Zara
First Date With Your Best Friend
By the time he knocks on the door, I’ve changed my outfit three times, settling on a black skirt, a cream sweater, and my black Vans. My hair is in one of those loose half-up things that makes me feel like I tried without trying too hard.
Whatever that means.
The knock comes again, louder this time.
“Zae? You alive in there?”
My stomach clenches at the sound of his voice. It’s ridiculous. We’ve been together for a week. We’ve already seen each other naked more than my therapist would probably approve of. But the idea of a date with him has my nerves doing cartwheels.
“Yeah!” I call, grabbing my phone, keys, and whatever’s left of my dignity. “Coming!”
I step out, shutting the door behind me, and turn to see Cass leaning against the wall across the hall, scrolling his phone. When he looks up, my brain short-circuits.
Because.
Oh no.
No. No. No.
He’s in khakis. Khakis and a light blue button-down that’s rolled to his elbows. No hoodie. No band tee. His hair is styled on purpose instead of in that I-shoved-my-hands-in-it-and-called-it-a-day way. He even has on boat shoes.
Boat. Shoes.
I stop dead. My eyes go wide. The first words that want to come out are, “Who are you, and what have you done with my boyfriend?”
He sees my face and his shoulders tense. “What?” he asks, glancing down at himself. “Too much?”
“It’s… a lot,” I manage.
“You said first official date,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “So I thought… I don’t know. Stacey always said—”
“Nope.” My hand shoots up immediately, firm enough that he actually shuts up mid-sentence. “That’s the problem right there.”
He blinks. “What?”
“You listened to Stacey,” I tell him, walking over so I’m standing toe to toe with him. I pinch the sleeve of his shirt between my fingers. “This? This is not you, Cass.”
Something flickers in his eyes. A little flash of insecurity, and I almost feel guilty. “I thought I should look nice,” he says, quieter now. “For you.”
My chest squeezes so tight it physically hurts.
God, this idiot.
“You always look nice to me. In your hoodie, band tees, and ripped jeans. The guy who looks like he fell out of an alternative playlist, not a country club brochure.”
He huffs out the tiniest laugh at that, the tension bleeding off his shoulders.
“I’m not her,” I remind him. “I’m not trying to change you. I love you for you. Skater boy, anger issues, too many rings and hand tattoos, all of it. So, how about we go fix this?”
His eyes search my face like he’s checking to see if I mean it. Apparently what he finds works, because he lets out a breath and nods once.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Okay. Yeah.”
I loop my fingers through his and start tugging him down the hall. “C’mon. Let’s go rescue you from this pastel prison.”
He snorts. “You’re trouble.”
“Good thing I’m your kind of trouble.”
When we get to Cass’ room, it looks wrong with him standing in the middle of it dressed like a Target catalog. He pulls off the button-down in one smooth move, revealing those delectable abs that I love to rub my hands over. My brain short-circuits for a whole other reason.
“Enjoying the show?” he asks, mouth tilting up when he catches my stare.
“Deeply,” I admit, not even pretending otherwise.
He shakes his head, lips twitching, and turns to rummage in his drawer. He throws on a white T-shirt, and when he straightens, he’s holding a familiar black hoodie and his ripped jeans.
That’s better.
He switches out the pants, kicks the boat shoes into a corner, and pulls on his Vans, the ones that match mine. His hoodie goes on next, rings back on his fingers, chain hanging at his belt loop. In less than five minutes, my skater boy is back.
He faces me and does a little shrug, palms up. “Better?”
I grin, stepping close enough to grab the drawstrings of his hoodie. “Much.” I give them a little tug. “There’s the Cass I know.”
His eyes flick down to my mouth. “You look… really fucking good, by the way. Been trying not to stare since you opened the door.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Good,” I try to sound cocky instead of flustered. “That’s the goal.”
He leans in like he’s about to kiss me, then pulls back at the last second with a quiet groan. “If I start now, we’re not leaving this room. And you said you wanted a real date.”
“I did,” I admit, even though my body is voting hard for stay in and do very not-PG things.
He runs his thumb over my knuckles. “Then let’s go before I change my mind.”
The stairwell to the roof smells like dust and stale beer.
Romantic, I know.
Cass leads the way up, fingers laced with mine, thumb rubbing the back of my hand in slow, distracting circles that make it very hard to focus on walking.
“This is such a cliché,” I whisper. “Rooftop date? Are we in a Netflix teen drama?”
“Shut up,” he mutters, but his ears are a little pink, which makes me feel bad for a second. “I scoped it out earlier. There was no one up here. I thought we could sit, eat, actually see the stars for once.”
