Chapter 5
Jason: Valentine’s in a few days.
Vic: I know. My classes have been feral with this flower-gram thing going on.
Jason: Feral high schoolers? I could never imagine it.
Jason: Want to go out?
Vic: I’d love to.
I hadn’t looked forward to Valentine’s Day in years.
I’d been single for a while, and my last boyfriend hadn’t really cared for the holiday.
He’d claimed that it was nothing more than a consumerist cash grab.
He was as romantic as a kumquat, and that had been one of the many reasons we’d broken up.
It was nice to have plans with someone that was looking forward to celebrating the holiday.
Jason hadn’t given me a lot of details about our date.
He’d just told me to wear something comfortable, something I could be active in, and to be ready by three.
At 2:55, I was sitting on the stoop of my apartment building, playing on my phone, and waiting for him.
He pulled up a few minutes later, and I raced over to his car.
It felt ridiculous, pushing thirty and running out to a guy’s car like that.
I blamed Jason and the effect he had on me. What else could it be?
“You know, I would’ve come and knocked on your door,” Jason commented as I climbed into the car and began buckling in.
“Yes, but then I’d have to clean my apartment,” I told him with a grin.
It was a half-truth. My apartment wasn’t too bad, but it certainly wasn’t company ready.
Especially my bedroom, where I’d left clothing strewn across the bed while I tried to put together the perfect casual outfit.
I didn’t want him to see how much effort I was putting into this date.
“You’ve seen my place.”
“Your neat and tidy place?” Well, neat-ish and tidy-ish. I remembered the sock by the hamper and the clothing peeking out from under his bed. I remembered the impression that he’d done a rush job to impress me, the same way I would have had to if I’d allowed him to come and knock at my door.
Jason and I kept a steady stream of conversation as we drove across King’s Bay to our first destination.
He parked at an outdoor entertainment complex—one that had go-karts, batting cages, putt-putt, and a large arcade located inside the building where you paid.
I’d only been a few times, and I’d certainly never thought of bringing a date there.
(Of course, most of my dates were guys I met off Swyper, and we almost always met at bars or restaurants.) He found a parking spot, and we walked inside.
“Batting cages or putt-putt first?” Jason asked as we walked inside the small nondescript building. It was fairly empty, a lot emptier than the last time I’d been there. I didn’t know if it could be chalked up to the time of day or the day itself.
“Depends, how bad are you going to judge me for being terrible at the batting cages?”
He grinned. “Not at all, because I don’t think you could be any worse than me.”
The fact that he’d chosen something he wasn’t great at for a date, for either our first or second date depending on how we classified the Championship game, astounded me.
Most people wanted to impress on the first date, but Jason?
He wanted to have a good time. He wanted to have a date that we’d both remember.
He brought me somewhere that stood out amidst potentially dull options.
It was a welcome change from my previous dating history.
“Then batting cages first. Putt-putt’s calmer, and I think after we both wear ourselves out, it might be welcome.”
“I suck at minigolf, too.”
“No way.”
“I do,” he insisted.
I laughed. I couldn’t believe that he’d take me somewhere where he wasn’t great at either of the chosen activities.
Maybe he was planning to lull me into a false sense of security and then show that he was an F1 racer in disguise on the go-kart trail or demolish me at arcade games.
“Why did you choose something you’re not great at? ”
“I thought it’d be fun,” he admitted. “Plus, I figure we bonded over football. Might as well keep up the sports theme.”
I shook my head in disbelief. This was definitely going to be a date to remember.
The batting cages were just as bad as I thought they’d be.
We’d decided to go for two medium buckets of balls, and we maybe hit ten each.
It was clear that neither of us would have gone professional in baseball.
But we laughed and joked the entire time, and by the time we checked out of our lane, my cheeks were physically hurting.
Putt-putt was a little better. While neither of us were necessarily good, it brought out Jason’s competitive spirit.
By the third hole, he was talking trash.
By the fourth, I was throwing it back at him.
By the fifth, we’d somehow ended up making a bet that the person with the lowest score had to buy drinks at Pie in the Sky later.
The bet did not humble him in the slightest. If anything, it seemed to egg him on.
He seemed to think that distracting me would keep me from playing well.
He failed to realize that two could play the distraction game.
We were lucky that there was no one playing behind us because I kept distracting him with kisses and little touches. He kept trying to retaliate. I don’t think anyone had ever taken as long to play a round of minigolf in their lives. I don’t think I’d ever had as much fun doing it either.
After we finished, we played a few games at the arcade. It turned out that he had not lured me there to prove that he was an arcade warrior, though he did manage to kick my ass at air hockey. We decided to skip the go-karts and headed to Pie in the Sky for dinner.
Unlike the entertainment complex, Pie in the Sky was crowded.
