come a little closer [ tristan evans fanfiction ]

chapter iii. // date

Tristan’s POV

Nando’s

Saturday, 18th January 2014 9:30pm

I laughed along at Poppy’s story she was telling me about how she and her friends used to always prank their old history teacher, but he never suspected them because they were so well behaved and quiet. I was quite the opposite – being the hyperactive loud-mouth of the class – I always got the blame. Our food had been in front of us for five minutes, but I’d hardly noticed. “I didn’t expect you to go for the spicy,” I nodded to her plate of five untouched chicken wings, “I don’t think I could handle that!” I began to pick at my plain chicken wings. She probably thought I was a huge wimp now, but then again, I didn’t exactly want to have water streaming from my eyes on our first date. Could this even be classed as a date? More like a blind date, considering we’d both discovered that neither of us knew what was going on. Well, I wasn’t complaining. Poppy was fun – there weren’t many girls willing to choose the hotter option on a first date – I mean blind date – anyway.

“Spice isn’t that bad once you’re used to it.” Poppy replied, biting down into the meat. I noticed her eyes water a tiny bit, but how could you not either way, and I was still impressed at how she finished one off without even batting an eyelid. I started on my wings, feeling like a bit of a coward for not stepping up to at least the lemon and herb or whatever.

“It’s weird,” I began, huffing with laughter little, “It’s not every day you get a date with a pretty girl and they turn out like you.” I looked down at my plate. Wait, what? I called this a date. And I called her pretty! I avoided eye contact with Poppy, horrified at what I’d just said and knowing well enough she was looking straight at me. “You think I’m pretty?” she asked. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her very obviously turning red, but in a strange way that was actually quite cute. “Oh- um... well... yeah.” I squeaked awkwardly. May as well admit it. Why did I have to act like such an idiot? I’ve never done that before, at least not in that manner, and why the hell was my voice going all weird? I shrugged it off and began to eat slowly, looking up at Poppy who was staring at her plate. Had I scared her off? “You’re not too bad yourself.” She glanced up, smiling. Thank God. I could feel myself grinning like a Cheshire Cat with relief now. Phew. That was a close one. Just don’t do anything else stupid.

--- half an hour later ---

Once we had finished our meal, I called the waiter over and paid the bill whilst Poppy was getting her phone out of her bag to text her friend, Hannah, who was the girl who’d dropped her off here. “Wait, I was going to pay a bit!” she protested, realising the waiter was already walking away. “Too late!” I replied, tucking my wallet into my back pocket. “You should of let me.” “I know, but I was going to pay either way. Just being a gentleman.” “Oh, how gentlemanly of you!” Poppy gave me a playful jab in the ribs. Something told me she probably would of ended up paying if she wanted to. We walked out together into the cold London air. My breath immediately misted in front of my face as I sighed happily. Poppy wrapped her jacket around her tightly. “Are you cold?” I asked as we began to walk. The sky was dark and therefore the lights of London were illuminating the pathway. “No, I’m okay, honestly.” Poppy glanced up at me. “I can give you my hoodie-“ she stopped me mid-sentence, “Seriously, Tris, I’ll probably never give it back anyway.” I grinned down at her, deciding not to argue. “If you say so.” I subtly began to peel off my hoodie, and then by surprise, suddenly wrapped it around Poppy’s shoulders. Cracking up as Poppy looked at me as if to say ‘really?’ in the most sarcastic way possible, but she joined me in bursting out laughing. “You’re not getting it back.” Poppy slipped her arms into the hoodie so that she was wearing it properly, but the sleeves were far too long and the actual thing was half way down her thighs. “You look like such a thug!” I sniggered as we walked into the hotel. Poppy jokingly pushed me into the neatly painted cream wall as we entered, “I like it.” She said simply, making a show of snuggling into the warm material. “I didn’t like it anyway!” I winked at her, “Good!” retorted Poppy as we got into the lift and pressed the button taking us up to the fourth floor, where we both had our rooms. Room 425 for her and Hannah, 438 and 439 for me and Brad and James and Connor, so we weren’t really that far from each other. “We should do this again sometime.” I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets, looking down at my feet. “Yeah, sounds like fun.” Poppy replied. It was quarter past ten. I should be getting back to the others. “Here, text me in the morning.” I said, passing her my phone. She fished around for hers and we exchanged numbers. I entered my name as ‘Trissyboi;)’ and took a ‘super attractive’ selfie as my contact picture. “See you later, Tris.” She grinned, passing my phone back. “Night, Poppy.” I realised how much my cheeks were hurting from constantly smiling. She closed the door to the hotel room behind her as I looked back at my phone. She had saved her name as ‘Poppykins<3’ and had also added a hilarious contact picture. Wow. What a first date. Date date.

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Yay for chapter three c:

That is all.

Thanks for reading!

Cat xxx