CHAPTER 5
I’d never been on a date before. My options had been fairly slim pickings over the years. Miraculously, Jamie and Beck had been the only boys at Alderton-Du Ponte when we were growing up, and the guys at school were not nearly impressive enough to waste my time with.
No, if I were going to introduce anyone in my life, I needed someone mature, someone who was going places, and who would cause people to do a double take upon glancing over.
And that was why Carter Pembleton was perfect, even more so after I found out about him being Mr. ASMR.
I sat at the dining room table with a calm thud-thud in my chest, tracing the grain in the wood with my fingertip.
The whole day had felt like it’d gone by impossibly slow.
School had dragged as we prepped for finals, and Daisy had apologized for not being able to come help me get ready for my date—she had to watch her siblings until her mom got home from work—but she made me promise to call her first thing when I got home instead.
Jamie was sitting in the living room, curled on the couch with his book, pretending he didn’t know what I was waiting for. Pretending he wasn’t waiting for it, too.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, watching the second hand tick. Four minutes.
“Oh, you look beautiful, Nellie!” Mom swept into the dining room with her briefcase in hand and purse strap over her shoulder, coming in through the garage door. “I’m glad you went with that one. That dress looks so pretty on you.”
Mom had laid out the maroon midi-length dress with little flowers on it this morning before work, and I paired it with a crocheted cream-colored bolero. My dark hair mostly hung straight down my shoulders, and I’d twisted a few pieces back, with my bang pieces still framing my face. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I don’t know how you and Jamie grew up so fast,” Mom said as she came around the back of my chair, running her fingers through my hair. “It feels like just yesterday your dad was still popping Jamie’s popcorn for him and I was tucking you into bed.”
I held still under her attention, warmth blooming inside my chest. “And now here I am, going on my first date. And Jamie is… reading. Still.”
The word still tasted odd on my tongue. Date. I wanted to see Carter, but date felt far more loaded than what I felt.
“I thought you’d be more nervous than you are.” Mom gave me a quick kiss on the top of my head before setting her things down on the table. “You’re sitting here, cool as a cucumber. I was a nervous wreck before all of my first dates.”
“Even with Dad?”
“Even with your dad. He made me extra nervous. That’s how I knew he was the one.”
“They say that’s how you know someone’s not the one. Nowadays, they say that butterflies are really your body’s way of warning you away, and we just confuse them for something positive.”
Mom tilted her head. “Huh. I never thought about it that way.” Then she shrugged. “But it worked out for us. I suppose no nerves in your case, then, is a good thing, hmm?”
I had to agree. I didn’t feel nervous at all; in fact, as I sat there literally counting down the minutes, I almost felt bored.
“If your father asks,” she went on, lowering her voice, “let’s just tell him this was a friendship thing, mm?”
That surprised me. “You think he’d be upset about me dating?”
“I think he’s got a lot bothering him. I don’t think we need to add any more to his plate.”
For a moment, I hesitated. Maybe telling him about my first date would be just what he needed to wake from his zombie state. “All right.”
Then the doorbell rang, a light sound that echoed through the dining room. Mom was the one who let out a little shriek. “He’s here!”
“He’d better be,” Jamie grumbled from the living room. “Because he only had a minute left.”
Mom went before me to open the door, and I took one last mental once-over of myself. My hair was tangle-free. My lips were glossy. I would put my shoes on at the door, and then I’d be perfect to go.
Mom had ushered Carter into the foyer by the time I got there, where his eyes had caught on the family photos hanging from the wall.
He was currently looking at one from when Jamie and I were nine, with Destelle beside Dad, and Mom’s arm around my shoulders.
It’d been the last family photo we’d all taken together, because Destelle never came home for the other ones.
“Perfectly on time,” I told Carter, drawing his attention away from the picture and to me.
“I wouldn’t risk ruining my chances.” The confident line was dulled a bit by the sheepish smile on his lips.
Carter looked exactly how I’d imagined. His chinos were perfectly pressed, and his dress shirt was tucked into the waistband.
His warm brown hair was styled again, exposing his forehead and crinkled eyes.
His eyes found Mom’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself at Senior Night, Mrs. Brighton. ”
“It’s Ms. Fontaine, actually,” Mom corrected politely. “I kept my maiden name.”
