The next morning Leslie told Victoria about the movie and dinner.
“It wasn't near as good as the old movie” she said speaking of ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ “but then Jamie and Chad have never seen the old version so they had no idea what I was talking about.”
“So Jamie's roommate's name is Chad ,” Sandy said entering the room as Leslie was finishing her story “You need to be careful about what kind of friendships you make,” she warned “they might lead you astray from the truth”
“Oh, it's not like that, Sandy” Leslie said with a grin “they're just good friends, they grew up together, they're just like family and just happened to be assigned the same living quarters. And before you get any ideas about me liking Chad. I don't! And Chad's going to be shipping out to Iraq at the end of the month so I won't be seeing much of him anyway.”
Over the next several weeks Leslie and Jamie spent a lot of time together, they went and a saw the sights in Heidleberg and the surrounding area, went to the movies and sometimes just hung out at the boys’ apartment and talked. Occasionally one of the guys would go along too, but for the most part they let Jamie and Leslie hang out on their own. These guys were the first boys who didn't make Leslie feel stupid because she was a girl and the first people to really treat her as an equal, they actually valued her opinion and didn't put her down. That made Leslie feel really special, in away that she couldn't put into words. Within two weeks she had quit resisting Jamie's advances and considered him her boyfriend. She enjoyed how he would come into her work and grab a sandwich before heading to work, just so they could have a few minutes of conversation each day. On Mondays, he would pick her up and take her in to work and then before he went to work he would pick her up and they would go some place to talk about the things that they had learned that week in their personal devotion time. Chad's departure was getting closer and closer, and one day Leslie approached Jamie with her idea.
“Chad ships out next week, doesn't he?” she said tentatively, hoping Jamie wouldn't take this the wrong way, “I was thinking, maybe we should have a going away party for him.”
Jamie looked at Leslie and grinned as he gave her a big hug, “Yeah, that's a great idea! I’ll invite the guys! Do you think 6 pizzas would be enough? And 4 dozen wings?”
“Sure” Leslie grinned “that should be enough, I guess how much do you guys eat? Do you want to get a cake too? Or just the pizza and wings?”
Jamie thought for a minute before answering “Probably get a cake, too. We could get it from the bakery in the PX and have them write something on it.... something like 'We will miss you, Chad', what do you think?”
“Sounds great, so when are we having this little shin-dig?”
“Well, Chad ships out Wednesday of next week, so I guess we should probably have the party on Friday, can we get the stuff we need by then?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Leslie said “Today is Tuesday, I could have Sandy drop me by the PX tonight on my way home and order the cake, and we would just have to call Dominos the day of to order the pizza and chicken wings. So yeah I think so.”
“Ok, sounds like you got it all figured out,” Jamie said as he leaned over and kissed Leslie on the cheek “Here's $40 for the cake and if need more you just let me know, Ok ? Anything else?”
“Uhmm... nothing that I can think of... Oh wait, we should probably get some drinks, and plates, napkins, cups, utensils, and any decorations you want to use.”
“Are you working Friday?” Jamie asked abruptly
“No,” Leslie responded wondering where why he was changing the subject “Why do you want to know?”
“Well, if we can figure out a way to get you on base then you and I could do the shopping together and you could help me get the apartment ready for the party.” Jamie grinned and leaned closer to Leslie twirling one of her blond curls in his fingers “And the best thing; we get to spend the whole day together. Leslie giggled playfully as she pulled away from Jamie.
“And how are we going to do that?”
“I don't know, let's think about it and see what we come up with.”
On Friday morning Leslie woke early and showered and dressed for the day before the rest of the family was awake. She hummed softly to herself as she started a load of laundry and also started a batch of cinnamon rolls. With the rolls in the oven she grabbed a red pen and a stack of papers. Sandy wanted her to finish grading the kids school papers before she did anything else, like go to Chad's good-bye party tonight. Leslie felt much like Cinderella and hoping she could get everything done in time and Sandy wouldn't think of any excuse for her not to go. She had just headed to the bathroom when her cell phone rang. Before she could finish what she was doing, it stopped.
“Oh, there you are!” Victoria said, as Leslie came out of the bathroom “There's a guy on your cell phone who wants to talk to you!” Victoria gave Leslie a knowing glance.
Leslie tried not to explode as she answered “Well, of course he wants to talk to me he called my cell phone didn’t he” Leslie grabbed the phone from her and headed to her room.
Victoria smirked, “You’re going to get in so much trouble when I tell mom that you’ve got a boyfriend!”
“I don’t either have a boyfriend” Leslie shouted over her shoulder “it’s probably someone from Burger King seeing if I can trade shifts or something” to her phone she said “Hello, this is Leslie?”
“Good morning, beautiful” At the sound of Jamie's voice Leslie nearly melted and almost forgot her lines.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asked trying not to sound too excited, in case Victoria was listening at the door.
“I'm missing my girl” Jamie said “I need a lot of loving today. Do you think you could come and help me with that?” Jamie said without missing a beat.
“I don't know” Leslie responded, trying not to snicker, “it's kinda short notice ... I'd have to ask”
“You do that” Jamie continued
“I'll ask” Leslie said “Hold on” She opened the door again and waked down stairs “Sandy,” she called “it Burger King, they want me to come in and do some work, they're real busy and one of the guys is sick and couldn’t make it in, I could really use the extra hours...” she let her voice trail off.
