Forget Me Not

chapter eight: the perfect date

"You want to know how you can tell if you're meant to be with someone? Just sit and have a conversation. Some people when you talk to them, it's like trying to listen to classical music on a radio with no antenna. You can push that dial back and forth all you want, but you only get the static. But when you're meant to be with someone, and they truly are the one, you just sit, start talking and a Beethoven sonata will begin to play."

- the perfect date (2019)

The sound of TNT's engine rattling was barely enough to drown out the rapid beating of Oliver's heart. His fingers drummed anxiously on the steering wheel in front of him as the car idled beneath him, parked precariously close to the curb. Oliver had never been very good at parking. He could faintly hear the conversations of those on the sidewalk beside as they passed, discerning into some sort of mumble as they passed by in a variety of stages of coming or going.

His throat felt incomprehensibly dry, as though it had been lined with sandpaper, although he didn't touch the water bottle in the cup holder for fear of a nervous bladder.

His eyes watched the door to the townhouse as discreetly as he could manage without completely staring it down. It appeared different in the daylight, somehow more chaotic than before with the pile of shoes overflowing from the porch, a hot pink feather boa strung across the railing and a Christmas bulb covered wreath hanging on the front door. It was undeniably the complete opposite from his and Brock's house.

He rubbed his moistened palms on his pant legs again before running them back through his hair. Instinctively he flinched as he realized he was likely just adding unnecessary moisture to his attempt at styling his hair.

It was in the only millisecond that he hadn't been paying attention in which she suddenly appeared.

She had on a puffy vest which in Oliver's opinion kind of made her look like a prettier version of the Michelin man and she was smiling from ear-to-ear. It was a smile that made Oliver's throat tighten unexpectedly as he appraised her.

Right, staring, too much staring. He looked away as he came to the conclusion that perhaps he had held her gaze for simply too long as she crossed the stretch between her front door and his vehicle.

If she hadn't already been in TNT, Oliver would have been having a conniption about the state of his shit car. But she'd driven in it with him once and wasn't reluctant to brave it again so he figured it was okay. He had yet to deduce how some college boys zipped around in shiny new Mustangs but he reckoned it ultimately had something to do with inheritance, or lack of brains, or both.

"Hey you." She smiled as she opened the car door, letting in the sudden, crisp aroma of the outside air mixed with the pleasant scent of... lilies. 

Oliver was surprised to suddenly find his car filled with the floral scent, radiating off of her in dizzying waves.

"Hey." Oliver offered back, attempting to keep his face neutral as he inhaled more of her. It felt as though her stomach her risen into her throat as he waited for her to buckle her seatbelt, casting tantalizing waves of perfume in his direction.

He could only imagine what Brock would say about him delightedly just smelling her. Likely something about how much of a fruitcake or a asshat he was. He pushed Brock quickly from his thoughts, unwilling to let thoughts of him dampen his time with Izzy.

"So, where to?" She smiled pleasantly, shifting so that she turned her entire attention towards him.

Where to --- that had been the question on Oliver's mind since this entire cosmic collision of the universe had occurred. Of course that was a drastic term to describe how he managed to get a date with Izzy but he could only assume that something interstellar had occurred for it to happen.