Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 6 - Seven Dates

I unlock my apartment door, walking into my loft and leaning on the door to catch my breath. Eventually, after Andy carrying me for a while and then us just sprinting through the pouring rain, we finally found a cab. The cabbie, just like the people on the side walk that we ran through, looked quite annoyed. The pedestrians, at our loud and clumsy obnoxiousness and the driver because of our sopping wet obnoxious. For some reason, though, I didn't care. I just didn't care... Maybe it was laughing with Andy, or staring into his bright blue eyes... or maybe the amazingly cheesy chick-flick romance vibe the whole moment had. I have just never really been so nonchalant about what people thought. I've always worried so much about how I acted, how I dressed. It was always 'Is my makeup too much?' and 'I'm not being too loud, am I?'. It feels unbelievably fucking good to let that go. I walk to the far corner of my flat, flopping down on the more-comfortable-then-usual mattress. I'm exhausted... I check my vintage alarm clock and am surprised to see the old timey hands pointing to 6:00. I mean - I guess with Ashley calling at 3:20 and Me being with Andy for like three hours on the date. The thing that's been on my mind sense the cab dropped me off is... was it a date? Was it a date? Was it? AGGGHHHH! He is so confusing! Or maybe he's not, I'm just not good at reading relationships. I'm not really able to continue panicking, because as the thought still floats in my head I hear the door click open.

"Stay there, I just finished cleaning my... shotgun and my dad's a lawyer!" Lies spew out as I panic, scary robbery stories flooding into my brain when I hear a familiar voice and unfreeze to turn around.

"Hold the lies, Zoe. It's Kira and I'm not gonna take your money. Maybe. I am a little short on cash." I feel myself feel breath out, relaxing.

"Hey! I'm in my bedroom."

She sneers, "Yah... bedroom. Zoe," She flips the curtain that I use as a wall, " Putting a dollar store curtain up in one corner of this huge room and putting a bed in it does not make it a bedroom. Repeat - room." Kira just hates the fact that I don't have any walls in my apartment. It was the cheapest on I could find. I don't even have a bathroom, just a tub and a curtain; I have to use the apartment building's if I want to use the toilet.

"It works well, and I can watch TV in the living room when I'm laying down in bed or taking a bath." She sits down on my bed next to me, where I have sat up.

"What do you want, Kira?" I know what she wants. Why am I asking?

"Oh, just some details. How was your date?" I knew what she wanted. Why, for the love of god, did I ask?

"Date?" I ask flippantly, trying to come off like I don't want to scream.

"Come on, Zoe. We both know it's a date, stop playing dumb!" She follows me into the kitchen section of my loft.

"It wasn't a date!" I grab a Pop-Tart, "It was just me showing him around the city. He's never been to Hate and Ashbury? That's where I'm taking him next." I put the unwrapped delicious goodness into my toaster, ignoring Kira's raised eyebrows.

"Okay. So it wasn't a date. You kissed, had dinner, and from what it looks like," She glances at my dripping hair, "You were in the rain together. But it... wasn't a date. You guy's aren't dating." We did kiss, and we did kind of agree to date on that bench outside of Sweet Maple. So why don't I want to admit to her that we're dating? Or at least that I think we're dating. We tell each other everything.

"Remember the time," I start, launching into one of the many memories of us in high school, "That I let Will Halpert touch my boob under the bleachers in junior year?" We start giggling, and I take the Pop-Tart out of the toaster and flinging it onto a paper plate.