Newbie by Jo Noelle

fabulous, in the kitchen, waiting for our dates with fifteen minutes to spare. Stev arrives a couple of minutes later and Liam right at seven.
    Casual looks stunning on Liam, who’s wearing khaki board-shorts and a maroon polo. His legs are muscular, like he runs all day, which most days he does. Should I volunteer for recess duty?
    “What’s for dinner?’ Stev asks Mina. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea to double with an obviously together couple. Stev leans against the kitchen counter, Mina standing in front of him, her back against his chest.
    “Pizza, and you’re making it,” she says, looking over her shoulder at him, then stepping out of his arms. “Well, and you.” She points to Liam and starts pulling containers from the fridge and two pre-formed pizza crusts she bought from a restaurant.
    “May I take your order?” Liam turns to me and asks. We have to top the pizza in halves. He likes red sauce—I like white. He likes onion—I don’t. He wants mushrooms. No fungus for me. He likes pepperoni—yay! Something in common. He goes for black olives and I want green, along with spinach and roasted red peppers. Then we agree again on loads of cheese. We put the pizzas in the ovens and set a timer for twenty minutes. Mina makes garlic bread, wraps it in foil, and places it beside one of the pizzas while the rest of us work on the tossed salad.
    “Why don’t you two go pick out a game for us to play later?” Yes, Mina is dismissing us from the kitchen. “Don’t come back until you hear the timer” was definitely implied. Dutifully, Liam and I go to the living room and begin looking through games for the Wii. Then we sit back and chat until the timer rings.
     

     
    After dinner, we move to the living room for games. Mina and I have it planned. We will start out partnered with our boyfr…dates…and play some of the games we aren’t very good at. Then we’ll partner with each other and play boxing against them so we end as the winners.
    Our first game is baseball. Stev and Mina are awesome—well, so is Liam. Every time I swing the screen flashes, “You swung too early,” and the final word on my performance is “You Lose.” In fact, I see those words over and over in every game. My confidence is faltering by the time we start boxing.
    Stev and Liam move the controls with serious precision. Their animated characters look like they’re really boxing. Then it’s my turn to take on the winner—Liam. My style is more like wild abandon. Head, head, gut, head. Since I have no plan, there isn’t a predictable sequence to my method, and Liam has no defense. I swing at him madly, stepping closer and closer to the TV screen, wiping him out quickly. We’re laughing so hard our cheeks hurt, and we’re out of breath. I take on each person, up and down quickly. Victorious at last. This is fun and exhausting. My arms are really going to hurt tomorrow.
    Liam and I head out to the porch to watch a thunderstorm move through town. Wind wrenches leaves out of trees, pushing them across the yard and down the street. They tumble end over end and whirl in invisible eddies. As we sit on the Adirondack bench, cinching a quilt around us, lightning flashes in stark bolts and rain pelts the street and roof in a rhythm sounding like applause.
    “So why the career in teaching instead of boxing?”
    “Right now the question is just, why the career in teaching?” I tell Liam a shortened version of my last few months in real estate. “Thing is, I would have stayed in real estate. It’s more than a little intimidating to be in a classroom.”
    Liam scoots closer and tightens the quilt around us. “Really, why?” Our hands clasp beneath the blanket. His thumb caresses back and forth softly along mine.
    The tingle that causes on my skin runs in rhythms up and down my arm. “I have to be ready every day for whatever happens. And things happen.” I slide my eyes to his to see if he cringes at the confession. “I worry about