by S. C. Adams
“Oh my god, I’m so happy for you.”
Andi smirks a little.
“Well, we haven’t even had a first date yet, but we did connect, so I think this could be good.”
I pause for a moment.
“Is that why you were worried about my first date?” It would make sense. Andi likes a guy she met under weird circumstances, and they haven’t gotten the chance to really hang out yet.
“Maybe I was projecting a little bit,” she admits. “Corey and I have been talking on the phone a lot which has been nice, but it’s not like being with one another for real. I mean, you and Tanner have had that, but I still think tonight is, I don’t know, special? I wouldn’t call it the beginning of everything because it’s more like a turning point. A time where your relationship could go either way.”
Anxiety strikes me in the chest again.
“I can see that,” is my slow reply. “Ugh, how are you so wise, Andi?”
She grins.
“I don’t know, Ky. I think I’m just amazing.”
“You really are.”
She takes the last bit of my hair and curls it.
“All done. Now I need to brush it.” She locates the brush on the vanity and cleans up the curls, and then puts my hair in an updo to keep it away from my face. “Okay, so your hair is done. I think we should eat before doing your makeup.”
“I agree. What do you want to order?”
“Pizza.”
“Pizza?”
“Exactly.”
Andi always knows what she wants, and I can’t fault her for that. It’s one of the reasons I love being her friend. She’s actually helped me get more comfortable in my own skin because before, I was always so wishy-washy while she was always determined and to-the-point.
We go to the living room where Andi whips out her phone and calls for the pizza.
“I would like bacon, pepperoni, and sausage on one, and can you make the second pie a white pizza with spinach and feta?” I can’t hear the other side of the conversation, but it sounds like Andrea is about to get exactly what she wants out of this guy. She hangs up after paying, and the two of us take a seat on the couch. I rest my head on her shoulder.
“Tell me more about Corey. What did you guys talk about that first night?”
“Um, we started out talking about you and Tanner. Corey was asking me about the two of you, and I told him some stuff. Nothing too crazy, don’t worry. The conversation eventually moved to us, and I told him I was in college studying computer science, and he told me some stuff about his job. It definitely sounds like he has his shit together, which is more than what I can say for myself.”
“Andi, you’re still in school.”
“I know, but I like that about him. It’s weird because I’ve never been so interested in a guy without knowing a whole lot about him. I mean, I’m always so apprehensive about actually letting people into my life.”
“I know, Andi, but if you like him? Doesn’t that make a huge difference?”
She sighs.
“Yeah, and the same goes for you. If you really love Tanner, I want you to grab this chance by the balls. Or maybe grab him by the balls. Whichever you think is best.”
She breaks down into giggles, and I join her. My friend is absolutely ridiculous but also, so friendly and open-hearted.
The pizza arrives, and the two of us go through quite a bit of it. I try to save space in my stomach for whatever Tanner is planning because this is a special night tonight. Our first date. I don’t want him to think that I don’t like the food he made simply because I gorged before going over.
The rest of getting ready goes by rather nicely. It’s full of laughter and good times. I tell Andi I want to re-enroll into college next semester because after everything that’s happened, I feel like my head is back in the right place.
Seven o’clock rolls by, and I say goodbye to Andrea.
“I’ll let you know how the date goes. All the details,” I promise.
“You better. Have fun and don’t worry too much about what I said. I know you guys will figure everything out if it’s meant to be.”
I hope she’s right.
“Thanks, and good luck with Corey.”
I head downstairs, and the car is there waiting just like Tanner said it would be. Oh, I’m so nervous. But no more dilly-dallying. I’m ready to fully jump into this relationship and see what it brings.
The car arrives Tanner’s place, and I go up to his apartment. My heartbeat’s racing. Andi did a really good job with the hair and make-up but I can’t help feeling insecure.
But it’s time. I knock on the door. I’m breathless and can’t wait.
“Coming,” a deep voice growls from inside.
A few seconds later, the wide slab opens and Tanner’s standing there. He looks absolutely gorgeous, per usual. He has on a navy-blue sweater and a nice pair of tailored khakis. Even when he answered the door in those dingy sweatpants, he was hot as fuck with his long legs and broad, muscular chest. My mouth waters, and it’s not just because of the incredible food smells drifting to my nostrils.
“Would you like to come in?” I nod. Tanner steps aside to let me inside. “Do you want me to take your jacket?”
“Oh, sure.” Tanner takes my light coat from my shoulders and heads to a nearby closet to hang it up.
He comes back over and motions to the table.
“Can I get a kiss, sweetheart? Why so formal?”
I jerk a little.
“You could tell?”
He laughs, and my heart melts a bit.
“Of course I could, baby girl. You’re so tense, but there’s no reason to be. I want you to be here, and you want to be here too, so what is there to be worried about?”
A million things! the voice in my head screams. But I lean into him for a kiss, and the moment our lips meet, everything seems better. We’re just about to go deeper into the embrace when Tanner pulls away.
“Nuh-uh, baby girl. I want this to be special. Dinner is already plated and we can start eating right away or wait a little bit if you’d like? I’m not really sure how to start this thing off.”
