He sat two seats behind her in history and would crane his neck around Francis just to watch the muscles in her neck and shoulders tense and shift as she took notes. Mr. Gaius suggested that he change his seat if he couldn't see the board. Feliciano always brushed it off, saying his seat was fine. It was better than fine; it was the perfect seat. Oh, Louise Beilschmidt.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" his brother asked as he shifted the car into drive, and it streaked out of the school parking lot. "You've been way too quiet lately."
"It's nothing," Feliciano sighed, leaning his head against the window. His brother swerved around a student on a bicycle, and Feliciano glanced back just in time to see it was Louise; her pixie cut blond hair shivering in the wake of the car as she watched them speed away.
He ducked down quickly, hoping she hadn't seen him. "Lovino," he said as the car screeched to a halt at a red light. His brother grunted to show he was listening. "What do you do to impress a girl?"
Lovino turned his head slowly to stare at his brother; the light turned green, and a car behind them honked a couple times before Lovino moved again and turned onto their street. "There's a lot of things you can do. Have you asked this girl out?"
"No," Feliciano muttered.
"Well, that's the first step to-" The elder brother was suddenly silent and slowed the car to a crawl.
"First step to what?"
"Shh," Lovino waved his hand in his brother's general direction, "he'll hear us." Feliciano leaned forward to see Antonio lying in his front yard. Lovino pulled the car up to their house across the street. "Okay, now jump out and run inside quietly as possible."
"But, Lovino, why are we doing this?" the young brother hissed as they crept up the lawn, "once he sees you're home, won't he just come over anyway?"
Lovino shot a dark look over his shoulder, "I'll do anything for a few minutes of peace from that guy."
-
The next day in history, Mr. Gaius announced that they would be watching a movie about trench warfare. Promptly, most of the class fell asleep. Feliciano, who normally would have been in this group, tore a page out of his notebook and scribbled something on it. He tapped Francis on the shoulder and pointed at Louise. Francis casually dropped the note over Louise's shoulder and sat back.
Do you like me? Yes No Maybe
(circle one)
Louise looked back over her shoulder; Francis winked and blew her a kiss. She circled her answer and passed the paper back.
-
After class, Feliciano jogged in Louise's wake and almost passed her when she stopped at her locker. "Why don't you like me?" He whined, waving his note around, "What's wrong? Tell me!"
"What are you talking about?" Louise snatched the note from him and looked at it, "This is yours?" Feliciano sniffed and nodded. "I thought it was from Francis."
"So you do like me then!" The boy was suddenly ecstatic, bouncing up and down.
"I never said th-"
"Where do you want to go? There's the movies, or-or we could have a picnic. Or we could go to the lake. Or-oh! We could have a picnic at the lake. How does that sound? I'll bring pasta and-" Louise put her hand over his mouth.
"What on earth are you talking about?" She sighed with a blush and a smile.
"Our date," He blurted out once her hand was gone, "I mean, you go on dates with people you like, and I like you and you like me, so we should go on a date. When are you free? I'm free every night this week except Thursday because I need to study for a Spanish test. What language do you take? I was taking French, but I switched to Spanish last year; you know, they're so similar, so it's kind of easy t-" Her hand flew to his mouth again.
"If we're going to do this, you're going to need to slow down," She said firmly and slowly took her hand away, "I'm free Saturday evening; let's keep it simple and just go to the movies."
"Great," Feliciano beamed; Louise grabbed her things for calculus and rushed to class with her date jabbering on about movies by her elbow.
-
Louise sat on her bed at quarter to seven with her history book propped up on a stack of pillows and her notebook resting on her knee.
"Hey," her brother appeared, leaning against her doorway, "I heard you're going on a date tonight."
"Yes, I am, Gilbert," She didn't look up, "What of it?"
"Well, is that what you're wearing? Khakis and Opa's ratty, old army jacket?" He walked in and tugged playfully on her sleeve.
"Is this a problem?" Louise shrugged.
"You dress like that everyday, Lou; don't you want to impress the guy?"
Louise briefly considered before answering: "I think he'd be impressed by me even if I wore a trash bag."
"Exactly!" called her brother who had now moved to digging in her closet. "So do you want to impress him or make him speechless?" His sister didn't answer. "Well?" She mumbled something. "I seriously can't hear you," Gilbert came back to her bedside with half the contents of her closet.
"I really don't care," Louise frowned, staring at the dressy clothes she'd hidden away. Gilbert leaned down on the mound of clothes.
"Yes, you do," He grinned, picking up a flowing gray top and tossing it in her face.
"No," She barked and threw the shirt back at him, "Out!"
"Every time you yell like that, I know you really care," Gilbert shuffled out as his sister pushed him. He was laughing until she slammed the door in his face. She looked back to the clothes, then at the clock, and sighed.
-
Feliciano skipped down the stairs to his brother. "I have a question," He mumbled leaning around the doorframe. Lovino grunted and glanced up from his laptop screen for a moment. "How does this look?" Feliciano asked as he stepped into the room. He wore a pale yellow polo shirt and a pair of khakis.
"You look like crap in yellow," Lovino replied listlessly, "Why are you wearing it?"
"Because it's the same color as Louise's hair," The younger brother chimed, hugging himself.
Lovino made a disgusted face before saying, "That's creepy. Go change and I'll give you a ride."
