Chapter Six
Rowan
I absolutely loved the diner and couldn’t wait to share it with Summit.
What I loved about the diner was that it was a big space to have a meal or hang with friends, but there were enough elements that made my little side happy, especially the milkshake.
In other restaurants, they just gave you a bigger cup when you got your milkshake, and it all fit inside.
But this one, having that extra little bit in the metal cup, felt like I was winning.
It was funny how the small things made the difference.
I arrived early. Far too early. I couldn’t help it.
I was overly excited about our date, and that had me afraid I was going to be late, which had me strolling up to the building an hour early.
I wasn’t even going to try and make that make sense.
I waited outside for Summit, but if it started to get crowded, my plan was to slide inside and get us a booth.
In the end, I hadn’t needed to. The crowd was flowing, but the place wasn’t overly packed at any point in time.
Summit showed up early too, but not the kind of early I was. He was the normal person tenish minutes early.
“You’re already here.” He stopped in front of me.
At first, I thought he was going to hug me, and then, I thought maybe it was a handshake. It wound up being none of the above, and while that was 100 percent appropriate for the situation, it was still a little disappointing.
“Shall we?” he asked.
I nodded, he held the door open for me, and I stepped inside.
One wall was lined with booths, and then there were the counter seats. That was it. It was small. A lot of their food was takeout lately, from what I’d observed while I was waiting—and I had a lot of time to observe.
We slid into an open booth, and I grabbed the menu. I always thought it was time to try something new and that I was going to be adventurous and get something different for a change. I never did.
When I came here—it didn’t matter who I came with—I’d take the menu just like I was now.
I’d read it, read it again, hem and haw, and then end up with a cheeseburger with ketchup and pickles, fries with a side of cheese sauce and a whole lot of ketchup, and one of two milkshakes—strawberry or chocolate, depending upon my mood. That was as varied as I got.
“What are you getting?” Summit asked, and I told him my plan.
“That does sound good. Have you ever had the Lou’s Special Burger?” Lou was the owner, and his special burger had a bunch of fancy toppings on it and a whole lot of bacon.
“No, I always just have ketchup and pickles. It’s famous for a reason. What do you have to decide between?” I asked.
He told me the two burgers he was considering. The waitress came over as he was doing so and she pretty much insisted he have the Lou’s Special Burger and, for his shake, a chocolate malt. She said if I wanted to try some, I could. It was sweet.
She took our orders, and we had normal first-date kind of chitchat while we waited for our food.
We veered away from topics related to Chained because we weren’t in a place where that conversation wouldn’t be overheard, and it wasn’t the kind of conversation most people were comfortable around.
Instead, we talked about his job and mine, shows we liked, places we liked to go—that kind of thing.
When the food came, we ate, and he did let me try some of his shake as promised.
I wanted to stay longer, but we’d occupied a booth for a long time, and a line was forming. It was the first wave of drunks, people who’d gone out and already had too much to drink.
It was time to leave whether I liked it or not. We went outside, and it hit me that we’d driven separately. This was going to be our goodbye for the night.
“Where’s your car?”
I pointed to it. I got a kick-ass parking spot because of how early I was. It was annoyingly close. If I had been even a block away, he could’ve walked me to my car.
“Well, I guess this is good night, then,” he said. “I had a good time.”
“I did too, Summit.”
He watched as I walked around my car to get in and drove away.
There was no kiss, no hug, no promise of a next time, and, at first, it seemed normal.
This was our first date. We were getting to know each other.
But then I realized we never said it was a date, and from there, my brain started to spiral, overthinking every last thing that happened from the time I showed up until the time I left.
When I got back home, my brain was still overanalyzing everything.
“Arrgh, why do I have to like him so much?”
I went into the bathroom and filled the tub, got my basket of underwater friends, which included squirty fish, a mermaid, and some divers I picked up at the dollar store, and got undressed. I needed little time.
If I’d called Sammy, he’d have come over to play with me. I didn’t want to ask that of him, not when he was still supposed to be taking it easy. Knowing that he would, was enough.
When the bubbles were nice and high, I shut the water off and slipped inside. My thought was that tubby time would distract me from my worries over whether I botched our date or not. It did, I supposed. Just not completely.
The bath also made me wish that I had a daddy here, one who could play with me, one who could dry me off and dress me when I got out of the water, one who would give me a hug after we ate dinner.
Not just any daddy, either. I wanted Summit here.
And the kicker was, I could have hugged him tonight. It wasn’t only his responsibility to communicate. It was mine too.
Some littles want their daddies to be in charge of everything at all times, including intimacy.
That wasn’t me. I wasn’t someone who always had to wait until another person made the first move.
And yet tonight, despite wanting a hug, I walked to my car.
I had no one to blame for my confusion except myself.
It was time to cancel my pity party for one.