6. New Angel
SIX
NEW ANGEL
Halle
What kind of music are you supposed to listen to when you get ready for a first date?
I would keep listening to the voice recordings I took of the new songs Tryhard was working on at practice, but I don’t want Cade’s voice in my head while thinking about my date with Sean because inevitably, I’d start daydreaming about Cade instead. I wouldn’t say my crush on him has come back, but it’s for sure trying to. Ever since Tryhard’s last show, I haven’t been able to look at Cade without thinking just like his fangirls, so I need this date to distract me from how much his attractiveness has been on my mind lately.
I’m usually good at keeping my emotions and feelings for him tucked away, under lock and key in a little corner of my heart. But whenever they manage to break out, it becomes a constant push and pull—he pulls me in with the same charm that works on every other girl, and it always ends with my insecurity taking over and I push him away.
I’ve let the question of listening to Tryhard or not distract me for too long and I need to start getting ready, so I throw on my hype 1D and 5SOS playlist. It’s a classic, can’t go wrong. The one thing on my mind is that I can’t I want, I wish, I would my way out of going on this date. It’s not that I don’t want to go, I just don’t have that feeling in my stomach. I brush it off, assuming it’s only because I don’t know him well enough to have developed feelings yet, and maybe it’s good to not be feeling nervous.
When Sean came up to me at the Valentine’s Day show, I was annoyed because he was talking to me through my favorite song of the set. I swear I heard Cade say something about playing it for someone special. I didn’t want to be rude and stop Sean from talking, so I gave him my attention instead of Cade. I’d seen him before at a few baseball games and parties, and the last thing I wanted to do was upset one of my brother’s teammates—Abbott would never let me hear the end of it.
It’s the first time someone has asked me out since moving here, although I haven’t really put myself out there. I’m not on any dating apps, I like to dream of meeting someone naturally like this—and to be fair he does have a great smile.
He asked me to go to dinner at Varsity Diner, very original; it’s where just about every baseball player takes their first dates because their coach’s wife owns the place and they all get discounts (I’m not supposed to know that). I’ve been there once before with Abbott and our parents after they visited for last year’s home opener, and it was one of the best meals I’ve had in my life (sorry Mom), so I can’t complain.
When Mel and I got home from the show that night, I asked her if she thought it was a sign that I met Sean to my favorite song. She said no, because Cade was always going to play that song for their set, so it was far from a coincidence. I can’t help but keep coming back to the question of whether he was playing it for me, but I don’t want to ask Mel what he said at the show because I don’t want her to think my crush on him is coming back. I always have to remind Mel that Cade and I will never work out more than I have to convince myself of that reality.
Speaking of Mel, I desperately need her help right now to decide on an outfit for tonight. Well not desperately, I know my outfit options are good because having good style is kind of my thing, but a date is one of those moments where a second opinion is nice. And Mel knows Sean pretty well because she goes to way more baseball games and knows a lot more of Abbott’s teammates than I do. She kind of has to because she’s their photographer and social media manager, but still. I open my bedroom door and lean out into the hallway. “Hey, are you busy?” I shout toward Mel’s room.
She saunters into my room. “Let me guess, outfit?” She plops down on the end of my bed, and then kicks off her slippers so she can sit criss crossed.
I grab the two outfit options and lay them on the bed next to her, still on their hangers. “Which one do you think Sean will like more?” I ask her, twiddling my thumbs.
“Woah, Halle. When was the last time you cared about what anyone else thought of your outfits? Especially a guy? You’re you, everything you wear is so cool. But this one—” she points at my 70s-inspired flare denim jumpsuit, and my heart dances a little bit thinking she’s about to pick it, “this is way too cool for Sean. You’re too cool for Sean.”
Okay, not what I was expecting her to say.
“Mel,” I groan.
“Don’t Mel me, you wanted my opinion, and that’s my opinion.” She can be so brutally honest sometimes, but it’s one of my favorite parts of being best friends.
