It all started as a dare. Shane pushed him to it. The others helped, but it was always Shane with his brash, know it all smile that sealed the dares. Daryl would remember that years later, after all of it fell apart and he struggled to put his life back together. It was just supposed to be a stupid dare.
“You’re too scared to talk to a pretty girl,” Shane teased.
Daryl was. He could already feel his palms starting to sweat. He flipped his hands over, drumming his long brown fingers on his pantegs. He clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth, trying not to speak.
Nick, Archie, and Ray were already giggling between themselves throwing elbows and nodding in agreement. Shane stood apart from them, chin up, long blond hair shifting in the wind like a cover model. Only seventeen and he had the look of a man who’d run for office one day.
The girl in question was also blonde, her hair shifting in the wind the way Shane’s always did. She was sitting on a bench under a tall hemlock tree reading a book. She was absolutely breathtaking. She wore a long blue skirt with a white short sleeved top. She dressed better than any girl he knew from school, and that was a clear sign she wasn’t from their backwater town. New girls were always a challenge.
“So, you chicken or what?”
Daryl wiped his hands on his pants and shook his head. “I’ll do it.”
The giggles of his friends died away replaced with an anticipation not unlike that of watching a prize fight or an impending car wreck. Daryl felt their eyes on him as he strode directly over to the girl, close enough to touch her, close enough to smell the faint hint of vanilla perfume. He walked right by.
Then he stopped, turned around and walked back to her. He didn’t know where the next few words came from. They weren’t practiced or prepared. They came from someplace deep inside of him, like the instinctual punchline of a comedian’s joke.
“Excuse me, but do you believe in love at first sight?”
She looked up, confused and just a bit curious.
Then he said, “If not, how many times do you think I should walk by before it takes?”
She laughed. Daryl Brewer had never heard a sound so wonderful in his life. He never did hear a better one.