28. First Date Jitters
28
FIRST DATE JITTERS
MALLORY/OLIVER
MALLORY
My bedroom has become a war zone. A clothing bomb exploded and left no casualties. I don’t even remember what bedspread I have. Does my floor have carpet? I couldn’t tell you. Because every square inch of my room is filled with my clothes. Clothes I've worn a million times. Clothes I love but haven’t worn yet. Clothes that I love that aren’t even mine. And yet, nothing is good enough. Nothing is good enough to wear on my first real , official date with Ollie.
After the guys caught us making out in the movie theatre and Cory’s very loud conversation with Jules over the phone, we – he – decided that what better way to cement our relationship being public than with a real reservation needed, sit down dinner. And I couldn’t say yes faster. But now I kind of wished I'd say no. because I have nothing to wear.
I hear a quiet knock on my door. Before I had the chance to say something, Juliana bursts in, shopping bags in hand. “ Hey Mallie, Abs let me in on her way… out… oh my god, what happened in here?”
“All my clothes suck, that’s what happened.” I whine, dropping to the floor. “Ollie and I have been on dates. We’ve hung out as friends. Why do I now hate everything I own?”
“Maybe because you’ve never been on an official date with a boyfriend who hasn’t sucked the life out of you?” I blink. That’s actually not that far off. “I prepared for this, don’t worry.” She settles her bags onto the bed, fiddling through them until she hands me one. “I saw this earlier, and thought of you. Try it on.” I take a peak in the bag, smiling. Looking up at Jules, I can see the smirk on her face. “If he doesn’t die or cry after immediately seeing you in this dress, then he doesn’t deserve the date.”
“I'm more worried about what he’s going to wear.”
Juliana nods. “The boy can make sweatpants look hot.”
He can. I don’t think there is a single second of the day that I'm not crushing on this boy. Because Oliver Marco Ashby is very crushable. And he’s very mine.
OLIVER
I hold up two ties to my head, swapping them to see which one goes better with my suit. It’s the twelfth tie I've shown Shawn and Courtney.
“This one, or this one?”
Courtney just stares at me, a bored expression on her face. “Where do you get your clothes from?”
Shawn pokes her in the arm. “Leave him alone, babe, he’s nervous. Go with the blue, dude.” I decide to just say fuck it, and start tying the blue tie around my neck. “Why are you freaking out so much anyway? You two have been on dates before, right? ”
“Never as an official couple. It’s different this time. I’ve never been this excited for a date before. I’ve never loved a girlfriend as much as I love her. I just want this to go well.”
A chime fills the room. I look at Courtney through the mirror as smiles before sorting through the array of discarded ties I threw on my bed.
“What’s the matter, babe?” Shawn asks. Courney plucks an emerald green tie from the pile and chucks it at me.
“Wear this one.”
I frown at the tie. “Why?”
“Because Juliana just told me it matches Mallory’s dress.”
“Mallory’s dress is green?”
Please say no.
She smirks at me as she shows Shawn something on her phone. He lets out a soft whistle as he smiles. “Dude, you’re so fucked.”
Considering I think she’d look sexy in a garbage bag, I'd say yes, yes I am.
I am so nervous I'm physically shaking. I was sweating in the car ride over to her apartment. I was so agitated in the elevator that I couldn’t fucking stand still, and when she opened her front door, I think I died right there and went to heaven. There is no other explanation for her looking like a fucking goddess.
She’s wearing an emerald green dress that hugs her curves so fucking much. Her straps are thin, and as I drag my eyes down, all I see is legs, legs, legs. They shimmer in the light, like gold dust. Her heels are the same colour as her dress. Her hair is down, curlier the usual, and I swear, in the light, I see little shimmers of gold, the same as her legs. She looks ethereal, out of this world. But then again, she always looks like that to me. I am one hundred percent, without a doubt, the luckiest man alive.
“So, how do I look?” She says, doing a quick spin to reveal that the dress dips low in the back. When she steps closer to me her skin shimmers, like she bathed in fairy dust.
