My Savior | First Love Series

Chapter 14

"You look handsome," she finally says, giving me a compliment. I look back at her with a surprised look and light blush. Compliments always do that to me. It's embarrassing.

"Thank you. You look nice too..." I say, placing my hands flat on the table. "I'm nervous. Am I the only one feeling that way?"

Julie shakes her head with no hesitation, her body slightly relaxing at my confession. She leans her arms on the table and looks around before whispering to me- "I'm feeling that way too. I've never been on a date before."

"Yeah," I breathe out, "me neither."

After our embarrassing confessions, Julie and I fall into simple conversation. We talk about our parents and how they're crazy for randomly setting up this date. Julie admits that this isn't the first time her mom's done this. I couldn't even form a sentence to respond, too shocked to thimk . Julie laughs at my reaction and says it's only happened twice and it was two years ago when she was fifteen. After that, our simple conversation turned into us telling embarrassing stories.

"S-stop," Julie laughs out, struggling to breathe, "you did what?"

"I'm not repeating it," I huff with a smile of my own. It didn't matter that I refused to repeat it because Julie was laughing every time she looked at me. "Hey, we should probably order something."

Julie wipes tears from her eyes and nods. "There's a buffet portion near the back. On the other side of the diner. There's a set price of fifty dollars."

"Whoa, just fifty for an all you can eat?"

Julie nods and we get up to go to the buffet. We talked on the way, saying what we thought they'd have. I want fries, and maybe I can order a milkshake. Julie wants pizza. Nothing less. We get to the buffet table, and see our options making us smile. I grab two plates before giving Julie one and we go our separate ways around the table. I stack my plate with fries, chicken nuggets, and a slice of pizza.

Julie gets something similar- her plate full of pizza and fries. We take our plates back to the booth before going to get drinks. Julie gets her cup first then hands me one. I fill my cup up with sprite, and Julie gets fruit punch.

"I didn't take you as a sprite kind of guy," Julie states out loud, as she finishes filling her cup. We walk side by side back to the booth and sit down.

"It's my second favorite. Or third, I don't know," I tell her. "I wanted a milkshake with my fries, but ordering one is too much work."

Julie suddenly gets excited, leaving her pizza to get cold on her plate. "I love dipping my fries in my milkshakes!"

Our food became forgotten, us only eating every five minutes because we jumped from topic to topic. There were friendly debates about the best movies and food combinations. Mutual agreement that marvel is better than DC movies, and what we thought the best milkshakes were. We ended up staying at the diner for two hours. We eventually finished our food then decided to get milkshakes which I paid for. We talked more, and the nerves, along with the awkwardness, faded away.

"Hey, Nolan," Julie suddenly calls.

"Hm?" I hum around my straw. I was finding joy in slurping down my chocolate milkshake.

"If we both like today- if we liked this date, can we do it again sometime?"

I falter, not expecting her to ask that. I stop drinking my milkshake and clear my throat. "Um, sure. I like hanging with you." Hanging. I can't say dates because it seems wrong. Feels wrong. Like I'm betraying someone and I know exactly who. The same girl who I told I would text after this date was over. Julie doesn't notice my small, distressed state. She just smiles widely at me before going back to dipping her fries into her vanilla milkshake.

I take out my phone to check the time when I notice new, recent messages from the groupchat. We should really add Julie. I open the chat to see the texts.

Madaline: we need to hang out
Scarlette: im busy today
Jackson: ok
Madaline: tomorrow then
Madaline: no isn't an answer choice
Scarlette: sure new skating rink just opened
Jackson: cool. skating
Madaline:  cool!

I put my phone away to find Julie looking at me. I throw a smile her way and tell her about our plans. She nods excitedl and we finish up the rest of our shakes before I pay. Julie calls her mom while I call mine to let them know the date is over. I wait with Julie because I'm pretty sure her mom will get here first. And she does. Julie hugs me goodbye and I wave as their car drives away. My parents come a minute after and immediately bombard me with questions as I get in the car.

"Just tell us if there'll be a second date," my mom pleads.

"Maybe," I mumble.

My parents seem satisfied with that answer and I tune the rest of their conversation out as I check my phone. I ended up getting Julie's number, so I go to add her to the groupchat. I add her as the group gets another text.

Scarlette: rink is on me

I smile at her name popping up before typing a quick response to her text. I also let them know that I added Julie to the chat before turning my phone off and leaning my head against the window. I close my eyes and hum while thinking of tomorrow. It should be fun.