinking?” I asked, peering over my shoulder lest the devil manager herself be conjured.
He shuffled around a bit, and I thought he was getting up to get back to work. However, he merely shifted to the right and patted the space beside him. I couldn’t tell you why, to this day, I sat down beside that boy and ate ice cream in the freezer of Wilkins Market, but I did. And it changed my life.
“Good, isn’t it?” he asked, grinning.
“I prefer chocolate, but I guess it’s okay. Where’s your nametag?”
With a sigh, he dug around in his pocket. “You’re a stickler for rule-following, aren’t you?”
“Not really. I just don’t want to get fired. I need a car,” I admitted.
“Cars are overrated. Get a bike or a skateboard,” he said, handing me the spoon. It was then I realized I was eating after him without so much as a moment’s hesitation that he might have cooties. What was done was done, so I took the spoon and carved out another bite.
He pinned his name tag to his shirt. Jordan.
“Jordan who?” I asked, pointing to his skewed name tag. I couldn’t stand it. I pulled it off and adjusted it while he stared at me.
“Clark,” he replied, then ripped my name tag from my shirt. “Dana who?”
“Franklin,” I replied while he reattached my nametag, skewed, of course.
“You’re not much for following rules, are you?” I asked.
“I’m a rebel without a cause, Dana. And rebels without causes don’t wear their name tags properly.” He took his off and skewed it again with a little smirk on his face.
“Such a troublemaker,” I taunted, taking the carton of ice cream from him. He didn’t fight much, but he did steal the spoon. “Hey!” I shouted.
“It was my ice cream!” He stole the carton, his fingers brushing against mine, and dug the spoon into the ice cream again. He scooped out a giant mouthful with a gleeful sparkle in his eyes. “Come to me, strawberry goodness.”
“You’re gonna get a brain freeze if you—”
“Ahh, dang it!” he yelled, just as I had suspected he would after stuffing the entire bite in his mouth.
He squinted his eyes shut tight and gritted his teeth as he rode out the pain. “Shoot, son of a booger, that hurt.”
I sat beside him, watching him writhe in the pain of his brain freeze for about forty-five seconds, then hopped off the table. I placed the carton beside him with the spoon stuck deep in the pink ice cream. I was two steps out of the freezer when he called after me.
“Dana!”
I paused, waiting for him to continue. He stepped out of the freezer and closed the door, catching the time on the clock hanging over it as he did.
“Shoot, my break ended two minutes ago. Come on!” He grasped my hand and pulled me behind him. My shift was over, so I was in no hurry, but the boy wouldn’t let my hand go. Rather than stop at the employee lounge to clock back in, he ran right past it and toward the front door as customers watched us.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble! Stop running!” I begged.
My pleas were useless as he dragged me out the front door, down the sidewalk, and around the corner. Jordan stopped once we were out of sight, a place all employees frequently hid from our devil manager. She could smell fear, I tell you, and she could find you just about anywhere in the store. She didn’t care if you were on break or not, if she found you idle, she’d make you scrub shopping carts with a toothbrush until they sparkled.
“What are you doing?” I panted.
“Running. You?”
“You’re such a pain in the butt. Who hired you?” I asked, trying my best to catch my breath.
“Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions?” he said. “You ask a lot of them, but they never seem to be the right ones, the smart ones.”
“Screw you,” I fussed, still panting a bit after our run.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, now. I’m not that kind of guy, Dana,” he said, but his smirk said something altogether different, which was why two seconds later, I found myself back against the wall, face deep in a make-out session with him.
I wasn’t expecting it, but I also wasn’t bothered by it. He gave me ample opportunity to decline, but each time he pulled away, I found myself pulling him back. And each time that darn smirk played on his lips and his blonde hair fell in his eyes. Green eyes. For the rest of my life, whenever I saw the color green, I’d think of him and his rare eye color.
“We’re going to get caught,” I said, pushing him away long enough to breathe.
“Do you care?” he asked, those green eyes trained on me.
“I need a car, remember?” I said the words, but I never did let go of the handful of his shirt I clutched tightly. His lips began to curve again, and I could feel my defenses crumbling. “But…”
“But?”
“I know somewhere else we could go,” I said, pushing off the wall.
“But I’m on shift!” he called after me.
“Do you care?” I asked, heading toward the high school.
He watched me for about ten seconds, looked back toward the store, then back to me with a shrug. “Eh, I’m probably gonna get fired anyway.” He jogged toward me, his eyes sparkling. “Where to, princess?”
“Please don’t call me that. It’s weird,” I said, finding myself way too comfortable with him after having just met him.
“Weirder than what we just did. Seriously, who are you?” Jordan stopped short to get me to pay closer attention to him. His hands were slack at his sides. I wanted those arms around me again, but I didn’t know why.
“What do you mean?” I questioned.
“Why do I suddenly have to know everything about you? Why does the thought of letting you walk away right now make me want to throw up? Why is every part of my brain screaming your name in my skull to the point I think it might split open if I don’t kiss you again?” he asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion.
My lips parted, but only a small gasp escaped. Sixteen. I was sixteen years old the first time I fell in love with him—almost at first sight—standing in the dingy parking lot of a crummy grocery store.
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