Love

Fourteen || The Date

Flirting. 

Honestly, it's a subject I don't have much experience in, but I feel like I'm doing pretty well tonight. 

In the two hours passed with Ada at the dinner table, the awkwardness of having just met faded away quickly. The more she laughed at my awful sense of humor, the more she placed her hand on  my arm, the more my confidence grew. I smile so much I can hardly see her face. Her hand starts to linger when she touches me, causing foreign sparks to shoot up my arm and strike my heart. My heart hasn't been able to slow it's beating for the last hour and a half. It's a new feeling. Her occasional flirty comments make my heart skip a beat and it's the only time it calms down, only to start right back up at its marathon pace. 

"Are you okay if I pay?" I ask her. "You know, for my apology and all." 

Ada smiles at me. "You can take this one, but I've got the check for the next date." 

My eyebrow raises in surprise and the side of my mouth cocks up in a half smile. "Next date?" 

She blushes, messing around with the dessert on her plate. "Ii'm having a lot more fun than I thought I would. This doesn't feel like an apology meal anymore. I'd like to be able to call this a date."

I smile at my lap as I fish for my wallet in my pocket. "Then a date it is." 

.

"Is this it?" I ask as she stops walking on front of the tall building. 

She nods. "Way up on the fifth floor." 

I nod as well. "Do you mind if I walk you up?" 

She smiles, shaking her head. "I don't mind at all." She squeezes my hand, which ended up holding hers at some point in the walk to her apartment, and leads me into the lobby and the elevator. 

As she takes me down the fifth floor hallway, my heart starts to pound nervously in my chest. I've never walked a woman to her door after a date. Is it the same as walking a girl? Is it different?" I haven't been on a date since high school. Do girls change after high school? And then there's the fact that we just met tonight. I never kiss on the first date. Then again, no first date has felt like this one, no girl has been like Ada. Is it too intrusive for me to kiss her? Is it wrong? Why is she all I'm thinking about? 

"Right here." Ada's milk-and-honey smooth voice clears my worried thoughts away immediately. 

Her apartment door has a small wreath of blue, pink and green flowers hanging on it. I smile at it. 

"That's cute," I tell her. 

"You think so? I made it." 

I look at her in shock. "You made that?" 

She smiles shyly and looks away from me. "I did. I was thinking about throwing it out. I think it looks a little cheap." 

"No way, you're not allowed," I joke. I turn her toward me again. "If you don't want it I'll take it. Maybe my friends will think I have a girlfriend." 

She laughs quietly at that, her thumb brushing over my knuckles gently. "Do you want a girlfriend?" 

The beautiful in front of me blushes and the shy pink on her face throws a realization at me. She likes me. I like her. Yes, of course I want a girlfriend. A beautiful woman—a strong, independent, self sufficient, stunningly gorgeous woman—stands in front of me; and I feel a confidence coursing through my veins that I haven't felt in years. She wants me, I want her. But something inside makes me hesitate. I swallow, reaching inside me to push the hesitation out of the way and find the confidence I've had up until this moment tonight.