Valentine's Date Disaster: A Novelette (Dean and Callie Book 2)

by Annabelle Costa

  “I’ve been wanting to see this movie forever,” I tell Dean.

  “So why didn’t you?” he asks.

  I shrug. “The workload lately is crushing me. Also…” I poke him in the arm and he grins. “I’ve been saving it for you the last week.”

  “I hope after all that, it doesn’t suck.”

  “It won’t,” I say confidently.

  “How do you know?”

  “It got ninety-two percent on Rotten Tomatoes.”

  He laughs. I love the sound of his laugh—it’s so sexy. “So Rotten Tomatoes has a window into your brain?”

  “I figure if ninety-two percent of critics liked the movie, I’ll like it too.”

  “What if you’re in the eight percent?”

  “Oh no.” I shake my head. “I wouldn’t be in the eight percent. I’m totally a sheep. How about you?”

  “I don’t know about the eight percent,” he says, “but any movie with a zombie apocalypse, I’m going to like it. General rule.”

  I grin at him. “Agreed.”

  I’m about to ask Dean what his favorite zombie apocalypse movie is, but the rose guy has just scored a sale with the couple ahead of us and has now moved on in our direction. He thrusts the roses in our direction, but the words die on his lips when he sees Dean.

  “Um,” the guy says, “I’ve got… uh…”

  I don’t get it. Why is everyone in the theater struggling so much with this? Dean and I are on a date. God.

  “How much?” Dean asks the man, rescuing him from his embarrassment.

  “Three dollars,” the man says.

  I’m about to tell Dean that I’m not really into flowers, but it’s so sweet the way he digs out his wallet, pays the three dollars, and holds the rose out to me. It fills my whole body with a warm, good feeling.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “My pleasure,” he says, his eyes pinned on mine. As I take the rose from him, my fingers brush against his and my whole hand starts to tingle.

  I wish he’d try to kiss me. But with him sitting and me standing, the logistics are confusing. He can’t just lean forward and kiss me. It will take a little more maneuvering than that.

  We finally get to the front of the line. The window is just barely high enough for Dean’s chin to be level with the counter. He hands his credit card to the tired-looking clerk, who runs it through her machine. I feel a twinge of anxiety when she swipes the card a second time. Then a third.

  “Um,” she says, “I don’t see any record of your ticket purchase.”

  “What?” Dean stares at her. “I bought them two days ago.”

  She swipes one more time, but it’s obviously a no-go. She shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry. There are no tickets reserved under this credit card. Do you have another card?”

  “No,” he says. “I definitely reserved it with this card.”

  I’m sure everyone hates us but we get the manager to come out and verify we definitely do not have tickets reserved under Dean’s card. I can hear him cursing under his breath while the manager informs us every show is sold out. Well, every show except one, which is starting in ten minutes.

  “Should we get tickets?” he asks me.

  I tap the new Adam Sandler movie into Rotten Tomatoes. Seven percent.

  Well, maybe I’ll be in the seven percent that liked it.

  What shitty luck. I wonder if the broken mirror really did bring us bad luck tonight…

  “Buy them,” I say.

  It’s not what we wanted. It’s not a cool zombie apocalypse movie. But I’ll be with Dean, and that’s the whole point of a date. Who cares what we’re watching? As long as we’re sharing a popcorn and our fingers can meet inside the bucket…

  “Do you want to get popcorn?” I ask him.

  “Sure,” he says. “You’re… okay with sharing?”

  I give him a meaningful look. “Of course I am.”

  His ears turn adorably red. “Okay then. I’ll, um… go get popcorn.”

  I have to run to the bathroom and we agree to meet by the entrance to the theater or else on the popcorn line. Except right after I finish up in the bathroom and am heading over to where Dean is at the head of the line, I hear someone calling my name.

  “Callie! Callie!”

