His Amani

Chapter 15

                                                         

   The whole car ride was filled with silence, aside from Calix trying to make conversation every now and then. He would occasionally glance at me and it made me even more uncomfortable. I was trying to be on my best behavior so I could hang out with Autumn and Alex tomorrow without any unnecessary problems preventing me from going (AKA, him).

  "Do you like Italian?" He asked as he looked over at me before turning his attention back to the road. I answered without looking at him, "Yeah."

  I kept my answers short and simple hoping that he'd catch on that I didn't want to talk to him. "Well you're going to love it here because it's one of my favorite restaurants. Their food and drinks are amazing." He said in a sickening hopeful tone that made me not want to go even more, not that I wanted to go to begin with. I wished time would speed up so this day could be over with.

  "Their menu is in Italian as well, but they have the pictures of the dishes beside it so it shouldn't be too hard to decide what you want." He said as I gave a short hum in response not caring what he had to say. He sighed as he focused his attention back on the road, hopefully giving up trying to converse with me.

   For a second I thought I might be a bit too overdressed, but when Siri announced that we had arrived those thoughts were long gone. This place was extravagantly beautiful making it obvious its target audience wasn't the poor. Calix passed the parking lot and I raised my eyebrows at him in question wondering what the hell he was doing. He drove around to the back of the restaurant where I saw the reserved parking sign.

  When we pulled in closer I saw that it had his name on one of the three reserved parking signs for the more important guests. How important was this guy anyway to have a reserved parking spot just for him at a restaurant? He parked the car and I made a move to open the door, but when I reached for the handle, I heard a literal growl that made me freeze on the spot as a chill ran down my spine.

  "Don't open that door." He said with that velvety voice of his that made me shudder. I put my hands back in my lap as he got out of the car coming around to open my door. When he opened my door he held his hand out for me to take it. I took it not wanting to upset him as I got out of the car.

  He responded positively as he gave me a small smile guiding me inside the restaurant. There was a sign on the door that read 'Reserved for the day' and I put the pieces together that this was his doing. He opened the door for me which reminded me of how we met in the store when he put on that fake gentlemen act. I went inside and was immediately greeted by the waitress.

  "Good afternoon Alpha and Luna. I will show you to your table and get you some menus." The waitress said Calix gave a nod in approval as we followed after her. I didn't like being called Luna knowing what it meant for me, but I chose to ignore it for the sake of this supposed 'date'. The interior was stunning as chandeliers hung from the ceiling lighting up the place perfectly. The vines had little lights on each leaf that aligned the walls, reminding me of an enchanted forest and oddly my book that I had recently written.

  The table we were sitting at had a white table cloth on it with lit candles at the end and a pink bouquet of roses in the middle. Everything about it was absolutely beautiful, but it was too bad my sour mood had to ruin it. As I went to sit down in my seat Calix stopped me by pulling out my chair gesturing for me to sit down, which I did.

  He went around the table and sat across from me and just in time the waitress came back with our menus. "Here are your menus and when you're ready to order just use the buzzer and I will be with you." She said as she placed a buzzer and menus on the table and left.

  I picked up the menu and read through it not understanding a single word as I looked at the pictures beside it making my mouth water. "Do you need help with your menu beautiful?" He asked as he patiently waited for my answer.

  "I don't need your help with anything." I said subtly dismissing him as I raised my menu higher so I could be out of his sight and skimming over it in the process. He sighed as he reached across the table and put his pointer finger on top of the menu pulling it down to my displeasure. "Can you stop with the attitude please, we are in a public setting Amani." He said calmly as if he was trying to calm himself down.

  "I wouldn't have an attitude if you hadn't dragged me here." I spat. The nice act that I put on for him was now long gone and I didn't care. He leaned back in his chair with an unreadable expression. "Just point to what you want to eat and I'll order it for you." He said dismissing my previous statement.

  I exhaled as I turned the menu around pointing to something random. "Is that all you want?" He asked with a raised brow as I gave him a curt nod which made him sigh.

  He pressed the buzzard alerting the waitress that we were ready to order. She came over a moment later and waited patiently with her tablet in hand. "I'll take a sample of everything for her and I'll have the chicken Scarpariello." He told her like it was nothing, but the cheapest item on the menu was about 40 dollars, so for him to get a sample of everything is basically just throwing away money because I wouldn't eat it all.

  So of course I looked at him as if he had two heads, but didn't question it because it was his money and how he spent it was none of my business.

  "Don't worry you don't have to eat all of it and I won't force you to either. I just wanted to make sure that you got something you'd like because what you pointed at was just the onion soup used for dipping your bread in." He said as he let out a chuckle obviously amused by my ignorance to what I had picked.

  "I don't care what I ordered, I just want to get this 'date' over with as soon as possible." I told him plainly to which he frowned, making the smile that appeared on his face long gone. "Amani, you might as well suck it up because if you thought you had any chance of getting rid of me, get it out of your head now. This little date of ours is just one of the many that we will have and there is nothing you can do to change that." He said sternly, making me exhale a sigh of defeat. It was becoming painfully more apparent that this was going to be a long day.