The Boy Scout (Part 1)

She loved his long hair.

Mary didn't know Billy very well, but he was someone who she'd been watching very closely for quite some time now. To say she was attracted to him would be a bit of an understatement. She was intrigued by him, drawn to him, and felt almost connected to him in spite of the fact that she was pretty sure he didn't even know her name.

She watched him from across the band room as he raised his trombone to his lips. She looked again at the sheet of music in front of her, marking the time with her foot, not wanting to come in late on her part. The last thing she needed was the director teasing her about staring at the boy across the room instead of watching him. She knew he always noticed.

She raised her clarinet to her lips as her rest ended and blew a little warm air into the instrument before coming in, right on cue, with her eyes on the director. Mr. Owens had just started a couple years ago and was doing a bang up job bringing the school's band back to life after a decade of hibernation. She softly let out the melody line of Sleeper's Awake as Mr. Owens leaned slightly toward the clarinet section and motioned for them to take the reigns.

I'm going to do it. Mary thought to herself. I'm going to ask Billy to the dance. What's the worst that could happen? He could say no? Whoopee. She was on the rebound, so to speak. Sure, she'd had her eye on Billy for some time now, but she'd had other eyes.. and hands.. on her. After she had been 'caught in the act' by her parents with her last boyfriend, Dan, a few months earlier, the shit had seriously hit the fan. She'd only been off restriction for a few weeks now and hadn't seen Dan for over a month. He'd started home studies, but was spending almost as much time wandering the streets and buying his dad's pot as he was cracking books.

Mary knew Billy was the kind of boy her parents would love to see her dating. He was a good kid. Very straight laced, good grades, didn't get in trouble.. all of that. But he was still good looking, and seemed to know how to have fun. Seemed to from the account of her friends that had hung out with him.

As the song ended and Mary lay her clarinet back across her lap, she looked again away from Mr. Owens to Billy across the room. She caught his eyes on her and quickly looked down at her lap, smoothing her plaid skirt over her black tights. Was he seriously just looking at me?? Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe I have a better chance than I thought. She looked up again and saw that he was still looking at her, grinning at her after catching her watching him yet again. He grabbed a rubber band off his music stand after laying his trombone on the floor beside his chair and pulled his long brown hair back into a pony tail at the base of his neck. His blue eyes met hers again as he leaned over to whisper in Sam's ear. Sam then looked at Mary and chuckled.

Oh, geez... Mary thought.. I am such a loser..