  I freeze in my steps and turn around to face three of my classmates from law school. Kim, Stacy, and Beth. As far as I know, none of them have boyfriends, which might be why they’re here together on Valentine’s Day. Kim is waving excitedly at me.

  “Callie!” She brushes a few strands of blond hair from her face. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

  I laugh. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  Kim gestures at the other girls. “We decided while everyone else was out with their stupid boyfriends, we were going to have a great time with just the girls. We are going to have the best night of our lives. Right?”

  Stacy and Beth chime in with considerably less enthusiasm.

  “So.” Kim raises her eyebrows at me. “What are you up to tonight, Cal? Do you want to join us?”

  “Um…” I glance over at Dean, who appears to be paying for our popcorn. “Actually, I’m sort of…”

  “Kim!” Stacy rolls her eyes. “Callie is obviously on a date. Leave her alone.”

  Kim raises her eyebrows at me. “Are you?”

  My cheeks grow warm as I nod.

  “I didn’t know you were dating anyone!” Kim says.

  “It’s sort of a… first date kind of thing.”

  “Oh!” Kim grins. “Is it someone from our class? Is it Liam Hall?”

  I cringe—Liam has been hitting on me all year, but I hate that smarmy asshole. “I met him… at the mall.”

  They don’t need to hear the whole sordid story.

  “I’m totally jealous,” I hear Beth mumble under her breath.

  “Anyway,” I say, “our movie is starting any minute, so…”

  “Come on, Kim,” Stacy says, tugging at her friend’s arm. “Leave poor Callie to her date. She deserves it after she nearly died from the flu last month—let the girl have some fun.”

  They would have left me. And that would have been the end of it, at least for now. Except then Dean wheels up with the popcorn and soda balanced precariously between his legs, coming to a halt right in front of my three classmates. I glance at the girls and see they’re each wearing identical expressions of shock on their faces. Kim’s eyes are glued to Dean’s legs, which are just barely keeping our movie snacks in place, although they shift slightly when he stops the chair so that he has to grab the food to keep it from falling. In the last hour, I’ve gotten the distinct impression he’s unable to move his legs at all.

  “Hey, Callie,” Dean says. “Uh… you ready?”

  “Let me grab that for you,” I tell him, rescuing the popcorn before it goes careening to the ground. His ears turn pink.

  “Oh…” Kim manages, her eyes finally lifting off my date’s legs. “I… um, I didn’t realize that…” She glances at the other girls, who are busy averting their eyes.

  “This is Dean,” I tell my classmates. “Dean, this is Kim, Stacy, and Beth. From school.”

  “Hey,” Dean says.

  Stacy and Beth both mumble their own hellos, while Kim says in an exaggeratedly loud voice, “It’s so nice to meet you!”

  Christ, is she for real?

  “We better get to our seats,” I tell them as I stuff my mouth with a handful of popcorn. Mmm, buttery. “But… um, have fun at your movie.”

  As Dean and I are walking away, I can feel three sets of eyes following us. And I can just barely make out Kim’s voice saying, “Oh my God, why would she go out with him instead of Liam?”

  I guess Dean hears it too, because he says, “Who’s Liam?”

  “Some jerk in my class.”

  He gives me a sideways grin. “Is he hot?”

  I laugh. “He definitely thinks so.”

  He laughs too. “Oh, that type.”

  I lov
e the way he sounds when he laughs. I love the way his blue eyes crinkle slightly around the edges. He’s so sexy. This feels like a moment when I wish I could reach over and take his hand, but again, it’s impossible. He’s using his hands to wheel his chair, after all.

  Before we get into the theater, Dean flicks his right wrist so that he turns to face me. His brows are scrunched together adorably as he looks up at me. “Did you really almost die from the flu?” he says.

  “Oh.” He must have heard what Stacy said just before he joined us. “Well, that might have been a slight exaggeration, but I was super sick. I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick before in my whole life.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Why else would I have canceled our date?”

  “Right.” He nods. “I know. I just… I wish I had… I don’t know, brought you soup or something.”

