Learning to be Beautiful

Learning to be Beautiful ~28~

I didn't wake up until late the morning after the charity gala. I'd had trouble falling asleep--the scene with Linc just kept playing in my head over and over again. He had been so nice, so gentlemanly. I couldn't help but compare his actions from the night before to how he had treated me the day we first met. The contrast was positively staggering. How did we go from insincere apologies in the changing room to having tender moments on the dance floor? Or, more importantly, how did we get from barely speaking with each other to sitting at a small cafe in downtown San Francisco having coffee?

Linc sat across the small round table from me, his hands folded around a cup of steaming coffee. His hair was mussed and, as it had been whilst he had been shopping, his attire was much more casual than I was used to seeing him in.

Our conversation was light, mostly polite chit-chat or things about work. It was comfortably awkward, if such adjectives can be used together. It was awkward in the way that we still hadn't talked about what had happened after the show, but comfortable because we had a surprising amount of things to talk about. Besides, coffee makes everything cozy and comfortable.

"What's your favorite color?" Linc asked suddenly, before taking a sip of the coffee in front of him.

"Blue," I responded immediately. "Yours?"

A small smile lifted the corners of the Brit's mouth, "Same."

I began to gnaw at the inside of my cheek as I thought about other 'get-to-know-you' questions I could ask. "If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?"

A small crease appeared between Linc's dark eyebrows as he thought rather hard about the question. I wasn't sure whether to giggle at the fact that he was thinking so hard about such a silly question or be flattered that he was applying such brain power to something I had asked him to.

"Superman." He answered finally, leaning back in his small seat and letting his brow smooth out so that it was basically flawless once more. "Definitely Superman."

"Really?" I wondered. "I would have gone with Thor."

"Thor?" His forehead wrinkled once more. "He's arrogant and--" Linc stopped himself when he caught sight of my raised eyebrows. "Are you calling me arrogant, Ms. Palmin?"

I refrained from answering, but drank some of my cappuccino.

"You are, aren't you?"

"Well, yes, I might be insinuating that you have certain... conceited tendencies," I allowed, smirking a little bit to myself. It felt good to be dissing him teasingly. Just a little bit.

 "I'm wounded," Linc muttered, rolling his eyes and waving my comment off.

A few minutes passed in silence, and it was Linc that broke it first. "Would..." He paused briefly to cough into his elbow. "Would you like to go to dinner with me?"

A flush of color started to creep up my neck and face, but I accepted quickly. Perhaps with a little more enthusiasm than strictly necessary. A grin surfaced onto the Brit's face and we quickly lapsed back into normal conversation.
~*~

I scurried around my room, frantically searching for something--anything--to wear. Linc and I had agreed that he should pick me up at my house at seven pm. It was six, and I still had yet to decide what I was going to wear.

Clothes had begun to carpet my floor and all of my accessories were strewn about carelessly on the tops of my dressers. Finally, I gave in and had to call in the one person I would trust with such a delicate predicament:

"Mo-om!"

~*~
Within twenty minutes my mom had me primped, preened, and perfected, and I'll admit it--I felt pretty. She'd put me in one of the dresses Pierre had given me: blue and vintage inspired, and left my hair down and stick-straight to the middle of my back.