Page 23 of Hard to Pretend

I arrived at Seb’s place five minutes before I was due to pick him up. I texted him that I was downstairs and waited. He came downstairs with some curly haired blonde guy. I watched as he gave him a hug before they separated and Seb walked over to my car. He climbed into the front seat, and I drank in the way he looked. He was wearing a light green button down, and damn did it look good on him.

I was pretty sure that shade of light green was my new favorite color. At least it was better than justgreen.

We made small talk as we drove toward the restaurant we’d chosen: a quaint place by the beach that he’d once mentioned being a perfect first date location. I had never been, and I’ll admit I was a little wary. It was a seafood heavy restaurant, and I wasn’t big on seafood. But I’d looked at the menu online, and there were a few non-seafood options. I could figure something out, and I really did want to impress Seb on this date.

I was building it up again.

“Are you okay?” Seb asked as we got closer to the restaurant.

“Yeah,” I answered, my voice a little too fast.

He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, and then he shut it. Then he let out a small sigh and opened it again. “It’s just… your knuckles are really white right now.” I looked down at my hands. He was right. I was holding onto the steering wheel for dear life. “When my best friend, Jonas, gets anxious, he does that. So I ask again, are you okay?”

“I’m nervous,” I admitted. “I want this date to go well, and I may have gotten into my head a little about it.”

“Why?” His blunt question shocked me a little. I was about to answer when he spoke again. “I mean… We’ve gone on a few dates already. Why are you nervous about this one?”

“Because this one is real.” All of our other dates had clear boundaries. We knew what those dates were. They were all a means to an end: putting on a show for my friends or his mom. They didn’t have any stakes beyond the ones we’d assigned to them. They weren’t dates that could lead anywhere real. This one was, and I wanted that.

I felt the weight of his hand on my thigh followed by a light squeeze. It was the same reassurance I’d tried to offer him under the table at his mom’s house. “This one is real,” he agreed, “but it’s just a date. We already know that we can do dates really well. You don’t haveto try to impress me, Chris.” I heard his words, but I was having a very hard time believing them. “I mean it. I already like you, remember?”

He did?

That was news to me. Good news, but still news. I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise. If he didn’t like me, I didn’t think we’d be going on a real date. He would have kept the lines between fiction and reality clear.

He also wouldn’t have kissed me in the car.

“Okay.”

“Your knuckles are still saying that it’s not okay.” I glared at him and he laughed. The sound of his laughter relaxed me more than any of the words he’d said. “See, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Where we’re getting is the restaurant,” I teased as I pulled into the parking lot. I found a spot close to the front, and we went in.

It wasn’t busy, despite the fact that it was a nice Friday evening. We were seated outside with only a ten minute wait. I opened the menu and quickly found something that wasn’t seafood that sounded good. To my delight, it wasn’t chicken tenders. There had been too many times I’d been stuck with chicken tenders at restaurants just because I didn’t like the restaurant’s specialty. It was the pity food of every menu, and there were only so many times I could eat chicken tenders without feeling like a child.

They also weren’t date food.

Our server came and took our orders. I went with the chicken pasta I’d found, and Seb ordered a salmon dish that he looked a little too excited about.

“Do you not like seafood?” he asked once the server had stepped back inside.

“Not really.” Understatement, but I was still trying to impress him.

He looked incredulous. “Then why would you take me to a seafood restaurant?”

That answer was simple. I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Becausesomeonesaid that this was his dream first date restaurant, and I wanted to impress him.”

Seb rolled his eyes. “Next time, don’t take me to a restaurant you’re not going to like.”

“We don’t know that I won’t like it.”

“You don’t like seafood.”

“The chicken pasta sounded really good.” It was better than chicken tenders by a mile, and I would have taken the chicken tenders if it meant impressing Seb. Wasn’t that the whole point of a date? Impressing the person you liked while you got to know them in hopes that they might like you back?

“Next time, you’re choosing the restaurant,” Seb declared.

That was the second time he’d said next time. That was a good sign, given that we’d only just ordered food. Maybe he was just being an optimist, but something told me that wasn’t the case. It was acombination of the tone, the twinkle in his eyes, and the fact that I had gotten to know him in the time we’d been playing pretend. He could be an optimist, but he didn’t strike me as someone who would say next time if he didn’t mean it.

---