new club in town

 "You always surprise me," Steve smiled as he watched Vicki eat the Italian dinner he'd made. The rolls were store-bought, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Why?" She asked if that was bad. He shook his head, no. He was glad she was here and that she liked his cooking.

"I thought you cooked all the meals ..when..when..." she looked at him as if she didn't want to finish the sentence. "That's what Alfie told me. He said you're a very good cook."

"Oh, Alfie, how is he, anyway?" Steve kept focused. He didn't want to think about Simon. Honestly, he thought less and less of him. Although, he didn't feel really sad about it. Especially, with Vicki around. 

"I guess he's fine." Vicki shrugged. Alfie seemed to be happy with Poppy.

It wasn't long until the pasta was eaten and the plates cleared. She helped with the dishes in his little place. He didn't have a dishwasher and the fridge was small as well as the stove. It seemed rather minature for a tall guy like him, yet perfect for Vicki.

"What should we do now?" She asked with a slight smile or maybe it was a little sly.

"Shouldn't you go home," it was an automatic response. He did his best to remain evened lipped as if he was the dorm monitor somehow.

"It's isn't even dark yet," Vicki winced.

"But it might be soon."

She took his hand by her fingertips and tugged him along to the thin couch and plopped down. "I don't think you're telling me everything. What's really bothering you?" She was serious, although he felt she was a child somehow and he didn't know how to act.

"I think that's my real problem, I don't know how to act around people," he finally confessed after she got him situated and she practically had her barefeet in his lap.

"What do you mean? You act fine around others," she told him.

Steve slightly sighed and tried to smile. "Oh, I've had troubles since I was a kid. I was mean."

"How mean?" She winced with a little pout and she turned to give him a real look over, but she didn't budge her feet from him.

"Like fights. Real fights, like I'm..I'm never giving up."

"Oh." Vicki nodded. "Well, we can't always be perfect. I mean my dad has this thing where he never wanted to hear us. He's old-fashioned that way. But my mom never let him scold us, so I really wonder if it was true. I think he just grew up in an era where he wasn't meant to have to raise kids. He just had to pay our way."

"Yeah, I have a family like that too." He nodded. He then told her he knew he hurt his parents when he went away to the group home. "But..but I learned so much there. And how to get along with others. And I worked really hard at being nice. But..but..I'm not sure I'm nice enough..yet."

"Oh, you are too." She reminded him he was so helpful at the library. And how he studied every manual behind the circulation desk and could practically quote it. "You need to believe it. Why can't you believe it?"

He shook his head no. "I..I can't even call Simon." He looked away. Not even sure if he could explain it.

"It's OK." She told him that some things had to rest. Simon needed time too.

Steve nodded. "Maybe..maybe if I could have been everything he wanted me to be..then..then he'd be OK." But he said he couldn't even manage to kiss him. The alcohol on Simon's breath just made him push him away.

"You pushed him away?"

"Oh, it could have been a shoving match, but I guess he didn't want to fight me." He sighed as if it was a relief to tell someone what he'd been through. "I couldn't let him touch me. I couldn't."

Vicki only smiled at him.

"What?" Steve was trying to keep from crying.

"So you're...a...virgin?" Her eyes were wide open. Steve's even lip almost frowned. That open smile of her's looked as if she could laugh with glee. He looked her in the eye.

"I'm a virgin too." It was, at last, they could form a club or something.