Lawrence's cousin drove a golden Toyota Camry. It seemed decently dated, but anyone that knew anything about cars knew that Toyotas lasted lifetimes. At least, according to Lawrence.
He seemed pretty into cars, so I wondered why he never drove his own.
We continued our game of 21 questions throughout the short drive into the city from my house. When I asked why he hadn't gotten his own car, he gave some vague response about his money being needed elsewhere.
He stopped and parked outside of some ugly ass mural. Stepping out, I immediately called out how ugly it was. "What in the world is this supposed to mean?"
He cocked his head to the side at it. "Integration?" he tried.
The mural depicted a picture of a black family moving into a white neighborhood, with the children holding sports balls. I snorted. "I guess man."
"Definitely more poetic ways to depict that, but not everyone can be a poet."
"I bet the artist got paid a shit ton for this, too," I grimaced.
"Sure did," he chuckled. "But that's not why we're here."
He walked forwards and past the parking lot, fiddling with his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Paying for parking. But you can come on," he motioned with his free hand for me to follow him.
It felt like we walked for blocks and blocks in the heat until finally slowing down. Â I found that our grand destination was... a parking deck?
"I'm confused," I huffed out.
"Not for long. Follow me."
He walked past rows and rows of cars before stopping at an elevator.
"It smells like mildew in here," I commented.
"You complain a lot, you know that?"
"So you hate me," I half-joked.
"I'm not going to glorify that with a response," he responded.
"The roof is closed to cars but you can get in on foot through here," he motioned to a narrow tunnel.
"I'm beginning to rethink this scholarship."
"That makes two of us," he laughed.
We finally got to the top and my breath flew from my lungs. I hadn't realized how high we'd gone, but we were definitely high up. We could see the entire city from this spot, on all sides. We stood in the middle of the parking deck, which was adorned in tire marks from people clearly drag racing up there. The yellow paint seemed fairly fresh, and the whole thing was a scene in and of itself. I had a moment of feeling like I was in some coming-of-age movie.
"Wow," was all I could say.
"Wow is... correct," he grimaced.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm scared of heights."
"And you thought to bring us up here?"
"Yes. For the art."
I rolled my eyes. "Well, you can hang onto me." He yelped as I yanked him into my frame.
"I do hate you," he muttered.
I wanted to continue admiring the skyline, but knowing Lawrence was unsettled made me think I needed to fix him first. "Would it help if we sat instead?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Actually, yeah."
We sat down with him still pulled to me before I asked him to finally tell me the grand idea he'd been hiding for the longest.
He sighed dreamily before speaking. "We have so much history here in Atlanta. You know, it burned down, but so many things and so many things changed. I thought doing a photo essay following the death and rebirth of this place could be so dope. Especially since a lot of its undiscovered and underappreciated."
"Wow," I repeated. We sat there for a second in silence until I felt his breathing start speeding up again where my hand sat around his rib cage. I figured he must have been beginning to stress again about the height, so I found something else to say.
"I hate that you're making me want to be useful," I half-joked.
"I have a feeling you'll find a way," he murmured.
I sensed his persisting state of discomfort and asked him, " Do you want to get down from here?" since we've gone through our prompt?"
"Nah," he said before drawing in another deep breath and releasing it. "Let's keep playing the game."
We didn't know whose turn it was at that point, so we played rock-paper-scissors to determine who'd get next. I beat him with paper to his rock and geared up a question I'd been thinking to ask all day.
"What's your love language?"
"I have no idea what that is," he admitted.
"Men," it was my turn to mutter before I pulled my phone out.
"Your love language is the way that you give and receive love best to or from others," I explained to him. "And we're friends now, so I think I should know this info about you."
"What's yours?"
"I can't just give it to you straight like that, fool, we're gonna do it together. Get your phone out."
I was trying to find some way to make him tense less next to me, and I had yet to succeed. I was excited to take this test, though.
Wendy and I had done it when we got into a spat about her trying to give me advice I didn't want. I couldn't stand people putting bugs in my ears, even if they were for the sake of "helping me." Wendy personally loved words of affirmation, and gifts too, but we wouldn't have understood that about each other if we hadn't spoken about it.
"I'm going to send you the link so we can do the same one."
Lawrence bit his lip and relaxed a tiny bit as he tried to find the link and open it in his phone. Okay, progress. Once he opened it, his eyebrows scrunched.
"Do you prefer hugs or comforting words when you're upset?" he questioned. "How is this useful in any way?"
"Shut up and answer the question."
He tapped something on his phone without letting me know what he picked, and I had to remind him that I wanted to hear his answers.
"Oh, sorry," he looked up at me. "I like comforting words, I guess. I'm not too touchy."
"Damn. I love hugs. We're hugging right now."
His eyes shifted down to where my free arm was still wrapped around his torso. "Yeah," he grimaced again.
I yanked my hand from around him, now slightly embarrassed. "Am I not helping?" He jumped at the loss of contact, now grimacing more.
"You can put your arm back."
I followed his instructions, but I was still confused. "Why are you frowning like you smell something foul?"
"Reasons unrelated to you keeping your hand there," he assured. "You're helping with the heights issue."
"Okay good," I narrowed my eyes at him. "But yeah, I like hugs. Next question," I clicked over to the next prompt on my phone.
I learned that Lawrence hated gifts because he felt like they made him unwillingly indebted to others. I loved them because they meant someone was thinking about me. He liked when people were reliable because it made it easier for him to manage the chaos in his personal life. I liked when people were reliable because I didn't have many people in my corner to begin with, so it made it feel like the people I did have were good ones.
He was never touchy because he had a bunch of family and never felt like he had personal space, and I was touchy because it helped me feel grounded.
"Wow, we're really different," I chuckled as we got to the last question.
"I don't think it took this test to see that, though," he chuckled.
"You're right," I tickled his side and jerked forward before clasping his hand over mine.
"Chill," was all he could force out.
"Oh, damn, right, sorry," I blushed. "I've only really been around Wendy up to now, so I'm having to learn to adjust my behaviors."
"I wouldn't mind if we weren't damn near touching the clouds," he glanced up, then down, and grimaced.
"Last question," I deflected with cheer in my voice.
It was a repeat of another question asking about quality time against acts of service, and Lawrence was eager to see his results.
"So mine are words of affirmation and... acts of service?"
"And mine are gifts and physical touch! But I already knew that."
"So what does mine mean?"
"You apparently like praise and reassurance. I have limited experience with dudes, but you're super cool for being able to outwardly express that. Kudos to you. And you like when people do pragmatic shit for you."
"Sounds about right. I think gifts and physical touch are a little more straightforward. Which suits you," he nodded thoughtfully.
"I thought you'd think as such. But now that I think about it, I probably would like praise and reassurance too. I don't know enough of how it feels to know too much though," I said thoughtfully, but not too thoughtfully, because we'd been on the roof long enough. "And your breathing has been labored since we came up here, so let's go," I stood and reached my hand out for him to take.
"Thank God," he grabbed my hand and stood. His very sweaty, clammy hand.
"So," I started as we descended the stairs and approached the elevator. "I would say I want to get started now, but I really want to actually find a way to be useful before we do. So could you give me a day or two and then we continue?"
"I'm excited to see what you come up with," he grinned at me.
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