Hidden || Shawn Mendes ||

Eighteen

Wednesday night.

Tonight was the night.
My first date.
I was a nervous wreck, we had been texting and FaceTime for the past three days and everything was going good. He was a true gentleman and he was really funny. He was very easy in the eyes too and he constantly complemented me but never to the point where it became annoying.
I fixed my hair for the hundredth time, applied my lipgloss and I changed for the fourth time. I decided on a black skater girl dress with black sheer tights and my floral docmartins. I kept my make up to a minimum, Trisha gave me a Smokey eye to make my eyes pop as she said.

The door bell rang.
I ran out of the room and my parents started laughing.
"Someone's excited." My dad shouted as I went to the door to open it.
When I opened the door there he stood.
Evan.
He was truly tall, lean with slight visible muscle through his all black button up dress shirt. He wore dark grey skinnies with slight tears on the knee but not showing any skin. He had some all black boots to match his shirt, his hair was pulled back slightly and his eyes gleamed so bright to match the smile I was welcomed once I opened the door.

"Hi beautiful. I thought you would like these." He said as he handed me a small handful of yellow tulips which where my favorite (he remembered from our first conversation)

"Thank you Evan. They are beautiful." I said taking them and smelling them.

"Hi I'm Wilson, Ella's father. You must be Evan." My said from behind me. He moved slightly over in front of me to shake Evans hand. It was a firm handshake I knew my dads methods by now. Evan returned the handshake and I could tell it was firm in return, I saw the veins flex out from his forearm as he did it. That was hot to me, it did something to me inside. But I shook it away.

"Hello Sir, The pleasure is all mine. I've heard a lot about you from Ella." Evan said as he made equal eye contact with my father. That was another check for Evan off my dads list. My dad smiled his handsome smile and he let go of Evans hand as he moved back to the side of me.

"I'm glad. Well it was good meeting you, hopefully we see you again. Ella remember curfew is at 12 no later." My dad said as he stepped behind me and began to walk down the small hall.

I grabbed my Jean jacket and my small black cross body bag and my keys. Evan stepped to the side of me and he extended his arm out for me to hook on to so I did.

"Thank you kindly sir." I laughed as we began to walk down the small three steps off the front Of my porch.

"Your ever so welcomed my lady." He smiled at me.

When we got to his car, he opened the passenger door for me and that was a first that any guy had done that for me on a date. I got in and once he closed my door he walked over to the driver side hopping in. We put our seats on and we began our decent. He turned the radio on low for some background music, the ride was quite but not awkward. Every few stop lights he would glance over at me hoping I wouldn't notice and when I did he would smile as he turned back to pay attention to the road.

"Evan." I said lowly as I looked out the window trying to avoid the butterflies I had in my stomach.

"Hm." He stated with eyes still on the road of course.

"Thank you. I know the date just started but thank you." I said biting the side of my cheek feeling them heat up.

"Date? Hmm who said anything about a date?" He said cocking one eyebrow up and grinning.

I opened my mouth in shook. Had I misinterpreted when he asked me out? Was this just a casual hang out? Omg. I started thinking of everything I might've overthought. My hands became sweaty and I felt a flush of embarrassment washing over me.

"Relax Ella, I'm kidding babe. Of course I asked you on a date who would be crazy not too. Relax you look like you might pass out." Evan said laughing as he looked over at me, his hand reached for mines and it felt cool over mines and I liked it. I looked down and back up at him and I smiled.

"That was seriously mean of you Sir."

He winked over at me and squeezed my hand a little more. We continued our ride singing along to some of the songs that came on the radio and maintaining small talk.

•{}{}{}•

We ended up in a beautiful Italian restaurant outside of town. The place was lowly lit with candles in every corner creating that illuminate illusion. I suddenly felt so under dress in my boots and tights.

As we walked I guess Evan could feel his self conscious I had become because he took my hand into his and gave it a slight squeeze before he whispered at the side of my head nearest my ear.

"You look beautiful."

I smiled and I held on to his hand as we walked to the table in the corner of the restaurant.

Once we sat down, the waitress poured us some water and placed a small basket of bread in the middle of the table she then gave us our menus. The whole time she was side eyeing Evan and he seemed completely oblivious to it or he ignored her. Another first I was never used to when I was with Jake. We looked over the menu for a few more minutes and she came back to take our orders. Evan decided on eggplant parmigiana, I kept it simple with a chicken Alfredo, and again as she took our menus she couldn't seem to draw herself away from staring at Evan who was staring at me now. I felt my cheeks get warm again and I tried to cover my face with my hands.

"Don't hide your beauty Ella." He said reaching over removing my hand from my cheeks and giving me a wholehearted smile. The waitress left with an attitude making Evan turn back as she walked and he laughed.

"She seems very smitten by you." I said taking a small piece of bread and biting it.

"Yeah well, the feeling isn't mutual." He said as he turned back to face me with a genuine smile.

I caught myself studying this guy in-front of me. He was truly intriguing. He was very smart like Hope had said, he went to an all boys school at the request of his strict mother across town. Hope knew him because their mothers where friends from some yoga class. I was a little confused as to why he wasn't interested in Hope, but when he explained it to me I understood. He was into sports but he was also a book reader and I thought that was super cute. He had a little sister Alexia that he was insanely close with and I had spoken to her once in our FaceTime talks, she was cute at only 4 years old. She promised me to come over one day and meet her and have tea, Evan promised for both of us which I found a little weird because we hadn't even got past our first date. But now that I'm here I found myself already thinking of our second date, then remembered it would be with Hope, Shawn , Trisha and Jon.

"Hey are you okay?" Evan asked, I then realized I had a face without even realizing it. I quickly took a sip of my water and came back to our reality.

"Yes, sorry I was just thinking about the triple date coming up. I kinda don't want to go. Is that bad to say?" I said feeling sudden guilt come over me for being so brutally honest, well sorta.

Evan laughed. "No it's not. Not ready to share me with your friends, huh?"

My cheeks grew hot yet again and I smiled. "Honestly, I don't want Hope to make it so awkward. I do enjoy getting to know you without an audience."

Evan just looked at me and smiled and nodded in agreement. The waitress came with our food and drinks.

The rest of the date was truly amazing, and he was a complete gentleman.