NO HERO · BARRY ALLEN | ✘

Seven: Half a Blind Date

"EVIE, GET THE DOOR!" Layla screams as she slides in her earrings in front of her vanity mirror.

Jeez, fine. When I open the door, a man in his mid-20s with a suit and a small bouquet of flowers stares at me and grins. "Are you..."

"Nope, I'm not. LAYLA! YOUR DATE'S HERE! I'm sorry, you are?"

"I'm Colin. I wasn't looking for Layla, I was looking for an... Evelyn Beauchard?"

Wait, what.

I stare blankly at him, unable to process his last sentence. "Um, I'm Evelyn. Could you hold on just a second? I think there's been a mistake." I close the door and turn around to Layla, who's grinning wider than the Cheshire cat. "Layla, what the hell?"

"Told you dates would show up! He's a friend of the guy I was dating around Christmas. Cute, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but I'm not ready to start dating! The closest I got was an intense makeout session with Riley Benson, and he thought I was his girlfriend!"

She folds her arms across her chest. "I prepared you with all the chick flicks in the world."

"Yeah, when we were 15."

"He is a test run. To prepare you for Barry. I went through all this trouble, can you at least do this please, for me?"

I chew the inside of my cheek. "Fine. Just give me ten minutes. Invite him in so he doesn't think I stood him up."

"That's the spirit!"

I hurry upstairs to assemble everything I'm going to wear and my makeup, which consists of nothing but mascara and tinted chapstick.

When I arrive at the bottom of the stairs, he stands up and adjusts his tie. "You look stunning."

One brownie point. I smile. "Thanks, Colin. um, I'm allergic to flowers."

"I heard you were allergic to daisies, so I got lilies instead. Casa blanca, to be specific."

My favorite. Stalker.

"Shall we go?"

"Um, where?" I take the arm he offered and the lilies. Layla flashes me a thumbs up before closing the door behind us.

He smiles. Wow, damn, his smile is pretty gorgeous. "Some place nice, I promise."

~*~

I swallow the last bit of champagne (then spit it out onto my napkin). I really don't like it, but I'll bet the price is higher than how much I make in a week. Also, sit-down events are not my thing. I keep fidgeting in my chair, desperate to walk around.

"And I find out that the boss's son was trying to feel up my engaged sister and mom goes crazy."

"My mom would go into psycho mode if that happened to me too."

"Then my boss sues her and we find out that his son was trying to get me through my sister!"

I laugh along with him, nearly pushing the champagne bottle of the table. He'd told me a few funny stories during the first half hour of my date. Half of them I don't exactly get, but I'm too shy to ask what the hell he was saying.

"Any siblings, Evelyn?"

"One. He's older by three years. Birthday in March. He was a bully, but he was always jealous of me for some reason. I haven't heard from him in years."

"I'm sorry."

"That's okay. He's a douche. My parents recently moved to Chile after a few years of traveling the world."