by Leila Lucas
“Sorry, guys, just letting you know that we’re packing up the truck now, so I’ll have to clean this up before I leave.” A bearded man with a man bun stands right next to the bench. Neither of us noticed that absolutely everyone left the park.
“Can’t believe I finally take you out on a date and we ate burgers from a food truck. And that stupid restaurant with miniature food…” He shakes his head as we throw the last few bits of rubbish into the trash bag.
“I know, right? Worst. Date. Ever,” I say in a serious tone.
“Fuck. Sorry. I just…” He rubs his forehead. Now I feel bad for teasing him because he genuinely thinks he disappointed me. It couldn’t have been any further from the worst date. It’s one of those moments I will replay in my head night after night before I go to sleep. The type of moment that will interrupt a reading session because I can’t concentrate on someone else’s love story when mine is better.
“I’m just kidding, Dyl.” I turn to him and link my fingers with his. “Walking in sky-high shoes that are absolutely killing my feet, eating three bites of a stupidly expensive cut of meat, then eating a burger with you is the perfect date.” I’ve never been so into someone on a date that things were happening around me and I was totally unaware. I couldn’t tell you when everyone left the park, or if I was cold, or if my poor squished toes hurt at all while sitting down. He had my complete attention the entire time.
He looks down at my shoes and frowns. “You said they were comfortable.”
“I lied.”
He suddenly lets go of my hand, bends over, and puts his arm under my knees and lifts me up.
“What are you doing?” I hold on to his shoulders.
“Carrying you to the car.”
“No! Put me down. You can’t carry me all the way to the car.” I try to wiggle my feet around so he would put me back down.
“Watch me. Plus, my hand gets to be close to your ass for the whole two blocks and there’s a chance I can see down your top.” He grins cheekily. Unfortunately for him my sweater neckline is very high, not that there is much to see anyway.
I wrap my arms around his neck and lean my head on his shoulder. Despite only knowing him for five months, his cologne already feels safe and familiar.
* * *
“This date didn’t go as planned.” He cringes as we stand in front of my door.
“Looks like you have to take me on a second one to make up for it.”
“I like how you think.” He laughs.
He steps toward me, moving the hair away from my face. His hands rest on my neck as he gently pulls me toward his him. I lean in and kiss him and in that moment I learn that not all kisses are the same. I’ve kissed boys. Plenty of boys. But this? This felt different. It sent a weird shiver down my spine and butterflies in my stomach. It felt nice. It felt safe. It felt perfect and I didn’t want it to end.
DYLAN
“You smell rich.” Chester gets way too close to my face.
“And you’re wearing your good clothes.” Ben gives me a once-over. That part is definitely accurate. Chloe always has nice clothes. Even when she’s in tights and a sweatshirt things always match. Sometimes it’s something as small as her nail color matching her shirt or her earrings, but it makes it look as if she spends an hour choosing her outfit every day. And maybe she does. I don’t know but either way I had to dress to impress. So I did wear my good clothes, good clothes I paid good money for. But it was worth it because she, as usual, looked perfect and I didn’t want to look too out of her league.
“Go away.”
“What’s wrong with your face?” Ben stares at me.
“What’s wrong with it?” I wipe my mouth, hoping I didn’t have tomato sauce on my face this entire time.
“You look… weird.” He squints like it will help him figure out something. I look in the mirror in the hallway and thankfully there’s nothing on my face.
“Happy,” Chester yells out.
“YES! That’s it! Happy! You look happy.” Ben high fives Chester like it was a huge accomplishment. They’re not wrong, though. I’m generally a happy person, but I’ve had a smile plastered on my face the whole way home. It’d probably explain why so many passersby were giving me weird looks.
“Where did you go?” Chester crosses his arms like my dad used to do when I did something wrong.
“Out.”
“Out where?” Chester pesters.
“On a date.” I admit. No point in lying, they’ll find out anyway.
