The Truth & Other Lies

Dear Hunter: From, The Butterflies In Your Stomach

I'm nervous. But it's not the kind of nervous that I get before going on stage; the good kind that serves as adrenaline and allows me to be energized for hours on end. And you would think that after playing hundreds of shows to stadiums filled with thousands of people, going on a date wouldn't give me butterflies.

Yet here I am, standing outside Mia's apartment door, trying to psych myself up to knock, but ending up postponing each time because my palms are too sweaty. I finally dry them off enough to actually make a move and the door swings open almost immediately, and she's standing there with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her pea coat, blushing and beautiful.

"Hi," she smiles brightly, stepping into the hallway.

She turns to face me once the door is shut and locked and our eyes meet and just like that, all my nerves vanish, and I wonder how she could possibly have that kind of power over me.

"Hey," I breathe out, because I can't seem to make myself speak much louder. "You look amazing."

"Thanks." She reddens even more as she steps into the hallway, shutting the door behind her and looking up at me from beneath her eyelashes. "So...where are we going?"

Seeing as I was the one who insisted our date be tonight, it only seemed fair that I be the one to actually plan the date as well. The trouble is that I still haven't really explored the city, which means there's about three restaurants that I know extremely well.

I confess this to her as we're leaving the building. "Okay, so I have to be honest...I haven't been very good about exploring this city, despite having been here like two months, so I'm taking you to the only Italian restaurant I have been to, but I promise it has amazing food."

I don't know why I let out a sigh of relief when she smiles and says, "Sounds perfect," because from the encounters we've had so far, she seems to be up for pretty much anything.

"Also," I continue, shoving my hands into the pockets of my coat. Her hands are in the same position in her jacket and I momentarily wish they were swinging to her side so that I could intertwine my fingers with hers. "I wanted to apologize."

She lifts her eyebrows in surprise. "For what?"

"For yesterday," I say, almost cringing at the memory of the paparazzi taking pictures of us through the diner window. "I promise that I'm not always that difficult to be around."

"Oh, that's alright," she shrugs calmly, "It's not like you can control that stuff."

"I know, but that doesn't make it any less weird," I reply.

She hesitates before she responds, chewing on her lower lip for a few seconds before quietly saying, "It really bothers you, huh?"

I suppose the fact that there's tension between me and paparazzi is pretty easy to figure out. "It's just not something you ever get used to." I can tell she wants more from my answer, but that's not a conversation I'm quite ready to have with her, so I change the subject. "Can we talk about something else? Like you. How was your day?"

Luckily, she doesn't push the issue, getting distracted when we arrive at the small Italian bistro I'd found my first week in the city. She waits until we're seated and our glasses of wine are on the way to answer my question. "Pretty average. You know, read letters and emails and updated the blog. The usual."

"Any funny situations?"

"To be honest, I don't remember," she admits, scrunching up her nose sheepishly and smiling gratefully at the waiter when her white wine is set in front of her. "Is that awful?"