Another ding. Still at your place if you’re willing. I’m not proposing either theater or fancy restaurants. And a smiley face.
Relief tugged at my feelings. No fancy restaurants, no fork decisions, good. Right? Right. It’d be fine.
I sent back, Oh yay, I’m excited. And another smiley face. Because I was excited... I thought. Probably? I was definitely happy to see them. That was true and accurate. And if they’d had an idea about our date I didn’t want to disappoint them by being all like Sorry, can’t do it, would rather have a boring night of doing nothing instead.
Plus, they knew me really well and it would probably be the perfect thing even if it wasn’t what I was expecting. That seemed logical. Based on past experience.
Ding. I’m excited too and also a little nervous.
Ding. How was your day?
I took a slow breath and elected not to mention that I was hiding under my covers because my wedding suit was a threatening presence in the corner of my apartment. Pretty good. Event planning is going well. Dire Jack is actually less dire after I screwed up, which is nice.
Ding. People are strange sometimes.
Seriously.
I flailed with the pressure of acting normal like this was any other day when in fact I was freaking out. How was your day?
Ding. Good. Productive. Posted the usual Friday video. Shot a video for next week. Assembled some questions for our live Q and A on Monday.
Wow, I’d managed to forget we were doing that. The end of The Love Study. I’m a little sad to see the show end. What will I do on Mondays now?
Ding. I figured you’d be happy to have them to yourself again.
Which I wasn’t. Even though the pressure of racing to Sidney’s apartment would be off. I think I’ll miss it.
Ding. You can always come just to hang out, on camera or off. I think I said that before, but in case I didn’t.
That would be weird, though. Me just sitting there. I wouldn’t want to bother you.
Ding. I wouldn’t have offered if you bothered me. But obviously I don’t expect you to come over after work on Mondays just, you know, to come over.
Except I had been doing that. What were they really saying? That they didn’t want me to? That they did? I banged my head into the pillow a few times, which was more dissatisfying than failing at banging it into my steering wheel. They didn’t...expect me to come over. Dammit. Was that code for I should? Or I shouldn’t?
Ding. Sorry, I think I made this weird. Anyway, I was thinking about maybe asking Mara if she’d want to come on a new series of TLS. I’m 89% sure she’d run away in horror, but I might ask, anyway.
Ooooooh, that would be amazing. And I liked Mara so much the one time we’d managed to hang out. I sent back, Yes! Do! And she’s partially responsible for me having the guts to talk to you, so I sort of feel like we owe her whatever help we can give. (Or that she’s interested in.)
Ding. I didn’t know that! I forgive her for spilling my old show nickname then. With a winking emoji and immediate follow-up message: That winking thing looks way creepier than I thought it did, I officially take it back.
I smiled at my phone, which was admirably lighting up my duvet cave, though the screen was beginning to fog up from me breathing on it. Oh no, you’ve emoji-winked at me, no takebacks. I sent back five creepy winking faces and one tongue-out because I felt that best expressed my feelings on the matter.
Had they giggled when they saw that message? I hoped they’d giggled.
Ding. No takebacks on emojis does seem like a fair deal. I suppose...
EMOJIS ARE FOREVER
Ding. Literally lol. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Me too. You, not me. I look forward to me seeing you. Not the other way around. And before I even knew I was doing it, I added a heart eyes and hit send.
Sidney sent back a heart eyes.
I buried my head in my bed again.
Tomorrow would bring a chill, calm evening with my date. Huh, that didn’t sound as good to me when we weren’t together. A chill, calm evening with Sidney. Now that I could totally get behind. And on top of. And underneath. And against. And—
I braved the suit in order to eat some pasta with a pesto sauce I’d made. Too bad I didn’t have enough for our Valentine’s Date. I could make more. Or a different sauce. Maybe I’d play with ingredients in the morning. Just in case. Sidney had said they had an idea for our date, which might mean food, but with Sidney it was just as likely to totally not mean food, so making a sauce was good prep work. And if they’d already planned on food, no problem, I’d have leftovers for a few days.
If it wasn’t food, then what was their idea? But they said we’d still do it at my place, so it had to be pretty low-key, right? I hoped, anyway. That’s what I needed: a no-pressure date with my Sidney. My date. Sidney, my date. My date Sidney. Not my Sidney, that was weird.
Also, the suit was looking at me again.
I washed my face and brushed my teeth and climbed in bed to watch a documentary on art restoration, carefully facing away from the damn suit. Eventually I fell asleep with visions of cuddling dancing in my head. And no damn wedding suits.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In preparation for Valentine’s Date I cleaned my apartment and the big open kitchen/dining room/living room of the main house. Toby followed me around, lying in his bed in each space at an angle from which he could watch me clean. Then I made a sauce. A just in case sauce. Because you never know when you’re going to want to serve your datefriend pasta with a delicious homemade sauce (and it was delicious).
Fifteen minutes before our date was supposed to happen I remembered I hadn’t cleaned the half bath in the main house and ran over to do that, imagining myself in mid-toilet-scrub when the doorbell rang. But nope, avoided that by being mid-actual-peeing when the doorbell rang.
At least Toby understood me. He was a nervous pee-er too.
I didn’t know why I was suddenly nervous. Suit hangover? Wedding dread? That sounded bad. I shouldn’t be dreading the wedding. Or rhyming. I shouldn’t be plying rhymes about dreading weddings.
The doorbell rang again.
I banished Toby to the back yard and went to answer.
Sidney. Looked. Amazeballs. Dark gray shirt pinstriped a very subtle shade of violet, black brocade vest over that, and a flowy skirt. With clunky combat boots.
“You...you look fucking awesome.” I gestured to my own old-jeans-and-ratty-T-shirt combo. “I had no idea we were dressing up, I’m so sorry. I mean, I thought about dressing up, but then I thought maybe that would be strange, so I didn’t, but now I wish I had.”
They smiled and kissed me hello. “You always look good to me.”