“I’d love to eat,” I say with a smile. “I’m hungry.”
“After you.” I sit down and look at the food in front of me. It looks delicious, and I can’t believe Tanner made this meal all by himself.
“Thank you for doing this. I can’t believe you went to all this trouble.”
“Of course, baby girl. I want you to get to know me, all the many sides of me.”
I smile.
“I want to get to know you, too.”
We stop talking for a little bit and dig into the food. The steak cuts like butter because it’s so soft. I can’t believe how tender it is.
I put a piece of it on my tongue, and it practically melts.
“Oh my god, this is amazing!” I moan reverently.
He chuckles and I cut more bites, basically stuffing myself. After a few seconds, I realize I must look insane. I’m shoveling food into my mouth like a starving woman.
“Sorry, I got a little lost in how yummy this is,” I say with my cheeks going red. Tanner chuckles.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m so happy you like it that much. I mean, I must be an amazing cook,” he jokes.
“You are. I can’t wait to eat whatever else you cook. I’ll probably go up a few pants sizes, eating all this food.”
He grins and then goes serious.
“Sweetheart, actually I think you’d be even more sexy if you gained twenty pounds. Have you thought about it?”
My cheeks go red. Everyone in my life has always told me that I need to lose weight. To hear these words from Tanner are a miracle, and I melt once more.
We continue chatting, and the conversation is nice and light. But then, we go quiet after a few minutes. I feel like we’re both holding back a little bit. Maybe he’s nervous like I am? But I want to show him that we can work this out. It’s been
great so far, and the only way to move is forward.
“So, I thought we were going to ask each other questions?” I ask.
“We can. What do you want to know?”
“Um,” I start. I can’t believe I haven’t prepared. All that time getting ready with Andrea, and I never thought to make a list of questions that I should ask Tanner. Ugh.
“Having trouble?” he asks with an amused grin.
“A little bit, yeah,” I nod. “I don’t know what I should know about you. Do you have any siblings?”
“I do, I have a younger sister.” That’s interesting. I’d imagined Tanner as an only child, seeing his penchant for being alone. This is strange but I try not to show it.
“What’s her name?”
“Lacey. She has a son named Jason, and he’s really adorable.”
“You have a nephew?” I ask, flummoxed.
“I do. He’s about two. I actually haven’t seen him in a while, but I’m hoping to get out there more.”
“Where do they live?”
“New Jersey. I saw my sister a couple of days ago, but Jason was at daycare during my visit.”
I can’t believe he has a sister and a nephew. Well, I’ll be damned.
“Is there a reason why you don’t see your sister a lot?” I ask carefully.
Tanner turns his head and looks off to the side. I think I may have hit a nerve.
“You don’t have to answer my question if you don’t want. It’s totally fine.” Maybe we aren’t at a point where we can tell one another just anything yet. After all, we fell into one another, and might need to slow down and grow this relationship at its own pace.
He takes a deep breath.
“No, I want to tell you,” he begins. Tanner looks back at me. “Growing up was hard for Lacey and me. When we were really young, it was fine, but when our parents died, things kind of fell apart. I had this overwhelming need to get away from our life. I couldn’t take it, and as a result, I ran away and left Lacey all alone.”
I hold my breath, listening to Tanner’s tale. I never realized things were so difficult for him during his childhood.
“What do you mean, you ran away?”
He heaves a deep breath.
“I went to college, and never came home during the entire four years. Lacey was staying with some friends, and she must have felt all alone because she fell in with some bad people.”
“Bad people?” I echo.
He shakes his head, looking tortured.
“I don’t want to get into it, but they dabbled in drugs and crime. Everything that goes around comes around, and basically, Lacey ended up going to jail for a while. After she got out, we reconnected, but she wasn’t ready to have me back in her life immediately, so we spent even more time apart. About seven years ago, she contacted me, and we started rebuilding our relationship. Five years ago, she moved to New Jersey. She’s actually been using her past experiences to help other people, and three years ago a woman she was trying to get out of her own tough spot had a baby and left the kid with Lacey. And he’s been with her ever since.”
That sounds insane. Tanner looks torn up, and I put my hand on top of his on the table. He takes a deep breath, looks at our connection and smiles.
“I’ve never really talked to anyone about this before. It feels nice to open up, believe it or not.”
“I’m happy you told me,” is my gentle reply.
He clears his throat.
“Anyway, my sister wants to meet you.”
I’m flabbergasted.
“You told her about me?”
“I did, and it’s actually the reason why I went to go see her. Being with you, finally opening myself up after so many years, it made me realize I needed to connect with my family, and put all these unhealthy feelings behind me.”
“So it sounds like seeing your sister went well.”
He nods.
“Yeah, she wasn’t mad or anything. She wants what I want, to be a family again. And I want to give that to her and get to know my nephew. I want you to get to know her and my nephew too.”
My heart is overwhelmed. He wants to introduce me to his family? Oh my gosh. Tonight is absolutely perfect, and I don’t how it could get any better.
