Rare Events
"Monday I'm going to drive up to see the total eclipse. Anyone want to come with me?"
The other girls laughed when Dan, one of our housemates, announced he was going skip classes and drive almost 200 miles north to see the solar eclipse in its glorious totality,
"I thought we could see it here, no?" I asked.
"Only a partial here. You'll see a bite out of the sun, but it won't lose much of its brightness. Totality is where the sun gets completely occluded and it turns so dark you can see stars."
Obviously, I hadn't paid much attention, but on reflection it seemed like a chance to take since I didn't have class on Monday, and it wasn't supposed to happen again for twenty years. After thinking about it for a second, I said, "Wow, yeah, that sounds amazing. I want to go!"
Tom said he had a test scheduled and couldn't skip it.
"Nobody else, really? Okay Jen looks like it's the just you. Monday morning! I'm leaving at 7:30 if you're serious."
I groaned at that. He knew I wasn't an early riser. "AM? Fuck!"
"Well, be down here by 7:30 if you want to go."
"Is the weather going to cooperate? I don't want to get up that early for nothing!"
"We'll see, I guess. Got eclipse glasses?"
Of the six of us who share our ramshackle, old, college town house--four girls and the two guys, all of us seniors and graduating soon--Dan is the quiet one. He keeps to himself and rarely participates in group stuff with the rest of us, though he isn't obnoxious about it. He's cute enough, and nice, but didn't seem to have a girlfriend (or a boyfriend), or even to date as far as I knew. He'd rather spend Saturday night in the gym alone than at a party with us. He was a bit of a mystery and I'd always been a little intrigued with him. Perhaps that's why I found him so sneakily attractive. Though we'd all lived in the house together for almost two years, I couldn't read him. Tom on the other hand is an open book, always shagging some new girl, a little too noisily, and doesn't much hide his appreciation of the women in the house. He never hits on us though--that's the rules. I'm probably the closest to a girl version of Tom, with a few foibles of my own. Still, it's worked out well; we've managed to avoid housemate drama, even though we women are a pretty attractive bunch, if I do say so myself.
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Monday morning, I heard the water running at an ungodly hour, and knew Dan was chomping at the bit. I thought it didn't start until sometime in the afternoon, why so damned early? I dozed until the alarm went off at seven, laid in bed debating for a few minutes, but finally deciding I did want to go, ran in for a quick shower, half awake, pulled on some yoga pants and a sleeveless tee. I normally keep my C-cups under wraps, but couldn't be bothered with a bra, figuring a sweatshirt provided plenty of cover. Got downstairs, damp hair and all, right at 7:30. Dan was waiting in the kitchen, and didn't say anything, but handed me a Yeti full of coffee with a smirk.
"Thanks."
"I'm all loaded up, let's hit the road!"
Without further ado we climbed in his old Subaru (figures, right?) and headed north, driving in virtual silence for an hour, watching the overcast skies.
Feeling a little gloomy about the clouds, I finally asked, "Where exactly are we headed, Dan? And why did we have to leave so early just to look at these clouds?"
"Well, I don't know, exactly..."
"What?!?"
"I'm headed up to the center of the totality zone, then cutting over through the 'burg to the lake shore park. I'm sure we'll find a good spot there."
"Whatever...well hopefully that will work. But we'll be getting there like, hours early, Dan."
I'm afraid my irritation at potentially getting up too early to see nothing was showing.
"I was worried about traffic; it's probably going to be crazy. Listen Jen, I'm going to stop at the next rest area. We can get some more coffee and there's some food in the cooler in back, we can have some breakfast when we get back on the road. I made some sandwiches for lunch, too."
"Okay. Wow, that was thoughtful. Thanks." Dan
was
an awfully thoughtful guy, really, even if he never said much. I smiled at him and admonished myself to be less bitchy.
When I visited the ladies' room, I realized I hadn't thought to put on a pair of panties, either. I prefer commando under yoga pants anyway, more freeing and I like the feeling, but now I was in public all day and felt a little self-conscious. I had to check myself in the mirror. Who the hell is awake enough to think at 7 AM before coffee anyway? Well, they were black, and at least no panty lines.
When we got back to the car Dan pulled out the cooler. I found he'd gotten some of my favorite pastries from the little bakery near our house.
"Oh, I love these!"
He smirked at me. "So I've gathered!"
"Thank you, Dan!"
The rest of the drive up was quiet, Dan taciturn as ever. The traffic was getting a bit crazy, but the clouds were thinning and seemed to be sliding off to the east. A corner of blue sky appeared in the distance! I started to get excited again, thinking maybe we were going to get lucky after all. Since there wasn't a lot of talking going on, I decided to make myself useful and use the map on my phone to search for promising spots.
"Hey Dan, how about if we get off the exit after next? It's the last exit south of town. From there it's only a mile or so to cut across to the lake, and it connects to a road north that looks like it runs right along the water, see?"