metulji - jan peteh

Date night?

The next few days dragged slowly. Jan had told me that he was busy with the band, meanwhile I had absolutely nothing to do, nobody else to talk to. Speaking to Ocean was out of the question; Sanjay was going through a rough patch at work and didn't have as high of a social drive as he usually did. Despite Jan still messaging me, sending me pictures of whatever him and the group were up to, I craved more contact and wondered when I would see him again.

As for the issues with my parents, my dad was still pretty angry, only not at me anymore. He couldn't understand why anyone would ditch me completely and come home without ensuring I went home too. It was hard to explain that some people just don't care; he was having trouble accepting that.

My mum, on the other hand, was back to her usual, docile self. Every opportunity I was given was used to talk about Jan. I noticed she'd started to warm to him when she began to smile naturally when I spoke, rather than forcing herself to listen. I told her everything that happened with us, from the moment we met, up to the messages we exchanged daily.

'I've not seen you smile like that in years.' she'd said - I'd been giggling and chatting about him for at least 10 minutes now.

'Calm down mum, I've barely known him a week.' I laughed, knowing everything she was saying was true. I couldn't admit that just yet, though.

'It's not like he's bad looking either.' she continued, winking at me. I gave her a gentle push and let out a defeated, but happy, sigh. I'd never seen her say so many correct things in such a short space of time.

'No, I guess he isn't.' Trying to stay serious was proving to be an impossible task - she knew I was trying to downplay how hard I was falling for him. It wasn't like she didn't already know; she was my mother, she knew everything.

The conversation was interrupted by my ringtone - Single Ladies by Beyonce.

'Think you'll be changing that one soon.' she muttered under her breath, but it was accidentally just loud enough for me to hear. Giving her a glare, I looked at my screen. Jan.

Literally evacuating the kitchen and rushing up the stairs to my bedroom, I picked up the phone.

'Jan?'

'Lilia.'

'What's up?' I asked, trying to keep the tone casual. I pushed all of my excitement into the pit of my stomach, forming butterflies.

'I want to take you out.' he responded. It took all my strength to not punch the bed I was sat on in glee. I'd been waiting for us to meet again, but having been too nervous to ask, I decided to wait and see if he felt the same. Clearly he did.

'When?'

'How about tonight?'

Shit. Checking my smartwatch, it was 1PM - that gave me only a few hours to prepare - I'd not even showered since the hangover, it wasn't like I had anywhere to be. Yet I could work all of that out later; I'd much rather not wait another minute to see him.

'It's a date.' I replied happily, the butterflies inside me beating at the walls.

We talked for a while longer, deciding to go and get burgers in the town centre. We'd meet near his apartment, which was situated a few minutes away from the train station. I decided to taxi my way there (which he gladly sorted out), meanwhile he decided to wait where I would be dropped off.

'I'm sorry, Lilia, I need to go.' he finally said. The noise of his bandmates in the background just got louder as I struggled to find the words to say goodbye to him. 'I'll see you later, okay?'

The audio was muffled as (I assumed) he was trying to hide the phone from the others after what had happened last time.

'Yes, see you later, moja princeska.' a slightly higher voice spoke now. If I hadn't known better, I would've assumed Jan purposefully handed the phone to someone else to avoid the awkwardness of ending the call. But I did know better.