“Chloe?” Ben grins knowingly.
“Yes, Chloe. I’m going to bed now.”
“You better not fuck things up. We like Chloe,” Ben yells as I shut my bedroom door. Ben hated Jenna ever since we started dating. He was always nice to her when she was around, but he hated having her hang out with us. There was never a good reason, up until she cheated, but there was some sort of immediate hatred I never understood. So seeing him genuinely like Chloe is nice. And fucking things up with Chloe is something I’m afraid of too because she and Vikki have quickly become good friends of ours and they fit into our group seamlessly.
CHLOE
“Sooooo… how was the date? What did you do? Did he kiss you? Was there tongue? Did you hold hands? Will there be a second date?” Vikki tucks her feet in under her butt.
“Great. Ate burgers after the restaurant. He did. There wasn’t. We didn’t, but he did carry me for a while. I hope so.”
“Do you regret breaking your pact with yourself yet?”
“Not right now. But I will hate myself if he breaks my heart.”
“He better not. If he does I’ll get my people onto him.”
“Who are your people?” I laugh.
“That’s for me to know. Anyway, verdict on the kiss?”
“You know I’ve written so many stories that have first kisses yet never actually experienced any of those moments until last night. Well, it was better. It was beyond the butterflies and heart flutter. I can’t even describe it to you.” Just the thought of the kiss gives me the same feelings all over again.
“Look at you, so mushy and crap. It’s disgusting.” She pretends to puke. “If you two end up getting married and having babies your first born better be named after me. All this is happening because I moved here. And I told you to move here. I take credit for all of it. I’m amazing.”
“So humble.” I laugh. “But sure, first born will be Victoria or Victor.”
“YES! I love him/her already!” Vikki pretends to cradle a baby.
“All right, weirdo, I think you are deliriously sleep-deprived.”
Chapter Fifteen
DYLAN
It has officially been twenty-four hours since my date with Chloe. How do I know this? Because I’ve been obsessively thinking about her since the second we parted ways last night. I keep replaying the night like a lovesick teenage girl. I’m not sure what the exact post-date text protocol is these days, but I figure an entire day was a safe amount. Not too eager but not too hard to get. Who am I kidding? I’ve had my phone out the second I got home to send her a message but had no idea what to write. Then when I did finally think of something I was paranoid that I was going to scare her off. Now I can’t help but imagine her waiting by her phone all day for a text. This is why dating regularly would have been ideal for me because when it came to the girl I’d actually know what to do. But here we are, idiot twenty-four-year-old about to send a text to a girl.
D: Thank you for saving the disastrous date last night. You asked me to make it up to you with a second date so… when are you free next?
I press send and stare at the screen. Within seconds Chloe typing shows up.
C: Please tell me that you have been waiting to hit the 24hour mark on purpose
Oh for fuck’s sake. I laugh to myself.
D: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
C: Liar :P It was far from disastrous and I’m free right now. Are you?
I can’t tell if she�
��s serious or not, so I wait to see if I’ll get any follow-up texts. A few seconds later she sends me a photo of a huge stash of junk food sitting on her coffee table with Netflix turned on in the background.
C: I was supposed to have a movie night with Vikki but she had to fly out to LA a day earlier. So it’s just me, myself and all this food.
D: What are you planning to watch?
I quickly put my shoes on, throw a jacket on, and fix my hair in the mirror before I leave the house. I don’t really care what she plans on watching.
C: Undecided. Either something cute and cheesy or something just straight up terrible.
D: You’d watch something terrible on purpose?
C: Of course! It’s funny without even trying. And if it includes bad acting and CGI, even better.
Thanks to her slightly delayed responses I managed to get to her apartment building before I even told her I’m coming. After I knock on her door I hear her footsteps approaching.
“Wow, you’re actually here!” She laughs before she even opens the door.
“You offered me food and your company. Did you really think I’d say no?”
