Date with a Stranger

6:00 am Saturday

6:00 am

"You really didn't have to pay for both of us, Marcel."

He shakes his head and opens the door for me. "Don't worry about it. It's nothing."

"I promise next time, I'll pay." When we got our check, we argued for about ten minutes about me paying, but he won.

"On our second date?" He turns and smiles at me as we wait to cross the street.

"Wait. Date? This wasn't a date?" I fumble with my words.

He grins at me, "Relax, Heather. I was just joking again."

I playfully slap his shoulder. "Quit doing that," I laugh.

He rubs his shoulder, pretending to be hurt. "Ouch"

The sign for us to cross lights up and we start walking again. Marcel catches me by surprise when he puts both of his hands on my shoulders like he is escorting me.

I turn to look at him with confusion.

"So you won't jump in front of a bike again." He smirks.

I shake his hands off and playfully slap his shoulder again, lauging. "Hey, that wasn't my fault."

"Ouch. You've got to quit doing that!" He says laughing. "You know, boys are like puppies. You can hit them, but they can't hit you back. So next time before you hit me, think about that." He smirks, his dimples visible.

We reach the sidewalk and continue walking. "But puppies are cute," I tease.

"If I can recall correctly, you called me cute earlier." He turns and grins, sounding like a child bragging about a toy his friend doesn't have.

My jaws drop and I lightly push him by the shoulder.

"Okay, I deserved that one," Marcel laughs.

6:30 am

When we get back to the house, everyone is still asleep, still in the same exact spot we had left them.

"Look at them, wasting a beautiful day because they got wasted," Marcel says as we stand in the living room, observing the pile of people snoring. "This is why I don't drink."

I turn to look up at him and can't help but smile. I never really liked drinking myself and it's nice to finally meet someone like me. The only reason I came to this party was because of Veronica. I couldn't let her go alone.

"What are you staring at?" Marcel says, waking me up from my daze.

I shake my head and look down, "Nothing." I can feel the blood slowly rush up to my face.

I can see his smirk growing from the corner of my eye. Before he can say anything, I say, "Stop, I know what you're thinking," turning to look up at him.

"I didn't say anything," he defends, the smirk still on his face.

Some of the people sleeping start shuffling in their spot and mumbling something. Marcel then signals for us to step out to the backyard.

"I hope Veronica doesn't sleep in too late. I don't want to be stuck here all day," I say as I sit on the chair I sat in earlier this morning.

"I get it you don't want to spend time with me. I'm boring you aren't I?" Marcel's head drops.

"No, no. It's not that. I --"

He looks back up at me, smiling. "I'm just messing with you, Heather."

"Ha ha," I say sarcastically.

"What do you want to do then?" Marcel asks

"I don't know. I drove here, and I can't just leave Veronica. I don't want to have to make her look for a ride back home. That'd be--" I ramble.

He cuts me off midsentence, "Let's go somewhere to kill some time."