Class President and his shirtless woes

The yellow 1 storey house in the Tawford neighbourhood stood soundly, the surrounding trees rustling and the sun just about ready to turn in for the evening. Inside this house, by the spotlit kitchen counter, sat Senior of Class B’s, Audrey Cadwell, around many open History textbooks, print-outs, and her notebook as she wrote out her homework essay. Under the madness of words and loose pages, her phone buzzed.

A few streets away, at the local gym, Denver Reed, sweaty and shirtless, took a photo of himself in front of the wall mirror. His abs were so clearly visible now, he had to gloat to his friend, Ricky. His fingers quickly hit his friend’s profile and his shirtless picture was sent instantly along with the message:

DENVER: What do you think? Hot right?

Audrey’s jaw dropped to unknown depths of hell. What in God’s green earth...? She rave-typed a response message.

AUDREY: What the HELL is wrong with you? This is SO unbecoming—and borderline harassment! As our class president, I expected more from you. But sadly you’re just another immature boy.

DENVER: What?

Denver clicked on the profile, saw the number and—shit.

DENVER: Shit.

DENVER: Sorry! I thought you were Ricky. You both have similar profiles. I got mixed up.

DENVER: I’ll delete the message now. Sorry again.

After an embarrassingly long two minutes staring at his screen for a response back, nothing ultimately came. He trickled to the showers with a heavy mind.

Did she believe him? Did she think he was lying? He couldn’t be sure if he didn’t get an answer.

God! Fuck! His reputation was ruined!

Audrey slipped into class the next morning, of course not making eye contact with Denver but it didn’t help that he was sitting directly across from her.

He observed her—she could tell from her peripheral view, but said nothing of it—simply reviewing her essay.

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded, tilting his head further out so she would look at him. “You know I would never intentionally send you…uh, shirtless photos of me.”

She mocked him with her bla bla bla hand gestures, and he huffed, turning ahead to the whiteboard with a furrow between his brows. She wouldn’t even hear him out, for frick’s sake!

The bell rang. Periods went by. Lunch came.

Denver leaned against the red lockers at the back of the class, his left foot pressing against one of the lowest lockers whilst his arms were crossed. Ricky spotted him passing back from the cafeteria and ducked in, coming at his side. “What, you have a thing for Miss A+ now? Since when?” he spoke close to his ear, hushed so others wouldn’t hear and start unnecessary gossip. “She is pretty—and she’s smart—which means she’s totally useful for tests, but why now?” Ricky chuckled. “Please don’t tell me ever since peering up with her for that English assignment you’ve started to see her in a different way—”

“I accidentally sent her a shirtless picture of me.” He face palmed himself. “Why is this happening, Ricky? She won’t even hear me out!”

“Wow—back up, dude!” Ricky shook Denver by the shoulders. “You sent her nudes?”

“Shirtless, Ricky. And I didn’t mean to send it to her. I was supposed to send it to you.”

“Does that even sound any better to you? That’s harassment at its finest.”

“Hey! I was proud of all the work I put in to get those abs. I was going to rub it in your face. But then I mixed up profiles... You know you and her have the same picture of that fluffy cow? I swore on my life I thought it was you I’d pressed.”

“You idiot.”

“You’ve gotta help me, man! She’ll continue thinking I’m a creep if I don’t do something!”

Ricky shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Once you give a girl the ick there’s no coming back from it. I should know.”

“But you and Tricia made up though.”

“Yeah—because we’re idiots in love. She can’t stay mad at me forever and I can never get mad at her ‘cause she’s so cute!”

Denver rolled his eyes, pushing Ricky to the side and moving along so one of his classmates could access one of the lockers he’d been leaning on. “Is there anything I could do? How did you make up with Tricia again?”

Ricky quirked his eyebrows, glanced around before leaning in and saying, “I slammed my lips into hers and made out with her for ten minutes in her doorway.”

Denver slapped Ricky’s shoulder. “You want me to get in even more trouble?!”

“Maybe. That’s what our teenage years are for anyway.” Ricky’s face grew more serious and he cleared his throat like an elderly about to reveal some wisdom to a troubled youth. “Instead of trying to figure out what to do, ask her instead. It’s worth a shot at least. That may take some time though considering how stubborn she sounds. Also be OBNOXIOUSLY nice whenever you see her. Greet her everyday, even though she doesn’t respond. Be nice to others too; girls are suckers when you help out the underdogs—that’s how I got Tricia’s attention at least. But be genuine, of course. Maybe you weren’t genuine enough. You’ve got to look at things from her shoes. She’s probably a prude girl and for a guy like you to send a random sexy photo of yourself on a random evening, probably startled the innocence out of her—”

“I’m sorry, it sounds like you’re making assumptions. You don’t know all of this for sure.”

