Always

thirty-four

K Y L E R
"Will you whisper in my ear,
those three words I wanna hear?"

This girl is really going to be the death of me.

That one thought constantly circulated in my head as I gave the shopkeeper a friendly smile as he handed me my change and tried not to let out a chuckle when he returned that gesture with a horribly forced smile of his own. Turning my back on Mr. Grumpy, I headed towards the front door before making my way out of the familiar store and into the even more familiar streets of New York City, where I had to dodge around some incredibly rude passers who thought it was a good idea to constantly bump into an immensely anxious teenage guy trying to juggle the bouquet in his hands without ruining it as he made his way back to his housing complex.

Usually I would have grumbled an annoyed response or even a half-assed apology for them bumping into me, but right now the only thing that I could think of was that I needed this night to be perfect and the last thing I wanted was to ruin my mood before it even began.

I inhaled shakily as the two familiar houses standing side by side came into view and the horrible knots in my stomach intensified, making me feel as if I was going to throw up any second.

It's not like this was the first time I was taking Luna out somewhere. I had taken her out countless times but for some reason, thinking that this was an official date made me ten times more nervous than it should.

Running the entire plan through my head one last time, I walked up to her front door before quickly ringing the doorbell. And those few long seconds of waiting for her to open the door were enough to make me overthink the entire idea.

Was I moving too fast? Was she even ready to get into a relationship? Am I pushing her too much? Should I-

"It's about time! I thought you stood me up or something." My eyes snapped up to meet a pair of green ones and I almost sighed in relief at the sight of a wide smile etched onto her face. A smile of my own broke onto my face as she walked into my arms, tightly wrapping her arms around me.

"Sorry, love." She pulled back from my chest with her arms still wrapped around my abdomen and I leaned down to press gently press a sweet kiss to her lips. "I just needed to pick up something for you really quickly."

"Yeah?" She frowned slightly, pulling back and I took this as a chance to extend the bouquet in my hands. The sight of the colourful flowers in my hands caused the soft smile to instantly reappear on her lips and that damn adorable look on her face made it so hard to fight the urge to back her up against the door and kiss her breathless.

That wouldn't be much of an appealing sight for the neighbours.

"What-you didn't have to." She cooed, taking the bouquet from my hands just as I shrugged.

"I wanted to. I mean, it's our first date and I wanted to add in a little nice gesture." I said, scratching the back of my neck nervously. "And besides Sam would kill me if she found out I didn't get you any flowers."

That caused Luna to let out a laugh and I followed her inside as she tried looking for an empty vase. "You already planned the entire date on your own. Isn't that nice enough?"

"Apparently not." I shrugged and Luna chuckled softly, smiling at me over her shoulder as she placed the flowers in an empty vase and that small gesture easily caused my heart to skip a beat.