I accept Mel’s advice and start taking my second choice—a pinkish sweater and blue jeans—off the hangers. She gets up off the bed and pulls out a lipstick from the organizers on my vanity.
“Wear this one, it’ll match, and come show me before you leave.”
I put my hand up like I’m saluting her as she makes her way out of my room.
Once I’m dressed and add the lipstick she picked out for me, I’m feeling pretty confident even though I liked the other outfit better. Is she right? Am I too cool for him? I’ve always only liked people who I think are cooler than me, I don’t even know how to approach a situation where I’m the cooler one. I guess I’ll find out tonight if she’s right.
“You look so good!” Mel shrieks and runs over to hug me when I make my way out to the living room. “Have fun, but not too much fun. Text me if you need me to fake an emergency so you can leave.”
“Thanks, Mom ,” I tease her for being so protective of me, although I love it.
I grab my leather jacket off our coat rack, and slide it on as I open the door, revealing Sean waiting outside his car. He’s holding a bouquet of classic red roses, and his grin spreads from ear to ear.
“For the lady.” He smirks and reaches the bouquet out toward me.
What a good first impression, or second, I guess my first impression of him was at the Tryhard show. Stop thinking about Tryhard Halle, that’s only going to make you think of Cade. And that’s off limits tonight. I snap my focus back onto the cute distraction standing in front of me. He’s wearing a black tee with a corduroy shacket and light wash jeans. Basic, but I can see the effort behind wearing an outfit that isn’t athleisure. He’s kind of short, I barely have to tilt my head to meet his baby blue eyes, something I didn’t notice when we met in the crowd.
“You’re too sweet!” I beam.
He flashes a quick, toothy smile then slides past me, racing to the passenger side of the car, and pulls the door open for me. Chivalry’s not dead . Once I settle into my seat, my eyes immediately land on the radio. He has it on some AM sports broadcast station, and it doesn’t look like there’s an aux cord anywhere.
“Is this what you usually listen to in the car?” I ask politely, not wanting to ask him to change the station.
“All the time.” He smiles. “I’m not really much of a music guy, but this? I could listen to it for hours.”
Not much of a music guy? What does that even mean? Maybe I should be a little nervous for this date.
“What did you think about the concert last week then?” This could be make or break, and the date has barely started. I cross my fingers behind my purse in my lap.
“It was alright,” he says plainly.
My heart drops. He turns and looks at me for a brief second before focusing his eyes back on the road. He must have seen the shock on my face because he starts to tell me the best part of the show was talking to me, and me saying yes to a date. I feel my cheeks heat. I can’t help but blush even though I can tell he’s trying to distract me from thinking too much about him not liking music—again, who doesn’t like music?
The rest of the drive over to Varsity is quick and quiet, and once we park, he opens the door for me again. Double door points .
We order a basket of onion rings and a strawberry milkshake to share, because they always come with the equivalent of two portions—bringing the extra milkshake in a tin with the classic glass. I usually get vanilla, but Sean asked for Strawberry because vanilla is “boring”. It feels criminal to order onion rings on a first date, but it’s even more criminal to come to Varsity and not get the onion rings.
The conversation is slow while we wait for our food. He keeps finding new things about my appearance to compliment me on, and it’s starting to get annoying. When the food comes, we dive in and stop talking for a few minutes.
The silence grows awkward and I decide to try and start a conversation. “So,” I clear my throat, “how’s baseball going?” I ask, although I already hear about it from Mel and Abbott all of the time.
“It’s good, I’m a starter,” he says with a mouthful of food.
No, no, no. This cannot be happening. I’m contracting a terrible case of the ick and don’t know how to hide it. Smile and nod, Halle, I think to myself. So I smile and nod.
“I’ve seen you at a few parties at The Pitch, but I didn’t realize that you lived there until I came to pick you up. Do you like living with all those guys?” His foot gently kicks mine under the table.