“Aw,” I coo as my chest does that stupid warm melty thing. “Look at you, being all thoughtful.”
“Don’t spread that around,” he jokes, side-eyeing me as he leads the way up. “I have a reputation.”
We hit the last landing, and Cass reaches for the heavy metal door at the top of the stairwell. There’s a little paper sign taped crookedly to it.
ROOFTOP MOVIE NIGHT
STUDENT ID REQUIRED
Cass stops so abruptly, I almost walk into his back.
I glance around his shoulder. “So, the big mysterious date plan was campus movie night?”
“No.” His mouth tightens. “That was not the plan.”
He gives me a look over his shoulder, but it doesn’t land right.
There’s tension under it now, tight and sudden.
Before I can ask, the door opens from the other side, letting in a rush of cool late September air, movie audio, and the smell of popcorn.
A girl in a student activities hoodie steps into the stairwell with a clipboard hugged to her chest. She sees Cass and freezes.
“Hey,” she says, and her eyes flick down to the clipboard like she’s hoping his name won’t be there. “Um. You can’t come up.”
Cass goes still. “We’re not staying,” he mutters, already shifting like he’s going to turn us around. “Come on.”
I don’t move. “Wait. Why can’t he?”
The girl’s face goes uncomfortable fast. “I’m sorry. It’s just… he’s on the restricted list.”
My stomach drops as Cass’ hand tightens around mine, then loosens immediately. Like even that much pressure is something he has to correct.
“Zae,” he warns quietly.
“No.” I look at the girl. “Restricted from what?”
“Campus-sponsored events.” She winces, clearly hating every second of this. “For the rest of the semester. Student Conduct sent the list to event staff.”
For a second, all I hear is the muffled movie music above us and somebody laughing on the roof. Then the reason comes to me. The frat party and the guy Cass punched.
My face burns, but not because I’m embarrassed of him. Because this was supposed to be a date. He planned something. He brought me here. And now his worst moment is sitting between us with paperwork attached. Cass stares at the wall beside the door.
“We got it,” he says flatly.
The girl grips her clipboard tighter. “I’m really sorry. I’m just work-study. If I let you up, I could get in trouble.”
His eyes cut to her then, and some of the anger drains out.
“Not your fault.”
The girl nods, relieved but still awkward. “Thanks.”
From the other side of the door, someone calls, “Kayla, we need more blankets!”
She glances back, then at us again. “Sorry.”
The door swings shut, cutting off the sound of the movie and the rooftop and the date Cass tried to give me.
The silence in the stairwell is suddenly too loud.
Cass swears under his breath, jaw clenched. “Of course. Of fucking course.”
“Hey.” I tug on his hand until he looks at me. “We can see the roof another day. It’s not a big deal, Cass.”
He huffs out a sharp breath. “Yeah, well, it feels like one.”
“The point is I’m with you,” I remind him. I brush my thumb over the back of his hand, slow and steady, realizing he’s trying not to spiral into anger. “So pick a new place, because it doesn’t matter where we are as long as we’re together. Okay?”
Something in his expression eases at that, as his body slowly softens again. He lets out one long, heavy breath, bringing his system back to a calm.
“You’re really going to say cheesy shit like that to me right now?” he mutters with a light shake of his head.
I grin a little too cheeky as I look up at him. “You love it.”
He rolls his eyes with a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. “Unfortunately.”
“So.” I tilt my head. “New plan?”
He thinks for a second, then his eyes spark with something lighter. “Skate?”
Warmth blooms in my chest. “Hell yes.”
Ten minutes later, we’ve dropped by both our dorms.
I’ve tugged on a pair of bike shorts underneath my skirt, because I’m not about to flash half the campus if I eat it. Cass carries both boards under one arm, the other hand gripping my hip as we walk back out into the cool evening.
The campus looks different at night, almost quieter. Streetlamps wash the sidewalks in soft gold, and the air hums low with music from distant dorm windows.
We roll our boards onto the pavement.
“I still can’t believe you got banned from all Greek parties,” I tease, one foot on my board, pushing off. “That’s some legendary shit.”
“Pretty sure they just don’t want me punching anyone else,” he replies dryly, kicking off beside me. “Can’t imagine why.”
I carve a lazy arc in front of him, letting the wheels buzz under my feet. The tension from the roof starts to slip away with every push.
We fall into that easy rhythm we always do when we skate together. He’s good, but I’ve been doing this longer, so I skate backward for a stretch just to annoy him, grinning as his eyes narrow.
“Show-off,” he mutters.
“You love it,” I sing back.
He does that little half-smile that wrecks me. “Yeah. I do.”