“It’s RAINING!” she cried.
“You HAVE to do it! You Promised!” Molly Kate reminded her.
“But-” she couldn’t muster another word when she saw the girls shaking their heads with disapproval. Katie Lynn lowered her head and headed back down the stairs, defeated. Taking pity, Tammy Sue followed her, carrying her coat with her.
“I’ll be waiting right here,” she assured her, holding out the coat to let Katie Lynn know that her modesty would be restored the moment she returned to the building. Katie Lynn didn’t respond, but her eyes spoke the words “thank you” to her loyal friend.
The beautiful blonde wrapped her arms around her large breasts and warily opened the front door of the apartment building again, watching the rain splatter upon the ground outside. She stuck her foot out of the open door, and felt the droplets drizzle upon her lower leg. They were COLD! A shiver ran up her calf and she swiftly withdrew her foot from the outside.
“You Promised!” Molly Kate’s voice echoed in her head. The girls’ disapproving stares lingered in her memory. There was no more delaying. It was time to do her Double Dare.
“You got this,” Tammy Sue said encouragingly. Katie Lynn nodded, feeling emboldened by her friend’s support.
Checking around the apartment building to make sure no one was around this time of night to witness, Katie Lynn then pushed the door fully open, and sprinted out of the building towards the street.
She could hear cheering coming from the window above. The girls whooped and hollered as their friend scampered down the sidewalk until she reached the street.
A cold gust of wind blew past, summoning goosebumps all over the blonde’s bare skin. The rain picked up, soaking her hair and body.
“Run, run, run!” Amy Jo shouted.
“Go, Katie Lynn, hurry!” Tammy Sue urged, not wanting her friend to be out in the cold rainy night any longer than necessary.
Katie Lynn took off down the empty street as fast as her long legs could carry her. The gritty asphalt was rough beneath her soles, but her pounding heart put the discomfort out of her head as she sprinted along.
She ran across Gilbert Bridge, feeling more exposed than ever as she raced up the incline beneath the tall lampposts overlooking the steel and wooden structure. By the time she reached the end of the block, the rain had come down in full force. Katie Lynn’s hair was drenched, and her naked body was soaked from head to toe.
She touched the stop sign at the end of the street and hurried back, shivering as she went. She prayed that the trek back would be easier than the trip there. At least she knew how far she had to run.
She made it halfway across the bridge before she stopped dead in her tracks. A pair of headlights blinded her, forcing her to quickly step aside to make room. A guardrail prevented her from stepping off the road. There was nowhere to hide. The vehicle’s occupants had already spotted her.
The car came to a halt beside her, and the passenger side window rolled down. The soaking wet coed wrapped her arms tightly across her breasts, and let her dripping hair obscure most of her face.
“Katie Lynn, is that you?” a familiar voice asked.
She looked up to see Johnny O’Dell looking at her from the car’s open window. She nodded.
“Oh my God, get in, before you catch a cold!”
She wanted to refuse, but a second car was approaching the bridge, and she wanted nothing more than to be invisible. She quickly opened the rear passenger door and got into the first vehicle.
An older gentleman was in the driver’s seat. He looked at Katie Lynn with a bemused expression.
“Uh, Katie Lynn, this is my dad. Dad this is Katie Lynn, from school.”
“Hello Mr. O’Dell,” she greeted, keeping her head low and not wanting to make eye contact with the stern-looking man. He looked at his son with a judging glance, as if to ask, “you know this girl?” Johnny shrugged and his father continued driving across the bridge.
“What happened to you? Are you okay?” Johnny asked the dripping wet girl.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured them. She explained the game she’d been playing back at Amy Jo’s apartment and directed them to take her back there.
“There’s a box of towels on the seat next to you. Go ahead and take one, we’ve got lots,” Johnny said. He explained how one of the machines at his father’s laundromat had broken, and the two of them had been there for most of the night cleaning water off the floor. Katie Lynn gratefully grabbed a towel from the box and dried herself.
“You must think I’m such a fool. Running around in the rain in the nude.”
Mr. O’Dell simply looked at her through the rear view mirror. Johnny was the one to speak. He began with a stammer.
“Uhh, it’s just a game. I mean, we’ve all played it at some point.” His father looked at him, and he quickly added, “well, a LOT of us have. Not all, of course.”
Katie Lynn shrunk in her seat. She wrapped the towel tightly around her body, but still felt very, very naked.
“Are you the same girl who was naked in my laundromat a few weeks back?” Mr. O’Dell finally said. They were the first words he’d spoken since she’d entered his car.
She meekly nodded. He glared back at her, and burst into laughter.
“That was the funniest thing I’d ever heard!” he howled. “The boys at the station are STILL asking for proof! Too bad we don’t have cameras. Guess this will just end up an urban legend.”
“Station? What station?” Katie Lynn asked, nervously.
“The fire station,” Johnny replied. “My dad and I are volunteer firefighters when the laundromat isn’t busy.”
Katie Lynn shuddered at the thought of all those men joking and laughing at her mistake. She was sure they’d be hearing about this as well.
Mr. O’Dell brought his car to a stop outside Amy Jo’s apartment building.
“I guess I’ll see you at school,” Johnny said.
Keeping the towel wrapped around her body, Katie Lynn stepped out of the vehicle and scurried inside the building.
4. The Mix-Up
“Here’s your order!” Katie Lynn said, placing a platter of bacon-and-cheese covered potato skins upon the table in front of her.
The diners gave her confused stares.
“We didn’t order any potato skins. We’re still waiting on our drinks, miss,” the gentleman said.
Katie Lynn looked at the order, back at the kitchen, and then back at the order.
“Oh! I’m sorry! I think I brought this to the wrong table!”
The table of gentlemen, all clad in golf shirts, snickered to themselves.
“That’s why we don’t come here for competent service!” one of the men muttered, chuckling.
Katie Lynn carried the platter of potato skins back to the kitchen, while the diners ogled her skin-tight shorts as she walked away. She’d been working at Bazooms for two weeks and had found the task of waitressing overwhelming to say the least.
“The guys at table 14 said they didn’t order these!” Katie Lynn called, sliding the platter of potato skins through the window back to the kitchen crew.
“Because they DIDN’T! They guys at table 4 did!” Molly Kate whispered. Katie Lynn breathed a sigh of relief. She never would have lasted at this job as long as she did if her friend were not her coworker and able to help her out. “Here, take these over to table 4. Wait ’til you see who’s there!”