Attachment (Unedited Rough Draft)

Chapter 21

I was dancing in my seat as our food was brought out and Darren watched as I continued to do so as I cut into my steak.

"That's cute." He said.

"What?" I asked as I froze.

"The dancing in your seat." He answered.

I could feel myself blushing as I looked down at my food.

"Yeah, I pretty much always do it." I said.

"There's nothing wrong with it, I think it's cute." He said.

I smiled and we fell into comfortable silence as we ate. It had been awhile since I had last been here. I was thinking the last time was probably with Chris right before I found out exactly how much he was fucking me over. I also found myself wondering what Rowan was doing, I felt bad for that, I shouldn't be thinking of another guy while I'm on a date.

"Would you want to go for a walk with me after dinner?" Darren asked breaking my train of thought.

"Where?" I asked.

"There's that lighted path they have set up past the parking lot." He said.

"The forest one." I said, "Yeah that could be nice."

Darren nodded as he went back to his plate and finishing his dinner. I liked the lighted path he was talking about. It gave the illusion of being further away from buildings then you really were and it was surprisingly quiet and peaceful. Chris hated when I would want to go walk through, said it was stupid. My favorite time to was around Christmas because they did the lights all over the trees and it was pretty.

Our waitress came over to see how we were doing and Darren asked for the check.

"Sounds good, is this together or split?" The waitress asked.

"Together." Darren answered before I could say anything.

"Thank you." I said as the waitress walked away.

"No problem." He said, "You can cover the next meal."

"Not a bad system." I said.

The waitress came back with the check and Darren gave her his card. We didn't need boxes since we had both finished what was on our plates. The waitress was quick to bring back his card and receipt. He bowed his head to her as we left like a cowboy will tip his hat rim.

The weather outside was perfect for a walk. After the last storm I was expecting more wind and another storm to be brewing but right now it was perfect and clear. Darren led the way to the start of the path that was set up to wind itself through the trees.

"I love this path." Darren said.

"Me too, I wasn't sure when they first put it in, but yeah." I agreed with him.

"I hear they want to do more with the lights around more holidays. Like what they do for Christmas and all that." He said.

"Oh, that could be cool depending on what they do and all that." I said as we walked around the first bend in the path.

It looked like we were the only ones on the path. If you followed the whole loop it was about a mile long but there were a few side paths that would lead you back to the starting point that were shorter loops. I always preferred the full mile one because there was a tree on it that was shaped like an 'S'.

Ahead of us there was rustling in one of the bushes lining the path. I watched to see if a squirrel or some other little critter was going to make an appearance, but none did.

"It gets so quiet and we're not even really away from anything." Darren said, "It amazes me every time."

"Same actually." I agreed.