“You mentioned food before my company. I see how it is.” She pouts. I have to hold myself back from grabbing her cheeks and kissing her. “Speaking of food, food that’s better than me apparently, have you had dinner? We were going to order in because the fridge is pretty empty.”
“I’ll order pizza?” I watch her move some cushions off her couch.
“Pizza sounds good. I’ll have Hawaiian, please.” She motions for me to sit.
“Hawaiian?” I pretend to gag. “With pineapples?”
“Well, duh! Otherwise it’d just be ham and cheese pizza.” She looks at me like I’m the weird one before disappearing into the kitchen.
“I really wish you told me you like pineapple on pizza. That’s the important stuff you cover on a first date,” I say a little louder so she can hear me.
“If I told you yesterday then you wouldn’t be here right now.” She comes back to the lounge room with sodas. “What did you get, McJudgy Pants?”
“Pepperoni,” I say confidently.
Chloe tilts her head back on the couch and pretends to snore. “I wish you told me how boring you are on our first date.”
“Boring is better than fruit on pizza. And pepperoni isn’t boring, it’s a classic staple. I don’t know what the Hawaiians were thinking putting fruit on pizza.”
“It originated in Canada, actually. And tomato is a fruit and it’s all over your pizza base, but you don’t complain about that.”
“You know way too many facts about Hawaiian pizza.” I laugh.
“I’ve had to defend my taste in pizza many times.”
“I bet.”
The pizza arrives just in time for a Sharknado marathon. Not only was the name of the movie enticing in the worst way possible, but it somehow made enough money to be a franchise. So more movies to watch is more time spent with Chloe.
“You can move the coffee table closer so you can stretch your legs out.” Chloe comes out of her bedroom with a couple of blankets.
“You sure you want my feet on your table?” My mom might have lived with three males, but we never dared to put our feet on the table. Not even when she wasn’t home.
“Yeah, Vikki does it all the time. You tall ones don’t have much room in this small space. Just don’t put your feet in the pizza.”
“That won’t be happening.”
“You’d be surprised how many times it has happened to Vikki.”
“Hopefully it was in the Hawaiian one.” Good thing my instincts told me to cover my face because a cushion went flying right into it.
Midway through the second movie Chloe was lying down across the other two seats with her head resting on my leg. I played with her hair and spent more time watching her cheeks rise as she’d laugh at something ridiculous on the screen.
“Are you up for another one?” She looks up at me. I was so immersed in watching her that I missed most of the movie.
“I think I’m too far deep into this mess to stop watching now.” I admit.
CHLOE
I open my eyes to see Dylan in my bedroom. Best view to wake up to, if I’m being honest.
“Do you want to lock the door behind me?” he whispers. It takes me a good few seconds to remember that we were watching TV in the lounge room before I must have fallen asleep on him.
“Are you stealing my stuff?” I watch him fold the blush pink throw I brought out into the lounge room earlier.
“Yes.” He takes my hand and helps me get out of bed. “I really like this color, but I guess I’ll just buy my own now that you’ve caught me.”
“This is the second time you’ve taken me to bed… And not even in a good way.” I follow him to the front door.
“I don’t mind.” He laughs. “It was a perfect date.”
“Does it count as a date?” There was dinner and a movie, which technically would be an ideal date, but it was far from one. I was in my sweatpants and the only form of intimacy was me falling asleep on his leg. Hardly sexy.
“I don’t care what we do together. I just want to spend time with you. So if you’re still interested in this”—he motions between us—“then it’s a date.”
I didn’t want to seem too forward inviting him the next day, but now I think I gave him the opposite impression. I was fully aware of every little thing he was doing, from staring at me more than the TV to running his fingers down my arm.
“I’m very interested in this.” I stand on my tiptoes and put my hand behind his neck and kiss him.
“I’m very interested in this too.” He tucks my hair behind my ear.
“Dylan?”
He turns to face me.
