Lordy.
Mark eventually walks off, leaving us alone again until the server drops by with our entrées.
I push the asparagus around on my plate with a fork tine, debating how to begin the conversation or if I should let it go.
It’s not a big deal.
It’s not.
So why do I feel like it is?
If Drew notices my silence, he hasn’t let on. He cuts his steak with a knife and happily pops a piece in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he smiles across the table at me.
Clueless.
Like a typical male…
But this is our first date, and I don’t want to ruin it by being salty.
Then again, I’m a raging hormone. After all, I was pregnant last week. I literally cannot help this wave of emotion I’m feeling, regardless of how trivial it may or may not be.
Drew fidgets when I frown over at him, and I’m taken back to high school—to the night I watched him from the corner of our basement, during a party, try to hit on one of the popular girls in their grade and she shut him down.
He stammers, “How’s your dinner?”
He talks, but my brain is mush.
This is my childhood friend…
Drew is the boy of my dreams, and now he’s telling people I’m his childhood friend, which basically equates to “this is my friend’s little sister.”
God, I’m a mess.
An emotional mess.
Why couldn’t he have said, “This is my date, Tess?”
Would that have made me happy?
Yes.
One hundred percent yes…
DEAR DIARY…
I thought Drew was coming home for the weekend. I mean—it’s Christmas, why wouldn’t he? So like an idiot, I made an emergency appointment to get my hair done (my roots look terrible) and got a trim, and bought a new outfit at the mall thinking that MAYBE I would see him? The night before Christmas everyone who’s home from college always gets together at the Grain Feedery for dancing and drinks and I’m the idiot because I thought Drew would be there. EVERYONE goes and who doesn’t come home for the holiday??? It’s Christmas for crying out loud. But no. The Colters have that Bowl game they’re playing in so we have to watch them on TV along with the rest of the Nation which isn’t fair, is it?
How dumb did I feel standing around in that new dress, waiting on a boy who wasn’t gonna show up. Dumb.
I give up…
x Tess
CHAPTER54
DREW
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