The 20 Dates Challenge

Three - Do You Mind

Do You Mind

‘So, how was it?’ Jesse asks me when she sees me on Monday morning.

‘Surprisingly fun,’ I reply, opening my locker.

‘What did you do?’ she asks.

‘Not allowed to say,’ I sigh.

‘Why not?’

‘Rules for the challenge.’

‘So, you can’t even tell your best friend?’

‘No, in case you get asked to be in the challenge too.’

She sighs and leans against her own locker.

‘What can you tell me then?’

‘I can tell you that he got his dad to give me a job and I got his band a gig,’ I close my locker and turn to face her.

‘Really, what are you doing?’

‘I’m gonna answer the phone at the shop.’

‘The car shop?’

‘Yep.’

‘You don’t know the first thing about cars,’ she laughs, linking her arm through mine and leading me out of the locker room.

‘No, but I do know about filing and organisation and how to be polite,’ I say.

She just shakes her head at me and smiles.

‘Well, Taylor says that Alex had a great time,’ she whispers.

Taylor is Jesse’s twin brother. He’s also one of Alex’s best friends.

‘Really?’ I ask quietly.

‘Yeah, says he spent all day yesterday talking about you.’

I look at the floor and hide my rapidly blushing face behind the curtain of my hair. Jesse just laughs again.

At lunch, Alex and his friends come and sit with us. While the others are all talking and getting to know each other, Alex takes my hand and we slip away.

‘Are you free Thursday?’ he asks me.

I usually go late-night-shopping with my mum on Thursday.

‘Yes,’ I say quickly.

‘Good, because our next date requires the shopping centre.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ll see.’

He turns and runs off before I can ask more questions.

‘How was school?’ Mum asks as I walk in the front door.

‘Good,’ I reply, dropping my bag in the hall and making my way to the kitchen, ‘hey Mum?’

‘Yeah?’

‘On Thursday,’ I say slowly, ‘are we still going shopping?’

‘Let me guess,’ she drops the knife she’s using to cut carrots and looks up at me.

I stand still in the doorway.

‘You want to skip this week’s late-night-shopping to hang out with Alex,’ she says.

‘How’d you know?’ I ask.

‘His mum called earlier to tell me to drop a change of clothes at their place so you can go straight there from school.’

‘Oh,’ I pause, ‘do you mind?’

‘No, I should’ve seen it coming. We’ll go shopping on Saturday instead. There’s a big sale going on this weekend anyway,’ she goes back to cutting carrots and I leave the kitchen.