CHAPTER 28 #2
“Is everything okay?” the woman asked.
“What? Oh. Yeah, sorry. First date, and she just did this really cool thing.” She pointed to Larissa. “The head-on-the-shoulder move.”
Larissa shook her head as she laughed, but she didn’t move it off Harlow’s shoulder.
“First date?” the woman asked with a smile. “Well, I think we should do something special for that, then. How about a free dessert on me tonight?”
“Can you do that?” Larissa asked.
“I’d hope so; I’m the owner.” The woman winked at them. “Come on over to station one.”
They followed her over to the station, and unfortunately, Larissa had to lift her head from Harlow’s shoulder to do so.
They each selected their dough, with Harlow choosing a thin crust to bake there and a deep dish to take home and Larissa selecting a hand-tossed one for there and a thin crust for later, and as they created their pizzas, Harlow thought about a night in the near future when they could put their pizzas in the oven and have them together over candles and a nice date number two or three before they watched a movie.
She added pepperoni to her pizza and watched as Larissa put cheese on hers first and then added the sauce, and a lot of it, on top of the cheese.
“What are you doing?” Harlow laughed.
“What? I wanted to have fun. Isn’t this how they make the Chicago-style pizza?”
“I think that’s in a deep-dish pan, but I’m not much of a fan of it, so I don’t know all the details.”
“Well, I love extra sauce, and I never get it when I ask for it. They deliver it, and I swear, it’s even less sauce than the normal amount, so I’m getting the sauce I want tonight.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Harlow teased as she added a few more toppings to her own pizza.
“Are you ready to put them in the oven?” Eric asked.
Harlow let Larissa go first and watched her as she awkwardly slid the giant spatula thing under her pizza and almost knocked it off the counter in the process.
Eric was there to help, and he let Larissa push the pizza into the oven by herself before he pushed it farther back and into the right spot.
Harlow watched the joy on Larissa’s face and felt, at least in some part, responsible for it.
Her own pizza went in next, and they walked over to table three, where their waiter took their drink order.
They decided not to spoil their pizzas with an appetizer and talked while they sipped their wine.
Harlow would have preferred beer, and Larissa might have, too, but it was clear that they both wanted tonight to be different.
They shared a brief toast to their first date, and not long after that, their creations were placed in front of them.
“I can’t even see the cheese under that sauce,” Harlow teased with a laugh.
“That was the idea,” Larissa told her with a smile, and Harlow laughed again when Larissa picked up a knife and a fork and sliced into the pizza.
When Larissa took her first bite, she promptly opened her mouth and waved her hand in front of it.
“Hot!”
“Yeah, babe. It just came out of the oven. You probably should have–” Harlow stopped.
Larissa closed her mouth, and it didn’t look like she was chewing, either. That meant she’d heard it, too.
“Is that okay?” Harlow asked.
Larissa nodded and swallowed.
“Did you even chew that?” she asked with a chuckle.
Larissa shook her head.
“Are you regretting it instantly?”
Larissa nodded, so she passed her a glass of iced water, and Larissa drank half of it. Harlow smiled at her and cut into her own pizza.
“You called me babe,” Larissa said a minute later.
“I did,” she replied. “Accident. I think the whole head-on-my-shoulder thing did me in.”
Larissa laughed softly and asked, “Should I do that again some other time?”
“Literally anytime you want,” Harlow answered.
After they finished their pizzas and had shared the dessert that the owner had given them for free, they tipped their waiter and took their extra pizzas with them.
Harlow held on to both of them on their way out because she wanted Larissa’s hand free to hold, and they laughed about how Harlow had stolen both of the strawberries on the chocolate cake dessert.
When they got to her car, Harlow put the pizzas into the back seat and opened Larissa’s door for her.
“We haven’t talked about what we will do when we get home,” Larissa noted once they were back on the road.
“What do you mean?”
“We talked about how you could pretend to pick me up, but not how you could pretend to drop me off.”
“I am dropping you off,” she replied.
“I know. But you’re coming inside with me.”
“I booked a hotel room, Larissa.”
“What?”
“I told you, I wanted this to be real. I booked a cheap room about five minutes from the house, and I already have my overnight bag in the trunk.”
“Harlow, no. That’s silly. Just stay the night.”
“I don’t think either of us is ready for me to do that.”
“You know what I mean,” Larissa replied.
“I wanted it to be as authentic as possible if it were a first date, with me–”
“This is our first date,” Larissa interjected. “And it’s very real. It doesn’t matter what other people do or don’t do on a first date. This one is ours, and we can do whatever we want. Do you want to stay in a cheap hotel tonight?”
“No, I want to sleep in my own bed.”
“Then, do that. We can walk to the door and pretend, if you want, but I’m really okay with just acknowledging that we’re staying in the same house tonight.”
“It’s still early. Want to do something else? I didn’t plan anything for after dinner, but we could find a movie or go for a walk or something.”
“Can we go home to watch a movie?” Larissa asked.
“If that’s what you want,” she replied. “Do we have any popcorn there?”
“No, I think we’re out.”
“Want to stop by the store and get some?” she asked.
“Yes, I do,” Larissa replied. “And can you put your arm around me while we watch later?”
“I can do that.” Harlow laughed softly.
“Then, we’ll cuddle and say goodnight at our bedroom doors or something,” Larissa suggested.
“That sounds pretty perfect to me,” she said.