Secret Affection

Chapter 11

"Roy, I have a slight problem."

I'm pacing around my room at 8:15, less than an hour before I have to meet Grace for dinner, and I'm freaking out.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm freaking out."

"Why?"

"I have a date."

I hear him chuckle on the other side of the phone, making me glare at the wall.

"Don't laugh at my pain, Roy. I'm serious."

"Aly, just put on some damn clothes and meet the woman."

"You make it sound so simple."

"That's because it is. When is this date?"

"Uh, in forty-five minutes?"

"What?! Aly get dressed! Please tell me you bathed."

"I'm not that incompetent!"

"Aly, if you are late to this date, not only will Grace probably murder you, but I will help hide the body. I'm hanging up. Have fun."

The line disconnects, showing that he in fact, wasn't kidding. I pause in front of my closet, glancing at all of the clothes I own. Deciding against wasting anymore time, I pull out a pair of blue skinny jeans and a black and grey flannel. As I'm buttoning my shirt, my phone vibrates on the bed.

'Can't wait to see you!'

I smile at the message as I'm pulling on my shoes. Once I finish putting on a small amount of makeup, I slip my phone in my pocket, grab my leather jacket off the back of the couch, and run downstairs to my bike.

The whole ride to the restaurant, I'm consumed in my doubts. If Grace will even show up to this dinner. If it's just a pity dinner and not an actual date with the woman I've grown so attached to.

As I pull into the nicer restaurant, I decline the valet and park my bike in a lone corner of the lot. Pulling my helmet off and climbing off the bike, I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. Once I'm through the front door of the restaurant, anything I did to calm myself down went right out the window.

"How can I help you?"

"Yeah, I have a date, I don't know if she's here-"

"Aly!"

I turn to my side to see the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my twenty-eight years on this Earth. My heart practically skipped three beats before I could even muster the vocabulary to speak.

"Grace- you- wow."

The woman in front of me was no longer the little girl I grew up with. She wasn't the girl who I chased around the playground in the early mornings with bugs just to get her attention. She wasn't the teenager that sat with me as I told her my whole future plans with tears in her eyes. She wasn't the young woman I wrote my first year away from civilization about the hardships I faced.

The woman in front of me wasn't only my best friend. She was an angel clad in a red dress and wings that could last a mile.

She blushes, grabbing my hand and pulling me behind her to a single table. Shaking off my daze, I manage to get out of her grip and pull out her chair.

"What a gentleman."

I chuckle as she sits down, pushing her chair in, I take a subtle deep breath and make my way into my own. Looking across the table at her, the nerves in my stomach got twice as bad, but the smile she sends me shows me I'm not the only one. As I'm about to start a conversation, the waiter comes to interrupt.