The Art of Being a Gentleman

BONUS CHAPTER: first date

"So...this isn't weird, right?"

"No, not weird at all," Hannah said easily, scanning the menu.

"Yeah," David frowned, bobbing his head a few times. "Not weird. Just two people... who never had any intentions of being romantical... on a totally non-platonic type outing."

"You mean a date?" she lifted her eyes, her voice tinged with amusement.

"That is what I called it when I asked you, wasn't it," he held back a smile. Her eyes crinkled before she dropped her gaze back to the menu in front of her.

The restaurant David had driven them to wasn't fancy (because there's no way that he could afford that), but it didn't mainly consist of fryers and burgers prepared in three minutes so he thought he did pretty well. Nevertheless, he had still been sweating the whole drive over and couldn't stop bouncing his knee underneath the table.

Suddenly Hannah's menu was dropped on the table and she was leaning her chin in her hand, narrowing her eyes across the table at him. "You said you never had any intentions of being romantical with me? Like, at all?"

"Well, obviously not at the beginning."

Hannah's jaw dropped a little, pointing a finger in the air. "If I remember correctly you tried hitting on me the very first few seconds we met! You said we should have physical education with each other or something."

It was David's turn to have his mouth wide open, "What!?" He almost choked on his laughter, trying to hold back his smile. "I said we had chemistry. Oh my gosh."

She pinched her lips together, "Whatever, it was something to do with school." David finally burst out in laughter and she joined in shaking her head. "Okay. My line was way better."

"That's true."

David smiled to himself and looked over at her as she traced her finger along the menu as she read it. She was wearing a nice shirt and some jeans, and had done her hair in loose curls, but kept the red lipstick and the old man glasses. She hadn't bothered to dress up or go all out with her look which David was glad for, because she looked like herself. Like his friend, Hannah.

His friend who he was definitely and quickly growing more romantical feelings for.

"Thanks for agreeing to come tonight," David said after a moment.

Her eyebrows furrowed together and she gave him a look like was stupid, "Of course."

"I mean, you didn't have to come, so I just... I think that it's cool that—"

"David," she stopped him with a look, her brown eyes watching him as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "What are you doing?"

"Doing? I'm not doing anything I'm..." he trailed off before letting out an exaggerated huff. "I'm nervous, okay."

"Stop being nervous," she chuckled, "It's not like you have to try and get me to like you or anything. I already like you. I've already agreed to date you. Just be chill."

He rubbed at his face, "Yeah, you're right."

Hannah watched him as he reached to fiddle with his napkin, and to be honest, she kind of thought his nervousness was cute. But she wasn't going to let him go through the whole night like this.

"Why don't you just ask me normal date questions, okay?" she suggested. "We can just play it up. Get things started."

He peeked up at her and saw the playful glint in her eye, and already felt himself relax a little. "So... do you like baseball?"