“Oh!” I let out an awkward giggle. “It’s not like that at all. I do live there, but that big monster of a house is actually split into three apartments.” I start to use my hands to help explain the funky layout of the house. “So there’s the two big ones on each side full of eight to ten baseball guys each—and Cade—and then Mel and I share the three bed in the middle. I love it, being right next to Abbott and Cade, it feels like we’re still kids, like home I guess,” I trail off after accidentally bringing up Cade—twice!
“That’s a pretty sweet set-up, I haven’t been over there enough to know it’s split like that. I thought it would be cool to live there next year, after I’m out of the freshman dorms. You don’t go to Hemlock though, right?”
“Yeah, no, I wanted to take some time off before committing to college since I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go yet.” I anxiously stir my straw in the milkshake, always having a hard time talking to people about not going to college, feeling like I have to defend or prove myself in some way so they don’t judge me. “I love being around campus and having friends there though, but I think I’m a lot happier focusing on helping the band and working at Jubilee.”
“What’s that?”
“Jubilee?” I ask, and he nods. “It’s the oldest and most well-known record store in town,” I scoff. “It’s actually not far from here. I’d say we could go after this but they just closed and I don’t think you’d enjoy it anyways—” I cut myself off as our waitress drops the check. I owe her major thanks for saving me from being mean about his whole not liking music thing. I don’t want to say it’s a dealbreaker, but it's hard not to, honestly. My whole life revolves around music, I can’t just brush that aside for someone, and he doesn’t seem all that easy to convert either.
By the time we leave the diner, it’s already dark outside thanks to the lack of daylight in a Washington winter. I think about asking him if I can change the radio to the local alternative station, but pretend to be “too full to talk” and stare out the window instead. When we finally get back to my place, he walks me to the door, which I should’ve expected after how gentlemanly he’s been all evening.
“Thank you for tonight.” I don’t know what else to say at this part of the date. I’m trying to avoid the awkward lingering of the should we or should we not kiss moment. I’m voting for the latter.
“Of course, I hope you had as good of a time as I did.” He looks a little nervous, slightly biting his lip. He leans into the door frame, and the way his golden hair flops in front of his face is cute, but I catch myself thinking he’d be even cuter with curls. “Maybe we could do this again sometime?”
“Yeah, um, totally.” I try to be as casual as possible, not too forward. I see the corners of his lips turn up into a smile.
“We have a home series this next week, you should come out to a game so I can see you.” He not so subtly takes a step closer to me.
I think he’s trying to steer this conversation into the direction of a kiss.
I shift my weight from my left leg to my right, subtly away from him. “That would be fun, I haven’t been to a game since the home opener this season. I’ve got work and some band stuff, but I’ll see which day I can make it to and let you know.” I start digging through my purse for my keys, ready to get inside already.
“Can I kiss you?” He almost-whispers.
I hesitate, before settling with saying “I don’t kiss on the first date.” I made sure that I came across a little flirty rather than outright rejecting him. I wish I was bold enough to do that.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and nods in understanding. “Goodnight, Halle.” He smiles wide as my name rolls off his tongue. He starts walking backwards down our steps, not breaking eye contact.
“You too, drive safe.” I wave goodnight to him.
I come inside to Mel and Abbott snuggled up together on the couch, I can tell they fell asleep watching a movie, the end credits rolling. I creep up the stairs as quietly as possible. ??If this was any other night, or if I had juicy date details to spill, I would wake them up, but right now I want to go as undetected as possible and shut myself in my room.
I think through the date, replaying it in my head as I try to fall asleep. Being a sucker for the little things, I’m hopeful that the more I picture the small moments, that I’ll find something that will make me more keen to a second date. As much as the conversations didn’t do it for me, maybe there is something there to hold on to. The smile on his face when he handed me the roses, each time that he opened the car door for me, and the way we accidentally kicked each other’s feet under the diner table.
No matter how much I tried to think of all of the little reasons to keep seeing Sean, I spent all night dreaming of it being Cade who was sitting across from me in the diner instead.