Couples sat at small tables and shared pizzas.
Large groups laughed at some of the bigger tables scattered around the room.
Even the bar was crowded. It took us ten minutes to get seated, and another five for our server to come over and greet us.
We quickly ordered drinks and decided to split a large pepperoni and sausage pizza.
Was it the most romantic Valentine’s meal?
Probably not, but it was the perfect meal for the date he’d taken me on.
“You know,” I said as we sat at the table, waiting for our drinks to come back, “this has been one of the best dates I’ve ever been on.”
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” I didn’t like the way he looked so surprised. He had to know that it was a great date. He had to have realized how much fun I’d had. We’d spent the whole day laughing and teasing each other for our poor performances. I wasn’t sure the last time I’d had that much fun.
“You didn’t think it was too immature?”
I stared at him blankly for a moment. Was he serious?
The entire day had been amazing. How could I think that it was too immature?
It was the best date I’d been on in my life.
It was the kind of date that I would remember, no matter what else happened between us.
I hoped it was the first date of many, and I hoped that they were all as ‘immature’ as this date had been.
But I also wanted to understand why he’d even ask that. Had someone in his past told him that his dates were too childish?
“Why would you ask that?” I could hear the concern in my own voice, and I wondered how it sounded to his ears. “I had so much fun.”
He looked pensive. It was a new expression in the lexicon of faces I’d seen him make.
I’d seen him laughing. I’d seen him happy.
I’d seen him competitive. I’d seen so many different looks on his beautiful face, and this one was no less beautiful.
I waited for him to think through my question, to decide what he wanted to share.
We might have gotten to know one another pretty well over the course of the last few weeks, thanks to his question of the day text messages and our long string of conversation, but this was deeper than anything we’d shared so far.
I waited for what felt like an eternity before he finally spoke.
“I dated this guy after college. Every time I suggested dates like this, he told me that we needed to grow up. We needed to focus on our future. He acted like he was insulted by the concept of doing anything fun. His idea of dates were nice dinners, company parties, things like that.”
“Company parties?” What kind of recent college graduate had company parties?
“He had gotten this marketing job, and some of his clients invited him to fancy parties. I always felt like a fish out of water at those things, but I wanted to be with him. I loved him, and I thought that was just a part of what loving him came with.” He sighed.
“He just didn’t seem to think it was important to care about the stuff I liked, too.
He only cared about the things that would better his future.
He wanted me to fit into this mold of who he wanted me to be, and I never could. ”
I reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
“Jason,” I whispered. “That man missed out. He missed out on this vibrant man I’m starting to know.
He missed out on someone who plans fun dates full of things he’s not great at, just because they’re fun.
” His eyes met mine across the table, and I could see the years-old hurt aching behind them.
I didn’t know his ex, and I loathed him.
How could he sleep at night, knowing he’d put that kind of pain behind Jason’s eyes?
I wanted to be the one to take it away from him, to soothe that age-old hurt and replace it with something better.
“You’re an amazing person, even if your mouth runs away with you sometimes.
You’re the first guy I’ve ever talked to that texts me first, every day.
You’re curious, and you have so much energy.
” I noticed the smile starting to grow on his face.
“Anyone who thinks that’s immature is a dumbass. ”
“Pretty sure you thought I was immature when we met,” he pointed out.
I laughed. “No, I thought you were a complete asshole.”
He brought my hand up to his lips, kissing the knuckles. “I was kind of an asshole.”
“You’re passionate,” I corrected with a shrug.
It was not a word I would have used when I met him, but now I could see the truth.
I could see how passionate he was about football, the Foxes, stats, his classes, everything.
He was a passionate man, and in a world that was filled to the brim with men who were too afraid to show that side of themselves, it was a welcome relief. “I like that about you.”
“You think you’re going to like that about me next season? When the Foxes and Gladiators play each other?”
Warmth filled my chest. He was talking about next season already.
There were months to go before pre-season would even start.
It could be anywhere between months and almost a year before the Gladiators and Foxes played one another, and he was talking about us watching the game together.
He spoke like it was a done deal. He sounded so sure of himself, of us.
“I’ll probably think you’re an asshole again the second your mouth starts running,” I admitted. “But hey, there’s a good chance they won’t play each other this year.”
They weren’t in the same division, so they didn’t always play one another during the regular season. Just most years.
“They will. This year the UC North takes on the UC South for out of division games.”
“Then that’s a bridge we will cross when we get to it.”
When, not if. If he could talk with that much certainty about where we’d be when that game came around, then so could I.
Our food came, and we dived into the pizza and drinks. We talked and laughed, and I realized that this could be something special. I wanted it to be that. I wanted it to grow and expand and turn into something that I never let go.
I wanted this date to be the first of many, and something told me that it would be.