“Fine with me if some one comes to get you, I'm not driving you back and forth all day.” Sandy yelled back.
“Hey, I'm back,” Leslie said to the phone “I can come in if someone comes and get's me”
“Thanks, Les, you're an angel!” Jamie said “I’m already waiting at the station.”
Leslie headed up stairs, grabbed her bag, that she usually carried her work clothes in, and her purse, slipped her phone in it and ran back downstairs and grabbed a roll as she headed out the door. Once outside she walked across the street and speed walked to the station, she smiled when she saw Jamie’s white Dodge pickup, parked by the curb “Need a ride?” he queried with a grin. Leslie climbed in and they were off.
“Well, we pulled that off pretty well, don’t you think?” Jamie asked “By the way, who answered your phone?”
Leslie rolled her eyes “Victoria, she is such a little snitch! You didn’t say anything did you?”
“No, I knew it wasn’t your voice the minute she answered so I just asked for you I figured that was the safest thing to do.”
Leslie nodded Victoria was becoming such a pain, she was going to have to figure out a way to deal with her. Any guilt she felt for letting Sandy think she had to go in to work, was quickly replaced with anger at Victoria’s latest shenanigan, but she quickly pushed it all aside, there was no way she was going to let it ruin her day.
“I think we'll head to the PX first, get the cake, decorations, ice and anything else we can think of and then we'll go to the apartment and get everything set up. Blake and Justin said they would pick up the Pizza” Jamie said bringing her thoughts back to the present.
“Ok,” Leslie answered “you didn't give Chad any hints, did you?” she asked.
“Nope not a word”
“Cool, you really think he'll like it?” Leslie asked a little unsure of whether Chad would really like a surprise party.
Jamie reassured her and soon they were very busy finding the items they needed for the party. After they were done at the PX, they headed to Jamie's apartment they were laughing and joking as they unloaded the truck and put up the decorations. Leslie was standing on a chair trying to hang up the banner they had just printed, she stretched and asked Jamie to hand her the tape. He walked up behind her putting one hand on her waist and with the other hand started tickling her under the arm, she squealed and twisted around, dropping the banner to floor.
“I like this,” Jamie said trying to pull Leslie to him. Leslie struggled to get away and lost her balance. As she started to fall, Jamie tried to catch her, but his weight only knocked both of them and the chair to the ground. He landed on top of her, his face inches from hers. Leslie giggled, Jamie leaned closer and kissed her, tentatively at first and then a little more eagerly as she responded, kissing him in return. Slowly he moved back “Sorry, I didn't mean to knock you down.” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. He stood and offered her his hand “Are you ok?” he asked as he pulled her to her feet.
Leslie grinned “If you wanted to kiss me you could have just asked you didn't have to throw me to the floor” she teased.
“Well...” Jamie drawled “if I'd 've known that...” he winked at her “How about we trade jobs, you hand me the tape and I will hang this silly banner. If you didn't rip it with all your horsing around.”
“My horsing around...” Leslie sputtered, not sure what to think, she was reeling from her first kiss and he was acting as if it was nothing and giving her a hard time about messing up the banner, part of her wanted to cry, but she bit her lip and blinked back the tears as they hurried to finish decorating. They finished with plenty of time to spare so they went and sat on the couch and watch some TV. Jamie finally decided to broach the subject, “Hey, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have kissed you like that, it was your first kiss and it should have been special and I kinda blew it for you, I want to apologize.”
“Oh, that's ok” Leslie said “it wasn't that bad. Of course I have nothing to compare it with, but I liked it.” She shrugged, feeling very awkward, because of her inexperience.
Jamie moved closer and put his arm around her “Well... would you like to try again?” he asked as he lowered his lips to hers. It wasn't a long kiss, but it took her breath away, she clung to him as he pulled away.
“Wow!” Leslie's eyes were huge “that was really nice, better then the one when I was pinned to the floor.” She said with a grin, as Jamie leaned in to kiss her again. They spent the next few minutes in each others arms, kissing and talking, dreaming of the future.
Suddenly the back door banged open and Blake and Justin came in yelling “Surprise!!!” at the top of their lungs. Both Jamie and Leslie jumped, then they looked at the clock “Oh, my gosh, we got to get the rest of this stuff set up!” he exclaimed. Leslie jumped up and started setting out the cups and plates while the guys blew up the balloons. A task they were well suited for Leslie quipped since they were so full of hot air.
When Chad finally made it home they all yelled “Surprise!” and Justin threw confetti right into Chad's very shocked face.
The party was a blast, they played video games and Blake had brought over his ‘Tremors’ movies for every one to watch, Leslie curled up next to Jamie on the couch while they watched the movie, and all the guys teased her when she screamed! Since they watched all three movies, it was well after midnight when Jamie dropped her off at the Hollands. They said good bye with a quick kiss and Leslie quietly let herself in the house and tiptoed quietly to her room, it didn't matter though because as she passed Victoria's room she realized the bed was empty and that no one was home. Breathing a sigh of relief Leslie quickly got ready for bed and lay down. She replayed every moment of that wonderful day in her mind. And fell asleep thinking about, the feel of Jamie's lips against hers.
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