“You are still very much out of my league,” I whisper, making her laugh. She closes the door, and inches closer to me. Even in heels, I still tower over her. “You look gorgeous.” I kiss her lightly on the lips.
She frowns up at me. “Um, excuse me? I went for gloss instead of lipstick, kiss me better than that, Ashby.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I move my hands to her waist, caressing her body, moving them down to cup her ass, deepening the kiss, coaxing her lips open with my tongue.
I move my tongue around her teeth, eliciting a little whimper from her when we break away.
“Dinner first,” I pant, kissing her neck. “Dinner first, then I get you for dessert.”
She chuckles, kissing me on my cheek. “Yes sir.” She kisses my other cheek, then my nose, then my lips. “Unless,” she says, kissing her way down my neck. “We can have a breakfast date instead?”
“Oh no, I say. You look way too good to stay inside. We’re going to dinner.” I fuse our hands together, laughing when I see her pout. “Patience, Dolcezza mia, patience.”
“I have no patience. Not when you smell so fucking good.” We reach the elevator, and as I press the button for her lobby, she presses me up against the wall. “Promise me that when we come back tonight, you’ll make me come more than once?” She nibbles the spot below my ear. She knows that’s my weak spot. I have to grip the bar behind me to stop from pressing the emergency button. “Mallie, I promise I’ll make you come so hard, you’ll see stars.”
She kisses the spot one last time.
“Deal.”
As soon as we pull up outside the restaurant, I go straight back to being a nervous wreck. For the entire car ride, all I could smell was her. Cherries, and lemons. She looks so fucking good. Every time I placed my hand on her thigh, I just wanted to go higher and higher. But I had to grip her thigh in place, I couldn’t stop my hand from shaking.
I cut the engine, and turned to look at her. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to maul you in the back seat.” She smiles at me and fuck, she’s so sweet.
I get out and round the car, reaching out a hand for her. I lock my car and intertwine our hands together, walking up to the Italian restaurant I chose for tonight. ‘Under The Lemon Tree’ – her favourite restaurant in Covington. It’s not a fancy, reservation needed restaurant like I originally promised, but it’s her favourite, so I hope that’s good enough.
We come here so much that when we open the door, we’re greeted with warm embraces from the owners. They’re an old couple who’ve had this place for over fifty years.
“Well, just look at you two!” She grabs Mallory’s hands, embracing her. “Sei bellissima, mia cara.”
You are beautiful, my dear.
“Thank you.” She blushes.
“And you, young sir. Sei davvero elegante figliolo. ”
You look really elegant, son.
“Sei troppo gentile. Thanks, Bee.”
You’re too kind.
“So are you two finally…?”
Mallory nods, reaching for my hand. “Finally, right?”
“I am so happy for you two!” Bee, the owner replies. “We’ll give you our best table, Sì? Follow me.”
We follow Bee to a table in the far corner of the restaurant. It’s a tiny table pushed against a wall with vine leaves and delicate fairy lights everywhere.
I pull out Mallory’s chair for her, and as she sits, I kiss the top of her hair. When I sit too, she takes my hand too. The table is small, so my knees touch hers. When they bump against each other, she doesn’t pull away. She closes her legs tighter, moving them in the space between mine.
“My favourite restaurant, with my favourite person. This is already the best date ever.” She says, sweetly.
I kiss her knuckles. “Ti amo, Mallory.”
“Ti amo, Oliver.”
The waiter walks over, notepad in his hand, a pen in the other. “Hey guys, can I get some drinks started for you?”
Mallory turns to him, smiling. “Hi, I’ll take a peach iced tea, and he’ll have a raspberry lemonade. Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
“Aw Mallie, you know my drink order.” I kiss the top of her knuckles, smoothing my thumb over the top.
“It’s hard not to. According to your mom, you’ve had the same drink order since you were ten and discovered the joy that is raspberry lemonade.”
I smile. We went to our villa back at my moms village in Italy. The restaurant we went to accidentally gave me raspberry instead of normal. I’ve never had a regular lemonade since .