  “It’s better you didn’t,” I say. “Believe me, you did not want to catch this. Rhea quarantined me in my room and only gave me food that would fit through the crack under the door.”

  He smiles crookedly. “Well, I’m really glad you’re better. And we finally got to have our date.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  And we look at each other for a long, intense moment. I nearly reach out to take his hand, but I’m holding this giant popcorn as well as the rose and his hands are still on the pushrims of his chair, and it’s just… it’s not quite right. I’ll be sitting soon though. In a dark theater, right next to Dean. I just need to be patient.

  When we get into the theater, I finally have to concede that my idea to have our date on Valentine’s Day was a huge mistake. Even for this stupid movie, the theater is packed. It’s stadium seating, which means the only spots for wheelchairs are right smack in the middle of the theater. And the seats next to the open spaces are all taken.

  “Shit,” Dean mutters. “You probably should have gone ahead and found us seats while I was getting the popcorn.”

  “Well, we can…” I look at the people in the handicapped-adjacent seats. “We can ask them if they can move.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled about that.”

  “Look,” I say, flipping automatically into my lawyer mode. Well, law student. “This is priority seating for people with disabilities. They have to move.”

  Before Dean can object, I stride right up to a woman sitting in one of the seats in the middle. I clear my throat loudly until she looks up at me.

  “Hi,” I say. “My… friend here is in a wheelchair, so we need this priority seating.”

  The woman glances at Dean, who is staring down at his lap.

  “I think you’re supposed to park the wheelchair in the open spaces,” she says. “It has nothing to do with the seats.”

  “Right,” I say, “but then I can’t sit next to him.”

  She shrugs. “So maybe you should have gotten here earlier.”

  The woman turns back to the screen and doesn’t look up at me again until I clear my throat again loudly. “These seats are reserved for handicapped patrons and people accompanying them,” I remind her.

  “Look, missy,” the woman says. “The only seats left are in the front row, and I get a headache sitting up there. Your friend is welcome to park next to us, but I’m not budging just so you can get a seat even though you came late.”

  And then she turns back to the screen, having officially dismissed me.

  I turn to Dean, my mouth hanging open. “Can you believe this?” I say, loud enough for the woman to hear. “I’m going to go get the manager. This is illegal.”

  “No, Callie,” he murmurs. “Don’t do that.”

  “But they’re supposed to move!”

  “I don’t want to make a big thing of it,” he says through his teeth. He looks up me with pleading blue eyes. “Please just let it go. I’ll sit here and you can find another seat.”

  What the hell? I don’t even want to see this stupid movie, and I certainly don’t want to see it without Dean next to me.

  “What about the popcorn?” I say.

  “You can have it.”

  But what’s the point of getting popcorn if there isn’t a chance of accidentally touching hands in the bag? Otherwise, it’s just two-thousand calories for nothing.

  “The movie’s starting,” he says.

  I glance at the screen, then back at him. I hear someone hissing at me to sit down, and I know I don’t have much of a choice. We’re going to see this movie apart.

  Chapter 6: Dean

  I spend most of the movie feeling miserable.

  It doesn’t help that this movie is epically bad. I am definitely not in the seven percent who liked this film. There was no chance the storyline could distract me from the fact that Callie was all the way in the front row and I’m all the way in the middle, by myself. I only went to this movie to be with her. I don’t think I would have even enjoyed the zombie movie without her though.

  Instead of watching the movie, I get into my head. I replay the moment when her friends from school saw me and how plainly shocked they were that Callie would date a guy in a wheelchair. Well, no kidding—she’s gorgeous. She could probably date any guy in her class. Why would she be here with me?

  I’m sure they’ll say something to her next time they’ll see her. And after the disaster of tonight, she’ll probably agree with them.

  The only good news is I have verification Callie wasn’t using her illness as an excuse to get out of our date. She really was extremely sick last month. Of course, that makes me feel like an asshole for ever doubting her story.

