trouble | i.g

twenty four - "double date"

Bella's POV

"But how does one even seduce a boy?" My friend Holly asked, flinging up the whisk she had in her hand and sending a splatter of eggs onto the fridge.

I frowned, looking up from the recipe I was reading and examining the wreckage of the kitchen. Flour dusted the counter tops and multiple measuring cups and ingredients lay strewn across the surface- evidence of the current cooking war raging at my house.

"I don't know." I said, "But is there a difference between baking soda and baking powder? Maybe they're interchangeable."

"Use a bit of both." She concluded, prodding at the soupy mixture in the bowl.

We were scrambling to finish an assignment due for our cooking class, of course we were both spectacularly failing. Due to our incapability to read recipes and tendency to start fires at random moments, even making cookies at the moment was a struggle.

"You've clearly seduced Ian." She continued, making me cringe and spill in extra salt.

"The fact that Ian likes me is one of the seven wonders of the world. I mean like- have you seen me?"

Holly pushed aside the flour dusted bowl on the counter and leaned closer to me. "Have you guys like, you know." She made a fist with one hand and aggressively punched her palm.

I stared at her. "Had a fist fight?"

"Had some makeup sex." She clarified.

I was so startled by her sudden question I narrowly dropped a stick of butter. Ian and I had gotten back together two weeks ago, after a rather strange occurrence where I used his bath and he made cinnamon rolls and we both sort of agreed that we still liked each other. It was a slow progression back into our normal relationship, each of us tiptoeing nervously around each other as we returned to comfort. Today was the day I was supposed to meet him to go on a double date with Mickey and his new girlfriend, technically our first real date as a reunited couple.

"No." I said quickly, "No, no, no. I don't really- no. Maybe just a few hand jobs but like, you know. We've never even. I don't know how and like- no."

"Okay, so we both need to learn how to seduce a male." She declared, haphazardly pouring the mixture into a pan and shoving it into the oven.

"First off, I think it's supposed to be dough, not liquid." I pointed out, "Secondly, can't I seduce him with my impressive knowledge of country capitals? Name a country. Any country."

Holly smacked me upside the head. "No. We need to release our inner stripper." She looked out the window. "Let's go find a pole."

"How about we don't." I said hastily, not wanting my neighbors to glance outside to admire the early morning sunrise and seeing two girls trying (and failing) to dance erotically against a telephone pole.

Although I wondered how long I could continue to be unfortunately gawky until people started to get a little sick of it. So now I got to add the reminder of my failing flirting skills onto the stress of the double date I had to attend tonight.

"The cookies are bubbling over into the stove!" Holly shrieked, peering through the glass window at the dessert that would give Gordon Ramsay chest pains. Just great.

•••

"Praise to the fuck." Ian said, "You're wearing a damn dress!"

I had been idly waiting for Ian to show up outside of the small Italian restaurant downtown we had all agreed to meet at. For the occasion I had decided to wear a dark blue dress, allowing quite a bit of my summer tan legs to show. It had only been a couple of minutes of me absently watching the clouds when his familiar red copper head of hair appeared. He paused a few feet away from me, stared for a good moment, then swore in such a way that a mom paused to cover her son's ears.