Chapter 27

Jacen picked Kiana up for their date at 6:00 pm on Friday evening and took her to a restaurant called the Trail’s End Taphouse. It was a nice place in a nearby town called Snohomish, which was about fifteen minutes east of Mill Creek. The restaurant was festive and absolutely packed so they had to wait for about twenty minutes to be seated. Finally they got a table on the far side of the room, near the entrance to the kitchen. They ordered some appetizers and drinks to start things, then got their meals about ten minutes later. Kiana ordered the salmon with mashed potatoes and it was heavenly. The salmon was perfectly cooked and it melted in her mouth, and the mashed potatoes were flavored with garlic and butter, which to her was a combination made in heaven. Jacen ordered a chicken breast with a side of broccoli and carrots.

“I heard the chef here used to work at one of the fancy restaurants in downtown Seattle,” he said. “He’s world-class.”

“I can tell,” Kiana said. “These mashed potatoes are to die for. How is your chicken breast?”

“It’s excellent. But then again, I’ve always liked breasts.”

His eyes got big the minute he recognized what he had said.

“I meant chicken breasts. Not women’s breasts. But then again, I like those, too. I guess.”

There was a look of complete disbelief in his eyes. Clearly, he couldn’t believe what he had just said.

Kiana thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious, and she decided to help him out and lighten things up a little.

“It’s nice to hear you like women’s breasts. I would have been pretty disappointed if you didn’t.”

They both laughed and luckily Jacen recovered quickly from his faux pas. They spent the next thirty minutes exchanging basic information about one another, and he said he lived with his dad, who was an accountant. Kiana gave him her standard USIA cover story that she was from Anaheim and had moved to Mill Creek when Michael was transferred by his company to its Seattle office.

“What does your dad do?” Jacen asked.

“He’s a car salesman.”

Jacen nodded. “What was it like living in Anaheim? I’ve never been there before.”

“It was nice. The weather is great most of the time. And there’s a lot to do. Lots of shopping and restaurants.”

“Sweet. What do you think of the Pacific Northwest so far?”

“It’s really nice. I like it a lot.”

A mischievous smile formed on his lips. “I’m going to ask you that same question next February.”

“February? Why?”

“It usually starts raining here in October. And it doesn’t usually stop until June or July the following year. By February, you’ll be so sick of it you’ll want to jump off of the top of the Space Needle.”

Kiana chuckled. “I’ve heard similar stories from other people. Is it really that bad?”

“It doesn’t get too cold here and snow is pretty rare, maybe a couple of days per year. But the rain will finish you off. It’s pretty depressing at times. That reminds me of an old joke - you probably don’t know it since you’re so new here. How do you know when it’s spring in Seattle?”

“How?”

“The rain is warmer.”

She laughed. But then she thought of something. “Spring is baseball and softball season. How do we play if it rains so much?”

“You just do. Most schools have turf fields nowadays so they can handle it, and unless it’s a complete downpour the coaches usually have us play. After all, around here if you don’t play in the rain, you don’t play.”

Kiana was amazed. “What a difference from southern California. In southern California, if a single drop of rain falls from the sky everyone heads for their cars and calls it a day.”

They laughed. The rest of their dinner was more of the same, mostly small talk and nothing really that interesting or exciting but Kiana loved it anyway. There was just something about Jacen that made her feel comfortable and at ease. Perhaps it was his easy going style, or the way he talked, or the way he looked at her (his eyes were mesmerizing), and he seemed so natural and sincere. Unlike most teenage boys, he wasn’t cocky or aggressive at all, and he didn’t seem to be trying to impress her in the least. He seemed like he was just being himself and just trying to have as good a time as possible.

After dinner, he asked if she wanted to go to a friend’s house where a few of his buddies (mostly fellow players on Jackson’s baseball team) were hanging out. Kiana had always enjoyed hanging out with baseball players (for many reasons), and to be completely honest, she really didn’t care what she and Jacen were doing as long as they were together. So they drove back to Mill Creek and went to a house that wasn’t too far from hers. There were about ten people there, mostly guys but also a few girls and Kiana knew most of them from school. Everyone was on the back patio roasting marshmallows over a small, propane barbeque, then using the marshmallows to make s’mores. Everyone laughed as a boy named John Franco got his marshmallow too close to the grill and it burst into flames. He tried to blow it out, but it was a crumpled, burned mess in no time. Jacen made Kiana one and unlike John he got it perfect -- golden brown just the way she liked it.

“You’re pretty good at that,” she said.

“I’m a man of many talents,” he said. “Unfortunately, not too many of them are useful.”

Kiana started to blush as he reached up and wiped a small piece of marshmallow from her chin.

