A long road to happy

Chapter 7: Dinner date

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As I enter the restaurant and give my name, I'm taken over to the table, I can see she's already there with a glass of wine in hand. Luckily I'm behind the waiter as my breath noticeably hitches and my steps falter when I set my eyes on her, she looks so carefree and happy. I quickly pull myself together and continue on just as she looks beyond the waiter to see me. "Early I see, you just couldn't wait to see me could you" I tease. Her whole face lights up at my banter as she stands up to greet me. I said my breath hitched before, that's compared to my reaction now she's standing. She's wearing a blush halter neck dress that stops half way down her thigh, her hair is thrown up in a loose top knot, and she has minimal makeup on but she still manages to make it all look effortlessly elegant.

By this point she's going in for the hug, which I'm thankful for as it covers up the awestruck look on my face right now, she looks beautiful, ethereal, alluring. God, all of the above, there is no way I would be able to cover the look on my face up if she was looking right at me.

"Something like that, you've got to make a good first impression when on a sacred dinner date, right? " She replies as she pulls back, her eyes taking me in. "You look amazing by the way, I am loving the suit".

"Why thank you, you're not looking too bad yourself. Who knew you could scrub up so well? Is that all for me, or have you got a hot date after dinner?" I ask cheekily, doing my usual, use banter and half compliments to hide the truth.

"Cheeky! I'll have you know that I always look this good, I just like to put a little effort in" She says sitting back down. "You're not all that special" She sasses with a small smirk playing on her lips.

"Oh, you wound me Scarlett" I say, dramatically clutching my chest as I take my seat in front of her. "And here I thought I was getting the whole Johansson experience tonight", I say as I pour myself a glass of wine.

Scarlett looks at me with her eyebrows raised, I think I surprised her with that one, oops. Reign it back in Harley!

"So, how's the arm?" She asks, changing the subject. Yup, I think I took it a little far there with the playful flirting. Oh well.

"Yes, the arm, I mean, it's still there. The cast is annoying, and my arm has never itched so much in my life, but it's healing so that's good". I ramble on, still thinking about the over step. "That's why I've gone for a suit tonight, I'm not sure this thing would go with any dresses" I say, lifting my arm up to show the outline of the cast.

"Yeah" She chuckles "I think you might be right there". At that, the conversation seems to die out. Well, this is more awkward than I thought it'd be, we'd been messaging and chatting quite a bit over the phone this past week, it's been effortless and not awkward at all. But put me face to face with her and suddenly I no longer know how to converse, I can think of nothing to say. Maybe we just said it all throughout the week?

"So, have you been here before?" She asks. Thank god she thought of something to say.

"Actually, I have, only the once though. Have you been before?" I ask, thankful for the conversation.

"No, I haven't, first time for me. I didn't really know where to go here, and wanted to try something different, it was actually Sarah who suggested here for dinner. You remember Sarah? From the party right? She was getting cosy with Danny when we were having dinner." She states, looking at me.

I take another sip of my wine as I nod my head at her, replying with a low hum, not really sure how to broach that subject at all, I'm just hoping I can just avoid it altogether.