“I need to confess something,” she says, reluctantly letting go of my hand. She instead focuses on the napkin in front of her, pulling and twisting it. “The cafe isn’t supposed to serve raspberry lemonade.” She winces, dropping the napkin to cover her face with her fingers.
“What do you mean?” I frown.
“I made it for you when I first started working there because you asked for it and of course I was a freshman with the biggest crush on you so I really wasn’t going to say no. But then every time you came in, you asked for your ‘usual’ and I started freaking out because I didn’t know if we had enough ingredients to keep making it for you on the sly so I would have to request the stock to order then my manager would question why.” I lean back in my chair, amused, trying – and failing – to hide the smile on my face. “So I had to practically beg my manager to put it on the menu, and he said he’d do a trial run to see if anyone wanted to buy it, so I paid Marcus to get the entire football team to come in and buy it.”
“Marcus was a freshman then.”
“Yeah, but even then he was one of the best guys on the team so they listened to him. In the end we made more money that week than he expected so he put it on the menu – stop making fun of me!”
“I’m not, Mallie.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I love you.” She drops her fingers from her face. “I love your sense of humour, the way your brain works. I love your kindness, your selflessness, the way you smile – god Mallory, your smile is the best thing I’ve ever seen. You,” I get out of my chair and crouch down beside her. “You are the sweetest thing I've ever seen in my life. And trying out for the grizzly’s is the best thing to ever happen to me, because it led me to you, Marshmallory.” I cup her cheek and lean in, nuzzling her nose with mine. “I love you, Dolcezza mia.”
“I love you, too.” She grabs the back of my neck and plants a featherlight kiss on my lips. “Now please sit back down before people think you’re proposing.”
Oh shit. I look around the room and yep, everyone’s staring at us. I stand back up, straightening my tie. “Not getting engaged everyone,” I shout. “Just on a date.”
“The best date,” she replies.
“I was so nervous about this,” I admit.
“You were?”
I nod. “But sitting here with you, just being in your presence, it eases me. I can do anything as long as you’re here.”
She reaches over, and plants a quick kiss on my hand.
I take her hand in mine, stroking her skin with my thumb. “But, since we’re confessing things… about the bet–”
She scoffs, immediately dropping my hand. “Please do not ruin this date by bragging that you’re the better friend bec–”
“It was a trick,” I hurry to say. “A plan, a stupid fucking ruse that Tommy concocted at the rink that night. We all thought that maybe if I tricked you into going on a blind date that…” I sigh, slouching in my chair. “It’s so stupid, Mal. I thought maybe if I won, I would…. Show up on the date instead of some guy. It was going to be my way of telling you that I love you, but then you ruined everything but confessing it yourself. Tommy is angry at you for that, by the way.”
“Sorry for ruining your master plan.” She leans over, taking my hand again. “I do though, love you.” Then she quickly drops it, looking at her menu. “Now hurry up and order so we can go home and have sex because you look so good and smell so good. I'm not going to last very long with you looking at me like that.”
She dips her head to look at her menu. I smile, nudging her knees apart with mine. “Take off your panties.”
Her eyes immediately spring to mine. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re not wearing a bra, but I know you’re wearing panties. I saw them in the car. Take. Them. Off.”
“W–why?”
“Because you’re not the only one who won’t last very long. I’m hard just by fucking looking at you.”
“I – we’re in a crowded restaurant!” she whisper hisses.
“Nobody’s looking at us anymore,” I shrug. “Off. Now.”
She smiles at me, leaning back in her chair. She keeps eye contact with me and she subtly shimmies them down her legs. She passes them to me, and I ball the silky lace into my pocket. “That’s my girl.” I pick up the menu just as the server comes over.
“Hi! Did you guys decide on what you want?”
“I’ll have the chef’s special pizza please, extra Olives.” I say, folding my menu. I take Mallie’s menu from her before she can reply. “And my beautiful girlfriend will have the carbonara – extra parmesan.”
Mallory blushes, saying a quick thank you as our waiter scribbles down the order.
“Try not to make a mess, Dolcezza mia.”
She pouts at me, narrowing her eyes. Not even a lifetime of this will satisfy me, but that’s what I'm aiming for.