I watched Carter’s reaction to that. Some men at Alderton-Du Ponte turned their noses up at Mom for that, muttering under their breaths about it. Carter, though, remained cheery. “Ms. Fontaine. Is your husband here? I’d love to meet him—”
“Oh, he’s not feeling well.” Mom hid her anxiety behind a perfectly curated smile. “But come around another time, and I’m sure he’d love to meet you.”
Jamie appeared in the doorway to the living room, hands in his pockets, eyes roaming Carter. “No flowers?”
Carter looked down at his empty palms almost in surprise, as if he hadn’t realized. “Oh. Oh. I should’ve—I can’t believe I didn’t—”
“It’s fine,” I told him quickly, grabbing his hand. It felt clammy. “I don’t need flowers. I actually don’t even like them much.”
The stress on Carter’s face didn’t fade, though, and I turned to glare at my brother. Thanks a lot.
Jamie just arched a brow.
After giving Mom a hug goodbye, I let Carter open the front door back up and stepped outside. He stumbled around me to grab at the passenger door handle, hauling it open and nearly clipping me on the hip as he did so. “S-Sorry,” he stuttered out.
I bit down on a laugh. “It’s okay.”
Carter nearly shut the door on my dress before hurrying to the driver’s seat. His right hand fumbled with his car keys to twist the engine on.
I watched him all the while. “You don’t have to be nervous.”
“I’m not.” He swallowed hard enough that I heard his gulp. “I just… don’t want to mess this up.”
This was such a loaded word. “You never seemed nervous when we DM’d.”
“That’s because I could think over my response before sending it.
Check and double check and triple check to make sure what I said wouldn’t be misunderstood.
This isn’t like a YouTube video—it’s like a livestream, where I can’t edit out anything I do wrong.
” Carter rubbed his brow. “I can’t believe I forgot flowers. ”
I studied his anxious profile. It was strange to see someone so handsome be so worried, as if life and death hung in the balance of this outing. “Unedited footage is nice.”
“You haven’t seen mine.”
“Would it help if we didn’t think of it as a date? If you thought of it as just us hanging out? Getting coffee? Blooper reels are allowed between friends.” I emphasized the word lightly. Friends.
The question reassured him far more than I thought it would’ve, and I realized, yes, that was his problem.
I could see it in the plain way his shoulders slumped with relief.
“Deal. But I’ll try to keep my outtakes to a minimum.
” When his hand reached for his gear shifter, it was a lot steadier. “What kind of coffee do you drink?”
“An iced brown sugar shaken espresso, please, with extra ice, and a hot caramel mocha,” Carter said to the barista when it came to our turn in line.
Crushed Beanz, the most amazing coffee shop in the Village of Hallow, was mildly busy for a Tuesday afternoon.
But I’d planned on that. Busy was fine. Preferred, even, since it’d take some of the pressure off.
Carter shot me a proud smile at having remembered the order I relayed to him fifteen minutes ago. I gave him a small smile back.
The girl behind the counter quickly hopped to crafting our drinks, and I gently laid a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “I’ll go find us a seat.”
Mildly busy meant there were a few options in terms of seating. The double chairs near the small stage in the back of the coffee shop were occupied. The tables furthest from the door were taken, as well as a few booths. But there was one left, underneath a large windowpane, and I beelined for it.
I sat facing the microphone on the small stage. It was poetry night at Crushed Beanz, where any amateur poet could waltz up and hold the audience captive, willingly or unwillingly. Another thing I’d planned for, a distraction in case the conversation lulled too flat.
It only took a few minutes for Carter to come over with our drinks, setting the iced brown sugar shaken espresso down in front of me. “I can’t drink a true coffee,” he said a bit sadly as he eyed my drink. “It tastes like dirt water. I just got a mocha.”
“Unsweetened iced tea tastes like dirt water,” I corrected him, giving my drink a swirl. “Espresso, however, is the liquid of the gods.”
Carter laughed and settled more fully into his booth. The partitions between the booths were short, so when he leaned his head back, he nearly collided with the woman behind him. “This is a cute place,” he said, glancing around. “Seems like it’d be good for… well. Acoustics.”
“You mean for your ASMR?”
A small flush stole across his cheeks. “Yeah.”
“Why are you embarrassed about it?” I propped an elbow on the table. “No one here knows you. No one here will eavesdrop.”
“It’s not that I’m embarrassed. I just don’t get to talk about it much, so it feels…”
“Awkward?”
The couple in the booth behind Carter stood, gathered their things, and left. “A little.”