“I’d love to meet them,” I say with tears in my eyes.
He squeezes my hand, a little emotional himself.
“What about you, Kylie? Do you have a soul-baring speech you want to give me?” he jokes with a hitch to his voice.
I don’t know. I’ve told him about my emotions quite a few times. It’s why I was so embarrassed. I felt like I had given so much emotionally to Tanner, while the scales were unbalanced because he was a master at keeping everything so close to the chest. I take a deep breath.
“I mean, I had a pretty okay childhood. My mom was a bit of a monster, which I’m sure you know about, but my Aunt Jane and her husband Gordon were the ones who really raised me. I think, in the grand scheme of things, I got pretty lucky that there was someone there for me, to keep me from totally becoming lost.”
He shoots me a wry smile.
“It looks like we’re two wandering souls who happened to find one another, huh?”
I smile back, my eyes a little watery.
“Maybe.”
He squeezes my hand again.
“I love you Kylie,” he says, and my heart soars.
“I love you too, Tanner.”
We continue eating, and the conversation is happier from here on out. Tanner tells me about his college days, starting his company, and getting to where he is now. It sounds like he really struggled to get to this point, but it’s okay because that’s all in the past.
We finish our dinner. Tanner clears the table, telling me he doesn’t want me to lift a finger. I watch him clean, and then he comes up behind my chair so that I have to tilt my head to look at him.
“Sweetheart, I have a second part of our date planned, but it’s outside of this apartment.”
I twist in my seat to look into his handsome face. But I’m confused.
“I thought going out in public wasn’t a good idea? Because of my mom and everything that happened?”
After all, New York society can be cruel. I’m just a nobody, in the grand scheme of things. I never really went to parties or did anything with the rest of high society, but I know they wouldn’t hesitate to use this affair to destroy Tanner’s reputation.
“I can see that you’re alarmed. But never fear; to keep things private, I rented out the planetarium, so there will be no one there except staff. We can go look up at the stars on the ceiling and enjoy the amphitheater. Would you like that?”
I gasp.
“Oh my gosh, the entire planetarium at the Natural History Museum? For the entire night?”
He smiles, pleased.
“Yep. I want us to have some alone time while being out, and this seemed like the perfect way.”
I throw my arms around his shoulders.
“Yes, let’s go. I definitely want to do that.” He kisses the top of my head and chuckles.
“Let’s get out of here then.”
We grab our coats, put on our shoes, and head downstairs. Tanner calls a car, and we head up to the planetarium.
It’s just like he described it. There are only a few people milling about, and they appear to be employees. We’re ushered to the amphitheater, and it feels like I can see all the stars in the sky. It looks so real, like we’re actually looking up at the Milky Way in all its splendor.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“Yeah, it’s beautiful,” Tanner rumbles.
I hear a cart being rolled in and sit up to look.
“Mr. Logan.” Whoever rolled it in bows their head a little bit before leaving, and I look at Tanner expectantly, wondering what’s going on.
“Sweetheart, I got a few desserts from my favorite place delivered. I thought you might like to try them out, and see another little tidbit about me.”
I sta
nd up and pull the cover off the cart. There are so many snacks littered on the platter, I don’t think we’ll be able to even come close to finishing all this food.
“Oh, my goodness. It’s so much.”
“I went a little overboard, didn’t I?” Tanner stands next to me, inspecting the treats with a critical eye.
“No, this is perfect. You’re perfect.” I pick up the first one that appeals to me, a pastry with what looks like raspberry jelly in the center. Maybe a Danish?
I take a big bite, and the flaky edges break off in my mouth. Oh, it’s so good. I grab another, my eyes already bigger than my stomach even though I just ate a full meal.
Tanner makes two plates, and we go back to our seats. I’m so busy eating that it takes me a few seconds to realize that the screen has changed from the projected stars to the start of a movie.
“What’s going on?”
“I had them play a movie for us.”
I keep watching, waiting to see what Tanner has chosen for us. Then I squeal.
“Is this The Proposal? I love this film!” Sandra Bullock is my favorite actress, and I adore Ryan Reynolds too. He smirks a bit in the dark.
“I had a feeling you might like it.”
This man seriously is the perfect boyfriend. I can’t believe I was worried at all. Maybe Andrea was right about not really knowing one another. There were so many things that Tanner told me about himself that were complete news to me, but I’m happy he opened up. It couldn’t have been easy, admitting to his childhood and unhappy family when he’s normally so private.
But that was then and this is now. Now, I’m allowed to ask all the questions I want, and I feel like we’re stronger because of that openness. I snuggle into my boyfriend’s side, throwing my limbs over his body. He rubs my legs, drawing broad circles. The two of us laugh and eat, and I realize that this relationship is the one that I want, and likely for the rest of my life.
Maybe it’s weird or unconventional. Maybe it goes against some peoples’ sensibilities. Maybe people will judge us until our dying day, but at this point, it doesn’t matter. I’m ready to be happy, and I know with Tanner, that fulfillment and true contentment are right there in my grasp.
Epilogue
Kylie