  Somehow I manage to sit through ninety minutes of garbage, and then the movie is finally done. I can’t wait to get out of the theater, even if it means we’ve got to do a repeat of the snow calamity from earlier. I also manage to bash myself in the head with the frame of my chair while I’m pulling it inside with me, which I haven’t done in a long time, although at least I don’t knock off the rearview mirror like I did two weeks ago.

  “So where are our reservations?” Callie asks me, as I’m massaging the growing lump on my skull.

  “It’s a new French restaurant,” I say. “Just opened. It’s supposed to be really good. Do you like French food?”

  Callie bites her lip and she looks so cute. Maybe this date has been a disaster so far, but it’s got to get better. Maybe I can redeem myself over dinner.

  “To be honest,” she says, “I’ve never had French food.”

  “I have,” I say. “I’ve had French fries. Lots of times, actually.”

  It’s a cheesy joke, but she laughs. I take it as a good sign and head in the direction of the restaurant. I still have to concentrate on the road, but I don’t feel quite as tense as I did before the movie. Maybe this really will all work out. And the handicapped parking spot by the restaurant doesn’t have a huge pile of snow surrounding it, so I count that as a win.

  But the universe won’t allow me to enjoy my date for that long.

  Callie gets out of the car first, so I can retrieve my chair. I can see how cold she is by the way she’s jumping up and down and hugging herself, so I’m trying to be quick about it. But I have to push her seat forward and recline my seat all the way back to get at the chair. I manage to get her seat forward, but when I pull the lever to recline my seat, the damn thing won’t go back. Stupid cheap ass car. Of course, this would happen on a freezing night.

  I’m grabbing the lever desperately, yanking as hard as I can while I try to force the chair back with the weight of my body. It won’t budge. Which means I can’t get to my chair.

  Great.

  If Callie weren’t here, I’d be screwed with a capital “S.” But I’m not excited about making her retrieve the pieces of my chair for me either.

  She bends down and peers through the door at me. “Um, how’s it going?”

  I lean my head against the headrest. I don’t want to ask her for help yet again. Not after the snowdrift debacle. But what the fuck am I supposed to do? I can’t get out of the
car without being able to move the seat.

  “My seat’s jammed,” I tell her. “Do you think you could grab my chair from the back for me?”

  She does it, of course. She’s a really good sport. She brings me the frame and the two wheels, so I can reassemble it and climb back in. I recognize at this point I’ll need her help to get back in the car, and that when I get home, I’ll have to wake my mom up to help me get out. (Although—let’s face it—my mother will surely be waiting up for me.) And then I have to get this piece of shit car fixed.

  I’m not going to worry about that now though.

  Even with the handicapped spot, we still have to walk half a block to the restaurant. Callie is hugging her chest to keep warm, but I suspect her stockinged legs must be colder than her chest. Or her bare head.

  “Do you want my hat?” I say. (I’m trying to be gallant. Despite the fact that she’s the one who had to help me out of the car.)

  She pats her hair. “Um, no way. I spent nearly an hour with the curling iron—you think I’m going to put a hat on after all that work?”

  I can’t suppress a smile. She spent all that time trying to look good—for me. It’s flattering.

  “I wish I were a guy,” she says. “Then I could just pop right out of the shower, run a hand through my hair, and be done with it.”

  That is, admittedly, all I did with my hair tonight. But I won’t admit how long I spent obsessing over my outfit.

  “I do have to shave,” I remind her.

  “Yes,” she says. “Although you didn’t do a very good job.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Callie stops walking, and I grab the rims of my chair to stop too. She reaches out and touches a spot on the edge of my jaw. “Here. You nicked yourself.”

  Her fingers are so soft. Christ, I wish I could kiss her. But the positioning is all wrong. I’m a head shorter than she is and I have to look up at her. I hate having to look up at her—at everyone. I used to be over six feet. Now I get to spend my life looking up at everyone.