Love At First Text ✔️

Him

Recently, Valentine's Day for Sebastian had always been familiar to him. He'd never spent the day with a girlfriend, but each year, a different woman.

Charlotte and he would spend the day together when they were younger. They'd go to the park, or spend the day on their bikes, or as they got slightly older, wander into the town and make vomiting noises at all the cliché poems in the grand, romantic cards.

When she turned fifteen, Charlotte's opinion on Valentine's Day changed. Seb watched his friend's mood deflate as she spoke of her sister and brother-in-law's plans. When she talked about how her morning had been spent with her brother, picking out the best flowers for his girlfriend. How her parents wouldn't be home till the late evening, because they'd gotten a reservation at their favourite restaurant. Charlotte told Seb that she felt as though she was missing out. That she wanted to be the one with a boyfriend, or the one receiving flowers, or dressing up to dine out.

It was at aged fifteen that Seb had his first date. It was with Charlotte, his best friend, who he never looked at as anything other than a sibling, but it counted. He brought her a rose to school, they skipped their lessons to get the train to the seaside, and got back in the early evening, after eating fish and chips and winning one another a giant stuffed animal at the arcades.

The pair of them got in horrific trouble, but neither minded. Besides, Seb was glad he did it. He'd never seen Charlotte look quite so... happy. She was always happy, his friend, but that day, she looked jubilant. She looked as though she felt noticed, and loved, and appreciated. He liked being the reason that she was still smiling for days after, and that Mr. Bearington still sat on the end of her bed, even now.

It was the last Valentine's Day the pair spent together. The next, Charlotte was with her god-awful boyfriend Adam, and he took her to a movie and for sushi. Seb, too, was busy with plans of his own. He'd grown into his looks by sixteen, and he received copious amounts of female attention. He'd decided he had every ambition of making a girl feel as special as he made Charlotte feel when she was fifteen.

Such continued for a few years, and when Seb realised just how good he was at dating, he didn't limit it to just one day a year. Besides, as he edged into adulthood, hook-ups were a little different. Casual sex was harder to find than when he was a teen, and though he was up front each and every time, the girls he ended up bedding always wished to be wined and dined first. He was happy to do it. It made their evening, and he was always pleasantly satisfied by the end of the night too.

This year, Valentines Day felt different though. He suddenly felt like that fifteen-year-old boy again, trying his hardest to make his friend smile. He'd gone a couple weeks without a date, so maybe that explained his nerves. Or maybe it was just the fact it was Eden. He shouldn't feel nervous at the idea of meeting her, for she had come to confess they had met briefly before. Except, he really was nervous.

It had been different, knowing he was bound to meet the girl he had gotten to know over texts and phone calls. Now, he saw her face every time he spoke to her, and it made him sweat.

She was stunning. She carried herself in a way that told him she didn't know it. She was the person who made his days that much more interesting. She was the same girl he'd done a double take on in the nightclub. The same girl he hoped hadn't realised his palms were actually sweaty, and it wasn't the condensation from his glass.

He'd chased the image of her right back to the night he had first got her number. He couldn't picture either Eden or Zoya at that bar. Then again, he was absolutely wasted, and hadn't noticed much of anything other than the glass collector. He was glad for it though, in a strange sort of way. If he had noticed Eden, he would have undoubtably moved in on her, and worked his ways to take her home with him that night. If he had have done that, he'd have never gotten to know what an incredible person she is, and he'd have just been another man on her list on why she should stay away from dating altogether.