“Please don’t wait until seven to text me again.”
“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”
DYLAN
Red Bar is more crowded than usual today. It might have something to do with the fact it’s freezing cold outside, but I’m going to tell myself they’re all here to see us. As usual our regular table is already filled with the infamous Cheetos and a few new girls Jackson invited. There are a few bands performing tonight and since we went first we get to sit here and enjoy other people’s music for once.
The person I’ve been waiting to see all night has finally walked in. Seeing all these guys turn their heads and look at her while she walks straight to our table is the best fucking feeling in the world.
“Oh no, there’s no room for you, honey.” Cassandra pouts at Chloe while her friends giggle.
“There’s always room for my girlfriend at the table.” I motion for her to come to me and she quickly squeezes between the chairs and plonks herself on my lap and places a kiss on my lips. I’m sure that was mainly to piss off Cassandra and the girls, but I’m not complaining.
“Hi,” she says, not moving away from my face.
“Hi.”
“Sorry I missed the thing.” She motions to the stage. “I wanted to finish the book because it was so good but ended up being a cliffhanger. So that was disappointing. Like come on, who does cliffhangers without a warning? But really, I should have checked reviews before I read it. Anyway, then my mom called and she wouldn’t stop talking and then I checked the time and freaked out. So by the time I showered and got ready—”
“Chloe.” I laugh “It’s okay, you don’t have to come to every show.”
“I know. It’s not like I do anything on Friday nights anyway. Plus, even if I did I’d still want to watch you guys.”
“You two need to get a room,” Ben says loudly and everyone’s head turns toward us. “Disgusting,” Chester mutters. Chloe leans over and hides her face in the nape of my neck.
“You’re just jealous,” I bite back.
“Jealous of what?” Cassandra adds, but I ignore her. She’s been trying to get my attention for months now and I haven’t given her what she wants, so she’s bit
ter.
“We are pretty gross.” She laughs. I move the hair from her face and she looks up at me.
“I don’t care.” I kiss her again. I’ve never been into PDA, mostly because it is gross. I’ve wanted to kiss her from day one and have spent months convincing her to be mine, and now that she finally is, I’m going to kiss her every chance I get.
* * *
“You know, for an author I expected shelves and shelves of books. Like the Beauty and the Beast chick,” I say, hoping she wouldn’t bring up the fact I know my Disney princesses. Only three of the shelves on the book stand are filled with books. The rest have little knick-knacks and lots of framed photos. I’ve been to her place many times now but only just paid attention to her stuff.
“I only ever buy my favorites. The rest are all on my Kindles or iPad.” She walks back from the kitchen holding two ice cream tubs.
“Kindles? As in more than one?”
“Yeah.” She laughs, looking a little embarrassed. “Just two, though. I have trouble letting go of my books, so I keep them all. That’s why I don’t have many physical books, not until I have my own place. Then I’ll have a library like the Beauty and the Beast chick.” She cheekily smiles at me. My God, she’s so beautiful it’s hard to peel my eyes away from her. Before I say something stupid I turn my head back toward the bookshelves and look around at her collection where I recognize one series of books.
“Twilight? I thought you were better than that,” I joke. I haven’t read the books, but I was forced to watch the first movie with Jenna and it was amazingly good… at putting me to sleep.
“Hey!” She frowns a little. “It’s rude to insult someone’s personal taste in books.”
“Sorry.” I lift my hands up in defense and she laughs.
“All of these played a big part in my life somehow. Colleen Hoover got me into the genre I now write myself.” She moves closer to me and runs her fingers across a bunch of books. “Lauren Layne and Jay McLean have the top shelf because they make me laugh, so I read them when I’m in a bad mood. And Twilight? Well, I just really love the books. I know it’s frowned upon, but I don’t care.” She smiles as she looks up at her collection of books stacked on top of each other. “Then the classics; Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Shakespeare. Not particularly favorites, but they were gifts.”