Ready or Not

Chapter 20

The last four to five weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. Your relationship with Austin continues to progress and the two of you have been spending more and more time together. Weekends are spent either at your place or at his and you've been seeing each other two to three times a week. As he has been from day one, Austin continues to be sweet, considerate, and charming. Both of you have gotten off of the dating app and had "the exclusivity talk" about three weeks ago. Austin openly refers to you as his girlfriend and vice versa. When you are with him, his attention is on you 100% of the time. All the insecurities and worries that you were dealing with, coming off of your short-lived relationship with Namjoon, seems to have fallen by the wayside.

You had a couple of run-ins with Namjoon in the past several weeks, but he has stuck to his promise of giving you space. You still speak with Eric and Nate, but not much with Warren or Namjoon. You cannot help but wonder about Namjoon from time to time and when you saw him in person couple of weeks ago, the butterflies you felt in your stomach were quite intense. You noticed that he has let his hair grow out a bit, but otherwise, he hasn't changed much. The last time you saw him, you thought you still saw the fire in his eyes for you. But you tell yourself that you are making it up and that when he said he was going to leave you be, he had moved on.

In the past month, you have been able to deepen the rapport you have with Marissa and find that she has improved somewhat in her Geometry grade. But her ongoing low-grade depression has not changed. You start to get the feeling that whatever is going on with school is happening at school and tell yourself you will find out a bit more about Marissa's school life. Otherwise, your work life has not changed.

You got through your midterm exams, projects and papers with flying colors and only have another month or so left of this semester. Classes for the next semester have already been chosen and you are looking forward to finishing out your first year with a bang. Now, you are barreling towards the end of the semester exams, projects, and papers, but you feel less stressed out about the whole thing overall.

Last weekend, you promised Austin that you were going to make him dinner. You are not a great cook but aren't bad either. One of the dishes that you've made more than once to positive review is your baked ziti. So, you decide that that's going to be this Friday night's dinner. The two of you spent last weekend at your place so the dinner making will be done at his place tonight. You've purchased everything that you'll need along with a bottle of wine and do some schoolwork while you wait for your boyfriend to pick you up. Austin usually gets out of work around 4:00 and he is usually home by 4:30. Tonight, he plans to swing by your place to pick you up before he goes home.

Around 4:00, you get a text message from Austin that he is leaving work and that he should be there in about twenty minutes to pick you up. That was fifteen minutes ago. So, you decide to get all the necessary things for dinner together in a reusable shopping bag and head down to your lobby to wait for Austin. You only need to wait for 5 minutes or so before you see his car pull up in front of your apartment. With your overnight bag for the weekend slung over across your body and both hands holding grocery bags, you step out into the cold evening air. Seeing your hands full, Austin gets out of the car and runs up your stoop steps to meet you. He grabs both shopping bags, drops them next to him, then grabs your face in his hands and kisses you. When he pulls back from you, he says, "Sweetheart, I really missed you."

You reply, "I missed you too," as you put your arms around his neck for an embrace. Returning it, he says, "C'mon Baby, let's go home," and gives you another kiss. Austin carries the two bags full of groceries and asks, "Is all this for dinner?"

"Yes. It is. It's not anything fancy. Just baked ziti, but I have fresh baked bread from my local bakery and a bottle of red wine and things for salad so, you know...."