Love At First Text ✔️

Her

"I think I prefer you as a blonde." Adeline, Eden's cousin, decided after a bottle of wine.

She was perched on the sofa arm, regarding Eden with a thoughtful expression as she tightened the straps on her heels. It was lucky that Eden had also had a bottle of wine, for she may have been slightly more offended by the comment if not. Instead, she braced a hand on the wall to avoid wobbling, straightened herself, and smiled.

"You're the better blonde." She replied, and Adeline grinned, toying with the ends of her hair. Addy had intended on being designated driver. Much like Zoya, one drink had evolved into two, and then four, and then the scrambling for taxi numbers. It was on route, which was why Eden was fumbling to get herself ready to wobble out of the door.

She shouldn't have had this much to drink already. Neither should have Adeline. She was a worse light weight than Eden when it came to handling her alcohol.

Addy looked at her phone and then jumped up. "It's outside." She gleamed, grabbing Eden's arm before she had a moment to react and dragging her out of the door. At the same time, she felt her phone vibrate in her bag. A message from Sebastian, who she had already began fatefully drunk texting. She could've cried at his last response. Still so kind and patient, even when her own text had been rife with spelling errors and completely lacked sense. She needed to not do that for the rest of the night, or she was bound to tell him that she loved him, which apparently is not what he wanted to hear.

Eden was devastated. Furious with herself too. She'd ignored all the signs, convinced herself that the red flags looked more... orange. Sebastian had been honest with her. He didn't want a relationship, quite content with being single. Even when he had asked her on a date, it had been to show her what a 'good one' looked like, not because he was interested in pursuing her. And yet, she had still kissed him on the Friday night, like an idiot, only to receive messages the next day from him that insinuated he was happy to be her over-the-phone wingman.

She wasn't too hard on herself though. After a conversation with herself, she decided that Sebastian had been nothing but mixed signals yesterday. He'd paid what she guessed was an obscene amount of money on just one date and bought her a teddy to memorialise it. He'd held her hand, and constantly been near her – pressed against her. He'd taken her back to his friends, and they'd drank and laughed and played games. She wondered if that was how he treated all his friends, but it didn't seem that way. He was close to the girls, sure, but she'd never seen him hold Nat's hand. As for his other dates, though he aimed to please, they paled in comparison to what Eden experienced yesterday. Flowers and dinner? It didn't hold a flame to a full day in a zoo with a keeper experience and an evening at his closest friends'. Maybe she expected too much from him, but Sebastian had done nothing but blur the line.

When she had little consolation left to offer herself, she rang Zoya and expected her to offer some advice. She had sat on the phone with her while she did her makeup, about half an hour before Addy had turned up.

"What should I do? Keep dating him? Tell him to go fuck himself?" She had asked.

"Well, definitely don't do that last one." Zoya had hurried out, the shuffle on her end of the line suggesting she was seeking out privacy for this conversation. "Maybe Seb is giving off mixed signals because he's a little confused. Nat's told me that he's never put this much effort in to a girl, and they're all a little surprised by it. But she's also said he's never been in a relationship for longer than a night, so maybe he's just exploring the waters."

"I don't have time to deal with someone exploring the waters."

"Eden Holland, you have nothing but time. The idea of dating is that you get to know a person. You get to know Seb, and he gets to know you. A few more dates, and maybe Seb realises your different and he wants to make a real go of it with you. Maybe you find out two months down the line that he wets the bed, and that's your dealbreaker. You're not going to know that if you call it off now." Zoya had tried to explain.