Adolescent

9.

"So. You're going on a date with my son tonight." said Kara as she used a curling iron to curl my wild mane in excess.

I'd been almost dreading the coming conversation since Aaron had told me his mother knew about our shared kiss at the wedding. It was going to be ridiculously awkward, talking about it with my stylist who just happened to be my date's mother.

"Um, yeah." I said. My usual bravado was nowhere to be found. In my lap, my fingers nervously turned a ring on my left thumb around and around.

"Good luck."

I could hear the grin in her voice. It gave me a little relief.

****

I rubbed my palms down my black-skinny-jean-clad thighs nervously, anticipating Aaron to knock on my hotel room door any second. When he did, I jumped up from my position on the end of the bed to open it. Opening the door revealed a seemingly nervous Aaron leaning against the doorframe, biting his lip. He brought his stunning sapphires up to meet mine.

"Are you ready?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

Nervous as hell, but as ready as I'll ever be.

He offered me his hand, and I took it. We walked down to the lobby of the hotel, and down the Phoenix street. As we walked, my free hand tugged at the silver chain that held my parents' wedding rings, because its match was unable to turn its rings to signal my nervousness. After about half a block, Aaron asked, "Have you heard that Rick Yancey's The Fifth Wave book series is being made into a movie series?"

My interest sparked. "Seriously? I love that book! Who's starring in it?"

"From what I've heard, Chloë Grace Moretz."

"Really? I think she'd be too delicate for that part. Seeing that she's starring in the movie we're seeing tonight, and it's a bit delicate."

And like that, we never ran out of things to talk about, even as we arrived at the steakhouse, or ate our meals, or traveled to the movie theater. We talked about books, movies, music, writing, anything. It was amazing to be able to talk to someone and discuss things on the in-depth levels we did. It felt phenomenal. It almost made me not want to go to the movie, just so we could keep talking.

"I mean, I get it that the cat should be considered both dead and alive, but my real question is why put a cat in a box with a vial of poison anyway? What was Schrödinger trying to accomplish with that experiment? Was he just trying to fuck with the general public's minds? Or give future TV shows about physicists theories for their comedy?" Aaron was saying as we walked into our designated theater for the 8pm showing of the film adaptation of Gayle Forman's If I Stay.

"I'll agree with you on the questioning of the point of carrying out the experiment, but, really, a The Big Bang Theory reference? That was a little out there," I actually grinned a little saying that. "I think he was trying to prove that you can't really know how things are going to be until you open the proverbial box."

He looked over at me, grinning. "You got that from the TBBT episode didn't you?"

I pretended to be offended, putting a hand to my chest. "Why no, I came up with that deep philosophical theory all on my own, thank you."

"Sure you did." he chuckled, then wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I jumped at the sudden closeness and hoped he didn't notice. To play it off, I grabbed the hand that hung off my shoulder with my own.

I really hoped he hadn't noticed.

When we got to the ticket booth, Aaron gave our order for tickets. When the cashier there handed them to him, he handed the guy a twenty dollar bill at the same time I tried to hand him a ten from my wallet.