Cupid's Granddaughter

18 - Dinner and a Drink

Another month went by before I actually cracked down and had dinner with Nate and Lily. Nate kept his promise and he spoke more than two sentences to me when I came over. Every day he would pester me about dinner and every day I turned him down. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to hang around them but finally I relented.

Nate arranged everything and we were set to meet at an Applebee’s somewhere in the middle of Brooklyn. I made sure to arrive later than he had planned because I wasn’t going to be that one person looking like a loser while she waited for her friends to arrive.

When I entered through the doors, I spotted Nate immediately. Luckily they were sitting close to the front door. I walked over to their table making sure to show my brightest smile.

“Hello,” I greeted as I sat on the opposite side of the booth they were in.

Nate smiled cheerfully upon seeing me. “Lily, this is Peyton, the one that set us up. I believe you met once but not so formally.”

“Oh yes,” Lily agreed never taking her eyes off Nate as long as he spoke. She turned her attention to me and flashed a perfect smile. “Hi, it’s so great to finally meet you.”

I shook the hand she held out for me. “The same to you.”

“He’s spoken nothing but positive things about you,” Lily continued.

I looked over at Nate who was inspecting his menu. “Well good, I wouldn’t want you to think badly of me.”

I took my menu then and glanced over it making our conversation subside. I snuck a peak at Lily as she read through her own menu. She had dyed her hair back to its natural color which was more of a brown red. She did have chocolate brown eyes and was overall very beautiful. I grumbled to myself at the thought.

A waitress came to our table and we all ordered our drinks which brought the conversation back.

“What do you think you’re going to get?” Lily asked Nate. “The Garlic Herb Salmon sounds delicious!”

“Oh he doesn’t like fish,” I couldn’t help but point out.

Lily looked over at my curiously. “I didn’t know that.”

Nate nodded in confirmation and suddenly I felt weird having her gaze on me. I remembered that her ‘curse’ was that she was unable to get angry. I relaxed a bit after that.

“Well anyway,” she said shrugging it off. “That is what I’m getting.”

I didn’t say anything else. I felt completely out of place being here. Our waitress returned and we ordered our food. After she left again, Nate excused himself to the bathroom. If I felt out of place before, I wasn’t even sure what to call the feeling I had when Nate left.

“So you and Nate are good friends?” Lily guessed taking a sip of her Shirley Temple.

“I suppose you could call us that.”

Lily was smiling at me. It was eerie and I wasn’t sure that I liked it. “He speaks very highly of you.”

“Um…” I was unsure of how she wanted me to reply to that. “He speaks highly of you too?”

Lily accepted that. “I’m sorry that I take away your time from him.”

I had to admit that I wasn’t expecting that. “It’s okay; I mean you’re his girlfriend and he needs time with you too.”

“Yes,” Lily agreed. “But he needs time with his friends and I know I take away a lot of that time. It’s just that I don’t have many friends outside of work. I really don’t enjoy talking about the rights of trees all the time despite what you might think.”