“Oh, come on. Have you taken a good look at that girl? She’s the embodiment of a prude!”

“Shhh! Quiet! What if she hears you…” He darted focus in Audrey's general direction: her blue eyes were glaring back at him. She fucking heard. Of course she did. “I hate you,” he snapped under his breath.

Ricky slipped away with a nervous laugh. “Anyway, good luck!” Then he was speeding out the open door.

Denver pulled out his phone from his back pocket and typed out a message, every so often glancing up to look at Audrey’s back. He took a deep breath before hitting send.

DENVER: What can I do to make it up to you?

He shivered waiting, watching her pick up her phone and stare at her screen. He gulped when she glanced over her shoulder, making eye contact, scrunching her eyebrows, frowning with one corner of her mouth, then turning back ahead. Oh, she was typing!

AUDREY: Can you take back what I saw yesterday evening?

DENVER: I can’t. Do you have anything else?

AUDREY: No.

DENVER: I know it must’ve been a shocker for you. I understand but it was really an accident.

AUDREY: I don’t think you get it, Mr. President. You don’t get it at all.

DENVER: Well why don’t you explain it to me so I can understand? I’ll never make the same mistake again, okay?

AUDREY: First of all, it’s rude. Seeing a random shirtless picture of a boy I have no romantic relation with posed so suggestively on MY phone against my will, makes me feel cheap and dirty. It’s ingrained in my mind—not because it was ‘hot.’ Don’t you dare get the wrong idea. It’s practically soft porn. No matter how much you want the image to leave your mind, it lingers. It lingers because it was a picture of sexual nature. And I can’t look at you the same way anymore. But you’re in my class, sitting right beside me. What do you expect me to do, Denver? I can’t forgive and forget. That’s currently impossible. And I’m not a prude!

Geez.

This was the longest message he’d ever seen on his WhatsApp chats. But he took great care to follow her explanation, trying to use every muscle in his brain to understand. To him it was no big deal, but to her it was the biggest deal since World War 1.

DENVER: Ricky was wrong for calling you a prude.

AUDREY: I know.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead, increasingly jittery about what to say.

DENVER: I think I understand better why ur so mad at me.

DENVER: Maybe u just need to see a different side of me to forget the other side of me u saw yesterday? Just making a suggestion here. Otherwise I’ll do whatever u want. Just could u plz tell me?

Audrey tapped her index finger on her open notebook, debating. She exhaled steadily and typed out:

AUDREY: No need. As long as you admit that you regret what you did and that you will stop pestering me to forgive you.

DENVER: Okay. That works for me. I’ll stop pestering you.

***

Days went by and Denver kept his promise to leave Audrey alone. Not to pester her. Though they sat alongside each other in most classes, they kept out of each other’s way. Friday afternoon however, Denver was told to pick up everyone’s History assignments and carry it to the staff room.

Audrey barely looked at him when she inclined her book. Her gaze was between his chest and her desk, quickly shifting more to her desk as he said, “Thanks,” after taking it.

“Mhm.”

She’d been thinking about things after Denver stopped talking to her. About why she was so peeved about that shirtless picture. Why she didn’t forgive him when he said he was sorry countless times. The moment she saw the picture, and read that text message, she settled on the reality that it might be a prank. Not a simple accident. She couldn’t believe that anyone would send her that picture by mistake. It could only be that the sender wanted to mess with her. And it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened given that her peers thought of her as a prude. And…and maybe they weren’t so wrong about that.

Would a person like her Class President ever send her something like that and genuinely want her to react fondly? Probably not. He probably just wanted a funny reaction. And so she gave it to him—against her better judgement too…

Denver insisted that it was an accident though and when she caught him staring at her it seemed like he was remorseful. Perhaps wishful thinking was getting to her.

A few houses down from Audrey’s stood a grey and white house with hanging baskets of flowers along the porch and a wind chime that clanged ethereally. This was Denver’s house.

The front door burst open, Lucky, Denver’s golden retriever, leaping forward despite the leash. “You act like you’ve never seen the light of day, girl!” Denver tried to fight being yanked helplessly but gave up and went with it, going wherever Lucky directed.

Currently, Lucky chased a yellow butterfly, barking as she almost got close to eating it. “You don’t eat pretty things, Lucky. Why not try the rats? There seems to be more of those lately…”

Just a distance away, Audrey was heading back from the convenience store. She’d bought feminine hygiene and her favourite grape juice. The plastic bag swung in her grip, rustling.

