blind first dates (c.h)

the first

"I'm her and Graham's neighbor," Calum told him, giving him basic information that seemed to send an entire explanation to Reese. He stopped in his tracks and looked at us.

"You're not... one of them, are you?" Reese asked and I let out a groan as my eyes rolled. As I glanced at Calum he seemed confused, but knowing Reese, he'd explain himself. "One of them: Cassidy's picks."

"God, Reese, you make it sound so fucking creepy," I said, disapproving of his words.

"Oh," Calum said, finally getting it. "Yeah, I guess I was one of them."

"Was?" Reese asked, curious to know what had changed.

"Well... I got passed the first date, isn't that an accomplishment or something? A step up from just a pick of Cassidy's?" Calum nudged my arm with his elbow and I scoffed, but had trouble keeping back a laugh. Reese found Calum's word amusing and starting to nod his head as he smiled.

"That is one hell of an accomplishment, my guy." Reese jokingly went for a high five, but they both inaudibly agreed not to high five each other over me. "You know..." Reese said as we started walking again, finally getting to my office. "I was the first."

"Oh god, let's not talk about that," I said, almost forgetting that the first date Cassidy had ever set me up on was with Reese.

"I didn't impress her very much," Reese told Calum, shrugging his shoulders as I turned to unlock my office door. "I don't know if anyone has ever impressed her... so you must be pretty great."

"I think I might just be lucky," Calum said and while my body was turned away from both of them, I took the time to smile to myself.

After unlocking the door, I pushed it open and walked in, figuring the guys would follow me in. The alcohol we were going to try was in a safe in my office, so I turned to the left and walked toward it.

"Just in case you guys don't work out and I want a second chance... could you tell me what you did? There's got to be some strategy I don't know," Reese had lowered his voice into a whisper, but it was a loud whisper. He wanted me to hear him being stupid, and I looked over at him as I gave him a look and he smiled down at me, having no remorse for embarrassing me and making this more awkward for Calum.

Every time I tried talking to guys at the bar, Reese was right there monitoring everything that happened. It was annoying, but I knew most of the time he was only making sure I was safe.

"I'm telling you, I've been lucky so far. I don't know what she sees in me," Calum told Reese, doing the same loud whisper thing.

"Okay, both of you—stop." They agreed to stop and I pulled the alcohol out of the safe and placed it on my desk, which wasn't far away considering nothing was far away from anything in my office. "Reese, are you participating?"

"Hell yeah." I handed Reese and Calum a bottle each and took the last two in my hands. "Let's go back to the kitchen."

"You guys have a kitchen?" Calum asked as we started walking out of my office. I didn't care to leave the door open, so I didn't bother locking it back either on my way out.

"This used to be a pizza joint," Reese explained. "I've always wanted to hire a chef and add food to the menu, but—"

"We're not doing that," I cut Reese off and he pouted.

"She won't let me," Reese finished his sentence and Calum laughed quietly. "Why won't you let me?"

"Look, finger foods would be one thing, but even then I'm not about to willingly give drunk fucks food so that they can throw it around. We already have enough people throwing their bottles around each night, I am not cleaning up food off the floor in addition to the endless amount of broken glass." I gave Reese what I felt was a reasonable explanation and he sighed as I finished speaking.