Race

Chapter 28

"How was it?" Natalie asked with a wink, her arms resting on a giant pile of books on the counter she was sitting behind.

I hadn't seen her for the past week and while we were what I thought of as close friends, we didn't belong to the sort of friends that texted a lot, prefering vocal communication in person over written communication. Her playful threat of me getting to see her a lot more had become reality and it was the first day our shifts overlapped and we got around to actually working together since the days she had broken me in. And naturally, the minute I had come back from the small room designated for the employees where I had stored my backpack and my thick winter jacket, she had decided to ask me about my date - or should I say dates?

"Actually, I've been on two dates with him now, tonight will be our third one," I said.

While my voice was lacking any note of true excitement, her facial features seemed to be intent on making up for that.

"Two dates? And tonight you'll have a third date? You know what that means, right? Oh God, you need to tell me everything!" she said, talking so fast it made me dizzy.

An outsider might have interpreted her giddiness as the one of a girl that loved to talk about boys and dates and kisses and relationships and all that stuff. But having known her for months, I knew exactly what the motivation behind these questions were.

Natalie loved drama. And a good story.

Me going out with a guy that I was not actually into and a mysterious handsome ex boyfriend that I was still hung up over clouding my mind was what she perceived to be ingredients for a good story.

"So the first date went horrible. At least it felt that way in the beginning," I started, deciding to grant her the story. I knew that she would be fairly disappointed afterwards, though. "We were sat in this proper fancy restaurant and I felt so out of place and was desperately trying to come up with a good excuse to get the hell out of there."

Natalie still had her crossed arms on the pile of books but now her head rested on top of them, her big brown eyes looking up at me expectantly in an almost childish way, soaking up every word I spoke.

"Lacking a good excuse to leave, I just sat there, feeling petrified, while Adrien translated all the different dishes for me. I don't know if it was a French restaurant but for some reason the whole menu seemed to be in French and I have to admit that my skills in this particular language are only limited to things like 'eclair' or 'brioche'."

Natalie mumbled something that sounded like "I could do with an eclair right about now," into her arm and I decided to go on with my story without acknowleding this specific notion of hers - even though an eclair did sound quite nice.

"Once we had ordered - I got a salad because at that time I did not know that he would be so adamant to pay for the whole dinner and it was the cheapest thing on there - the situation somehow sorted itself out. He was really nice so he literally tried to make jokes like constantly and oh God, Natalie, never was there someone worse at making jokes than this guy, I swear to God. So instead, I tried to make a few jokes, feeling kinda useless and wanting to diffuse the tension. And I actually managed to make him laugh so hard he had tears in his eyes. Can you believe?"

Natalie's eyes were narrowed, staring off into a random direction somewhere over my right shoulder. She bit her lip, deep in thought.

"You know I have a really wanton imagination so the fact that I can't imagine Adrien losing his composure like that really says a lot about the guy," she concluded after another few seconds of staring off into the distance.

"He is actually so different from what I always thought him to be. It's really nice. And you can talk to him, like properly talk to him. About all kinds of stuff. He told me about his favourite painting, about his passion for playing the piano and his home. Once we had started talking, we actually continued to do so all night. That's why I agreed to go on a second date with him."