“Slow down, Lucky! Why are you always in such a hurry?!” Lucky, and in extension, Denver, was hurtling towards Audrey like an arrow towards its center target. If this were an archery competition, they’d be winning. “Hey, watch out!” Audrey’s eyes widened before the collision.

Thankfully her hand braced her from falling back on her head.

“Oh my God—are you okay?!” Denver fussed, stooping to her side. Lucky was busy trying to lick Audrey’s face and when she leaned up from her sideways position, Lucky’s tongue met her right cheek, which tickled. “Fuck, your arm’s a mess! Does it hurt?” He inspected her arm and then her palm and he was about to go on a whole other rampage but Audrey stopped him.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“It seems I keep bothering you…”

He helped her to her feet, Lucky jumping to reach her cheek again, but Denver yanked her away.

“Lucky likes pestering pretty things…I guess…I guess she takes after me…” What was he saying?!

“Does she?” Audrey tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes wide and fixated on his.

Oh. Was she… Denver cleared his throat. “Are you still mad at me for the picture…? Yesterday you were barely looking at me…”

“Yeah…I'm really sorry about that. I’ve been thinking lately that I may have overreacted…I was jumping to conclusions.”

He nodded, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “That’s understandable…What conclusions though?”

“Like, maybe you were pranking me.”

He shook his head. “I’d never do that. Not to you or anyone. You and Ricky just had the same profile picture. Of that fluffy cow.” He chuckled. “Do you like those cows as much as Ricky does? He’d never shut up about how cute they are.”

She smiled warmly. “They are very cute.”

“Do you think we can start over?”

She squinted for a slight second. “Meaning?”

“We can get to know each other better—”

She inched closer—realising what he was getting at—and leaned into his ear. “Or how about you send me another shirtless picture not by accident this time?”

“W-w-what? You mean—”

“That picture was pretty artistic.”

“I worked really hard,” he explained.

She nodded. “Seemed so.”

“I can show you right now…”

This was not how he intended his afternoon to go but he embraced the peculiarity of flirting with the A+ student on a quiet sidewalk, his dog as his only witness of this ever happening. Ricky would probably not believe he was raising his shirt up for Audrey—the class’s token prude. “Better in person I see…” She splayed her hand against his stomach; she seemed to be inspecting the physical contrast between the two: her smooth hand and his hard stomach. He wondered if she liked the difference.

He tensed up when she dragged her index finger lightly down the centre. So tingly…A sound slipped past his lips carrying in the air between them.

“Oh my God!” He slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

“I totally meant it though.” She flashed playful eyebrows at him. “It’s okay.”

“Isn’t that…don’t you feel dirty, or cheap? Or, like, isn’t this soft porn?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, regretfully. “The long message I sent was uncalled for…It was what I was thinking at the time, yes—but that was when I believed you sent it to spite me.

“Since we’re clear that it was a misunderstanding and you’re letting me see your abs—because I want to—then this is so okay. I said I’m not a prude. Any girl would secretly want to touch a boy’s muscles. Especially if…if the boy they touch is someone they like.”

His eyes widened like his mother's when she glimpsed his report card. “L-l-like? Do…do you like…me?”

“I think…definitely.”

He grinned so hard his entire face turned red. “Holy…I—this has never happened to me before.”

“It was bound to happen at some point. You’re a fine guy, Denver. I just wish I saw it sooner.”

“I'm glad you did though!”

The right corner of her mouth pulled into a half smile. “Me too.”

Later, after they’d walked up the sidewalk, Denver insisted that he tend to her scratches before she headed home. What if her mother worried? He told her. And what if she had to say that some guy with his crazy dog ran into her? That would definitely be a bad impression on her mother. And he wanted to make a good impression when the time came for it.

Between dabbing hydrogen peroxide on her arm scratches she asked him, “Do you want to see something?”

He was kneeling in front of her—she was sitting on the dining room chair; the house was quiet except his heart pounding.

They were alone. Except the dog staring at them in the corner, rather too curiously, like she knew something interesting was bound to happen.

His gaze was soft, hazy, captivated. “See what?” He dabbed her scratches—dab, dab, dab…

She raised her blouse. Her strapless bra showed—no chest exposure, but he still tasted her intention. He was seduced—more so when she said, “I can unclip it.”

That afternoon, he told her no. He said that he’d wait for that when they were closer, when they were boyfriend and girlfriend, when he met her mother. She smiled when he expressed all this and gave him a proper kiss on the mouth and slipped away before he could reciprocate.