-
Louise glanced at her watch as she headed for the door. She made the somewhat unwise decision of pausing at the doorway to the living room and watching as her brother played some combat video game and yelled into a headset. As she turned to go, Gilbert barked at whomever he was playing with to hold on for a second. "Lou, wait," He called, rushing into the hall, "Let me get a look at you."
"What for?" Louise glanced over her shoulder as she hastily opened the door, "Just let me go." Gilbert caught up and spun her around. She had changed into a dark blue turtleneck and some black jeans rolled up over her boots.
"Oh, look at you," Gilbert grinned, straightening out the old, green canvas jacket his sister still wore. "You're so pretty." Louise rolled her eyes. "I saw that," He warned, jabbing her lightly in the arm, "Now get out of here." He watched as Louise left on her bike. "And hey," he shouted after her, "If he tries anything funny, you punch him right in the nose." Laughing to himself, he watched his little sister disappear around the corner.
-
He stood in front of the movie theater watching people come and go and checking the time on his cell phone every twenty seconds. What if she forgot? Should he call her? He didn't even have her phone number. A couple more minutes passed; she wasn't coming. Feliciano frowned and started to sniffle.
"Have you been waiting long?" Someone asked over his shoulder. Feliciano slowly looked and immediately brightened up when he saw Louise.
"Oh, you're here," he cried, giving her a big hug, much to Louise's embarrassment, "C'mon, let's go get tickets."
They stood in the twisting cue, both reading the list of possible movies.
It's all strategy, Lovino had told him in the car, Take her to one of those stupid romantic comedies; all girls like those, but then you run the risk that she'll start thinking about whatever the stupid jerks in the movie did, and then you're screwed because there's no way you can be like that guy in the movie. Or you can take her to a horror movie. The axe murderer jumps out; she screams and clings to you for dear life. Jackpot.
Just agree to whatever movie he chooses, Louise thought, it'll be fine.
"Uh, we can go see Chisel IV," Feliciano offered, pointing at the board, "I heard it was good." The mere idea of that movie made him break out in a cold sweat, but he was willing to deal with it for Louise.
She looked at him with raised eyebrows, "Um, alright."
-
As the man chipped away at his ankle to be freed from his shackle before the weight at the end dragged him into a pit of bubbling tar, Feliciano had his face buried in Louise's jacket.
"Tell me when it's safe to look," he squeaked. When she didn't answer, he repeated himself.
"I'll tell you," Louise replied weakly, peeking through her fingers.
It wasn't safe to look for an hour and a half, when the ending credits started to roll. The pair got up and shakily left the theater.
"Well," Louise commented when they got outside, "that was-"
"Oh my gosh, that was such a scary movie. When that lady cut her tongue out," He made a couple noises of distress.
When Lovino arrived, Feliciano pulled his date to the car despite her repeatedly saying that she had her bike. "Lovino," he called as they approached, "can we give Louise a ride home, please?"
The elder brother leaned down in the his seat to get a good look at Louise; he frowned immediately. "You look like that jackass Antino's friend. Uh, what's his name? Gorgo?"
"Gilbert?" Louise said, leaning down to see Lovino.
"Yeah," he glared at her, "oh, you look just like him."
"Well, of course, he's my brother." No sooner had she said that than Lovino spun off, declaring that his brother could find his own way home.
Louise peddled feverishly to keep the bike going with Feliciano perched on the handlebars. It was starting to get dark.
"Look out!" Felicano cried suddenly, shaking the front of the bike.
"W-What is it?" She gasped, trying to look around him.
"There's something in the bushes! It's coming for us! Help!" He was pointing and flailing to point that Louise started to lose control. The two wobbled and streaked off the road and into the bushes.
Louise sat up slowly, groaning and saw a dog running across the street. "Are you okay?" She muttered, pushing aside the branches to find her date lying face up, staring at her.
"You're pretty," he slurred, reaching up to touch her face.
"Did you hit your head?" Louise murmured, slowly helping him to stand up, wincing at pains in her shoulder.
"No," Feliciano sang as he hung on her, "no, no, no, I'm okay. Now, le's go home."
Louise walked, pushing her slightly twisted bike bike with one hand and holding her date up with the other. "This street?" She asked, looking up at the sign for Poplar Avenue. Feliciano hummed and cooed against her shoulder.
"You're so pretty," he muttered, stroking her hair, "You have such pretty eyes, and you're so nice to me." He nuzzled into her neck. Louise blushed furiously and was incredibly relieved to see his brother's car. She abandoned her bike by the sidewalk and started negotiating her date home. Luckily, he went along with no trouble.
"C'mon," Louise grunted, taking the front steps one at a time, "here we are."
"Did you have a good time?" Feliciano asked, leaning against the door.
"I had a lo-"
"Because I was so worried you didn't like," he mumbled a couple of things, "Maybe the lake would've been better. I just did what Lovi said and go to a scary movie, but that other one with that guy would've been better. If we d-" Louise put her lips against his and Feliciano stopped talking.
Louise opened the door as quietly as she could and snuck to the stairs.
"Looks like someone had a good time," Gilbert said, leaning against her bedroom door. Louise had a tear in her sweater and her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat.
"Can I just go to bed, please?" She asked, "I had a long night."
"Alright, Lou," he shuffled to the side, "but, hey, I wanna know what's happening."
"We're going to the lake next week," Louise sighed with a smile, "He wants to have a picnic."