After finishing their s’mores, John broke out a game and they all joined in, playing on a large table in the house’s dining room. The game was called Ultra 7 and Jacen told her it was really fun, and after just a few minutes of play she had no choice but to agree. In some ways it was similar to UNO and the object was to be the first player to get rid of all of his or her cards. Each player started with seven and they got rid of them by playing them on top of another card that was either the same color (blue, green, red, or yellow), number (one, two, three, or four), or suit (clubs, diamonds, hearts, or spades). But the real fun began when a player played an ‘action’ card. The action cards had special instructions on them and they made the players do various things. One card, for instance, made the next player roll a die and draw a number of cards equal to the number he or she rolled, another card made two players trade their hands, another card made two players switch seats, and another allowed a player to immediately take another turn. But the card everyone loved the most was called GRAB. Whenever someone played a GRAB card, all of the players had to grab one of the spoons that was sitting in the middle of the table. The tricky part, however, was the fact there were one fewer spoons than the number of players so each time someone ended up empty handed. As a penalty for not getting a spoon, he or she had to draw two cards. As such, they fought like madmen to get one. More than once spoons went flying through the air as players fought for and scrambled after them, and one time there was a tug-of-war when Jacen and John grabbed the same spoon at the same time. It was incredibly funny and they laughed heartily after every melee. But at one point, one of the boys, a tall kid named Jamal Smith, looked at Kiana and said, “It’s amazing. Kiana gets a spoon every time.”

It was true. Up to that point, GRAB cards had been played at least ten times, but Kiana had yet to be penalized. She had always ended up with a spoon and she had always ended up with one easily.

She smiled. “I have fast reflexes.”

“That must be why you’re so good at taekwondo,” John said.

“That taekwondo is so dope,” Jamal said. “You’ve got to teach us some moves.”

Kiana was a little reluctant but they begged her, so she finally acquiesced and went with them into the living room where she taught them a couple of basic stances, then a simple block.

“I wanna do that kick thing,” John said. “The one you did to Brett. It was incredible.”

So she taught them how to a do a basic snap kick, and it was actually pretty fun for a while, watching them all standing there in their socks in the living room kicking at one another, but the fun came to a quick and unfortunate end when Jamal and John got too close together and John ended up with a bloody nose. As such, they decided it would be better if they returned to Ultra 7, so they headed back to the dining room and resumed their game. But then something new happened. Jamal said, “Let’s add the DARE cards.”

“Sweet,” the other players said.

Kiana did not know what they were talking about. “What are the DARE cards?”

“They’re some more of the action cards,” Jacen said. “They’re from one of the game’s expansion packs so we only use them on occasion. Like all of the action cards, there is one of each color. Whenever you play one you get to dare another player to do something, anything you want. If they do it, they get to discard two cards.”

Kiana nodded and play resumed. Within a couple of minutes, John played a yellow DARE card.

“I dare Jamal to drink a cup of ketchup.”

Kiana’s eyes got big and she couldn’t really believe what happened next, but Jamal actually did it. John poured him a glass of ketchup and everyone started chanting “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” as he tipped it back and drank it. It was extremely gross and at one point Kiana’s stomach got queasy but it was funny nonetheless. Everyone cheered as Jamal finished the glass and slammed it triumphantly on the table in front of him.

“So tasty,” he said.

Play resumed and there was a mad scramble as Jamal’s girlfriend, who was a pretty girl named Rochelle Webber, played a GRAB card and somehow Jamal, John, and another boy named Francis McGrath ended up under the table fighting over a spoon (they all had a piece of it). Everyone’s eyes got big, however, as the melee ended and they looked over and saw Kiana sitting there with a smile on her face. She had two spoons in her hand.

“You got two?” John said. “At once? No one has ever done that before.”

Kiana shrugged. For her, it hadn’t been that difficult at all.

Play continued and everyone laughed as Jamal played the blue DARE card and dared Francis to lick the bottom of his shoe. It was arguably the grossest, most disgusting thing Kiana had ever seen, but Francis removed a shoe and ran his tongue from one end of it to the other, and he even said, “Yum,” when he was done.

The highlight of the night, however, happened about twenty minutes later. Rochelle played the red DARE card, shot a quick glance at Kiana, then looked over at Jacen. A mischievous look appeared in her eyes. “Let’s liven things up a little. I dare Jacen to kiss Kiana on the lips.”

For a brief second, Kiana couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Jacen was supposed to kiss her? Technically, it was their first date so she wasn’t certain kissing was appropriate, but at the same time she really didn’t have an issue with it since she liked Jacen so much. As such, when he turned to her and asked, “Is it okay?” she didn’t hesitate with an answer.

The entire room cheered as he leaned over and kissed her, and she enjoyed every second of it. In the past, she had kissed a few boys but it had never been like that. Although she and Jacen were still on their first date and they had only known each other for a short period of time, she knew one thing for certain.

He was the one for her.