Stuck with a Punk ✔

No. 64.: Embarrassed

Annabelle is uncomfortable once we get seated in the restaurant, even though I have reassured her for hundred times on our way to Winter River.

"How many times do I need to tell you that you do not look ugly or weird?" I groan as I'm looking over the menu. I don't need to have my eyes on her to know that she keeps menacing about looking like a troll compared to others in the restaurant.

"I look like an orphan you took mercy on."

Oh, wow!

I drop the menu down and wait for her to look up. She finally does so and lowers the offer of meals as she does that.

I honestly... don't even know what to say. I think my face is saying enough, plus I've told her I don't know how many times that despite everything she looks lovely.

Yet, it seems all those words were for nothing at all because she says: "Yeah, well, it's true!"

I sigh and for a second pinch the bridge of my nose, "You look good, Annabelle. Look, I'm not wearing any makeup, but that doesn't mean I escaped from an orphanage."

She rolls her eyes like I'm such a typical man that definitely wouldn't get it, that what she is saying is a universal truth and I can't seem to grasp it with my limited man brain. "Just think about one thing for me. Isn't it better to look at a smoking hot lady than, as I've pointed out, an orphan!"

"Okay, first of all, you do not look like an orphan. You're pretty!" But of course, she won't believe that! What she'll have as an excuse is probably that I've slept with her so many times that I'm in a way obligated to say that. "And honestly, I don't know what kind of men do you know that have made you feel this insecure about not wearing makeup?"

"I've met enough men to know you like it when a girl is pretty."

"And who said you're not pretty without makeup?" I argue back, literally getting pissed off by this.

She has worn no makeup to the strolls with Devon before, and I doubt she wears makeup when she goes groceries shopping. We all have our own insecurities, but she really shouldn't be feeling this way while we're here, dining out. She's with me. I've told her on multiple occasions that she is hella pretty.

"Annabelle," I wait for her to look at me, so she'll know I mean that with every bit of me, "Makeup is fine. Yes, it can conceal many insecurities and it can make someone look prettier. I don't know what your guys told you, Mason or Dominico, but men - real men - don't care about that as long as you don't look scruffy or ratty, insalubrious if you will. When a man wants to spend time with you and wants to spend it talking to you and enjoying your company, it's not because you're either wearing or not wearing mascara, but because you intrigue him as a person."

Oof, that felt like a damn monologue from Shakespeare that just keeps dragging on for ages and pages.

To answer the question what is prettier, personally, I find the woman the prettiest when she wakes up in the morning when her hair is all ruffled, she's blinking and cringing at the light, and when she needs a minute or two to get up from the bed and just piece herself together. It's the purest sight. And guess what - no makeup involved!

All jokes aside, I hope she will understand it now. And who would she even be trying to impress? I just think of her during the performance and my knees shiver, she clearly doesn't have to work on me anymore - land officially conquered.

"Neither of them was like that. Both of them were very nice."

Who?

Oh, right, those two. Besides her father and Austin, these two are the only ones for whom I know are in Annabelle's life - Mason and Dominico.