An angel and her demons.

29. Coffee date

It was the morning after the dance.

I woke up to my phone ringing. Acacia had called to say how much fun she had had and how she wanted to take me on a date.

I got very excited and of course, I said yes.

We met in a small café in the East Village, a place Acacia had suggested when we'd spoken on the phone. It was a small, quaint space, a single square room with just a handful of tables. It smelt of old books and coffee. It had a very dark academia theme to it as it was decorated with shelves of old books leaning against the walls.

Acacia was there, sitting at a table reading a paperback book and sipping from a small coffee cup when I arrived. When she looked up from its pages, though it was I whom she was waiting on, I had a feeling I was interrupting her. I hesitated for a moment but when she noticed my presence she beckoned me forward, with just the look in her eye.

"You look beautiful." She smiled as she closed the book and placed it down.

"As do you." I smiled as I pulled out the chair facing opposite her. "What were you reading?" I inquired.

"Jane Eyre." She replied.

"Charlotte Brontë. A good choice." I smiled at her literary choice.

She laughed, "I love the classics." Nodding in agreement.

"Would you like a top up?" I asked, acknowledging her empty mug. "That would be great. Thankyou"

I stood up and walked towards the barista. I ordered two French vanilla cappuccinos and chocolate muffins before walking back to the table.

"I hope you don't think my choice of a first date is lame or too ordinary." She awkwardly chuckled as I sat in front of her.

"It's not lame. It's simple. The coffee date - I now firmly believe is the most underrated and underestimated of all social reactions that require us to turn off Netflix and put on real pants, or skirts in my case." I gave her a small smile.

I loved the idea of coffee dates... they are magical.

It's not coffee, the beverage, that holds the magic; it's coffee, the social activity. There are thousands of Pinterest boards devoted to planning the perfect first date, most of them all begging to quit hiding behind technology and schedules and to be "cute" and "romantic" instead. Coffee certainly isn't either. It is a networking activity.

However, it is a drop of modern-dating armour. With something simple as coffee, you can't rely on anything else to fill the space of getting to know the stranger sitting across from you, to distract from the awkwardness that brings. You can't be a dating performance artist nailing all your lines; you have to be a person. And activities and adventures are exciting, but sometimes you just want someone you can sit still with. And that is exactly what Acacia was. Someone I wanted to sit still with and just talk with.

It's just the right amount of practical to make the date seem more like a conversation, and less like an event. If that's what too ordinary feels like, give me too ordinary every time.

Yet, it required an aspect of spontaneity, there was no time to brainstorm elaborate pre-planned topics of conversation, which welcomed a challenge - we had nothing to do on this date expect talk, but we had to rely on one another to keep the conversation going. Which surprisingly we managed with no fault.

At first, I had wound my hands around my cup with nerves which Acacia noticed. The handwringing led to a conversation on nervousness, which led to us talking about an article on anxiety we'd both read, which, in turn, led to us chatting about the biggest sources of nerves, like school, family and moves and what comes next. An unlikely starting point, but we learned each other's friends' names when we talked about who was moving where. We discovered mutual likes and dislikes as we recounted the best and worst of pizza toppings, movies, and false starts, like accidentally melting a cutting board during an ill-fated cooking attempt.

One hour turned into two, "I know a good Italian pizza place around the corner." Became dinner, and dinner became shopping in target, target of all places, for all the candy we could carry and heading into a movie we both really wanted to see.

It was powerfully normal, and I was grateful for it.

After the movie Acacia walked me back to the car I had begged Enzo to let me drive. I knew how to drive I just never really had the opportunity to do so since coming to New York.

"This is me." I smiled at my blue jeep.

I loved this car and after constant whining, Ales said I could have it.

"Nice ride." Acacia ran her hand across the body of my car.

"I know right." I smirked.

She took two steps closer to me, so her hands were on my waist and I was looking up at her.

"Goodnight Charlotte." She whispered seductively in my ear. My breath got caught in my throat.

"N-night Acacia." I replied.

She leant in and looked me in the eyes, before her lips fall on mine. The feeling of love and passion filled my soul.

Then she crashed into me, her lips on mine.

It was as if that kiss was meant to be mine. As if Acacia and I were meant to kiss.

When she grabbed me and held me closer in order to kiss me so passionately, it made me feel safe and completely vulnerable to her.

I felt as if my body was ready to explode into a million pieces of happiness.

This kiss was more passionate than any we have had before. It was hungry and desperate.

Kissing her was like opening up my soul. It was as if I were tasting, feeling and seeing every colour of the rainbow in their own sensual way.

It was almost like catching a smile in a bottle, its softness, its sweetness.

Breathing in her was like a cool inhalation of oxygen to warm the soul.. Like nothing in the world existed but her and I...

I was overcome with the feeling that I was levitating off the ground, floating in the air.

What I was feeling at this moment in time could not be put into words, nor has there get been any part of speech or figure of speech invented to describe it.. It was like an aphrodisiac, mixed with a Pandoras box effect, fireworks glowing inside of me from the touch of Acacia's lips on mine.

The kiss felt as if my whole world had been waiting for this moment. As if all the love inside of my soul, as well as my body combined into pure lust and passion.

When she pulled away I could still taste the sweetness of the candy on her tongue, the bitterness of the coffee on her. She was the perfect mix of pure deliciousness.

"Goodnight princess." She kissed my cheek and opened my car door.

"Goodnight." I jumped into my car, I looked in the mirror and watched as she got into her own car.

I quickly messaged my brothers to let them know I was on my way home.

I drove home, reliving the day's events.

Both blushing and smiling harshly.