Lunch

I woke up with her in my arms. She was facing me with her hands against my chest. She looked…peaceful… I didn’t want to wake her up. I was comfortable. The blanket was up to our waist, she was warm, and I was still tired.

Some of her hair had fallen across her face and I wasn’t sure I’d seen anything more beautiful. I didn’t really want to get out of bed and disappear. I just wanted to stay here with her.

I must’ve dozed off or something because I was woken up by Sara shifting. I kept my eyes closed and pulled her tighter against me. “Don’t go.” I mumbled. I wondered where that came from.

I heard her chuckle and relax into me again. I cracked an eye open to see her smiling. “Do you have to go anywhere today?” She asked.

I remember trying to avoid this. I’d make up excuses and try absolutely everything to get out of being with the woman I had just slept with, but all I wanted was to stay with her today. I sighed and said, “Actually, I have to do something this morning. I left my friend Jan in my apartment.”

“Oh.” She sat up and I couldn’t hold her there. I think she thought I was making one of those excuses.

I sat up and lifted her chin up to look at me. I kissed her the way she kissed me last night, that soft one with no expectations. I wanted her to know that she was different. That this wasn’t just a good lay that I would ignore. When I pulled away I said, “It’s Saturday, and it won’t take long. I’ll take you out for lunch.”

“Another friendly meal with a possibility of sex?” She smiled.

I felt something in my chest hurt. That’s what this was from the beginning. Friendly dinner and sex. That’s all I wanted this to be anyways, so I wasn’t sure why it hurt when she said that, but it did. I forced a smile and hoped it looked real enough and said, “Sounds good to me.” I got out of bed and started pulling on my clothes. “I’ll call you before I leave, okay? You don’t need to get real dressed up or anything, it’s just a friendly lunch.” I smiled and started buttoning up my shirt.

“Yeah, sounds like fun.” She picked up my jacket and tie from the ground and handed them to me. “Tell Jan I said hi.” She smiled and walked me to the door. I heard it shut behind me and I got in Jan’s car.

When I opened the door to my apartment and yelled, “Jan!” I heard a loud thump.

Jan stood up from the other side of the couch and glared at me. “I fell off the damn couch. I see you spent the night by the way. Leaving me here alone all night.”

“Not my fault.” I said and walked into my bedroom. I changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Jan raised an eyebrow when she saw me. “A t-shirt? I haven’t seen you where a t-shirt in ages.”

“I’m in that sort of mood.” I grumbled and sat on the couch with her.

“What happened?”

“I went on my first date in ages. It was great. Absolutely wonderful. And this morning I said I’d take her to lunch and she said that she’d like to go to another friendly meal with me and a possibility of sex.”

Jan rubbed my shoulder and I just scowled. “So, you gotta make this time even greater. Maybe she was joking, but you have to let her know that you want more.”

“I never said I wanted more.”

“Too bad, you’re getting more and you’ll like it. Now, where are you taking her to lunch?”

“I don’t know, somewhere casual. Maybe Red Robin or something.”

“No. Take her to an amusement park.”

“The nearest one is an hour away.”

“Do I look like I care?”

I sighed and said, “Alright. Amusement park. But it’s not going to change anything.”

“Make it change something.”

“How?”

“I’m taking the damn training wheels off; you’re doing that part on your own. You’re doing this all on your own. I just told you where to go, you’re doing everything else.”

“I can’t do that on my own.” I didn’t know how to do that sort of thing, I couldn’t remember how to do all of that.

“Sure you can. Let her know what you want though.”

“I don’t even know what I want.” I grumbled.

“Yes you do. Now, tell me all about last night.”

I was standing outside her door again. I knocked and waited for a minute or so before she opened up the door. She was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a white v-neck. She looked really good.

I smiled and said, “You look nice.”

“You look…different.” She laughed.

I looked down at my feet, suddenly feeling self conscious of how I looked. “I was feeling lazy today.” I mumbled.

“It’s not bad, just a side I’ve never seen of you. So, where are we going?”

“Do you like amusement parks?”

I paid for her ticket and we went in the gate. It wasn’t that crowded for some reason, even though it was Saturday and a big name amusement park. I didn’t mind though, it meant less lines to wait in.

“Do you like roller coasters?” She asked as we walked around for a bit.

“Love ‘em. Do you?”

“They’re pretty much the only reason to come to amusement parks.”

Two hours later we were walking by one of the amusement park games to win prizes. It was a miniature golf game with three rows of three holes. The front row was for the small prize, the middle for the medium prize, and the last row was for the jumbo prize. The jumbo prize row was behind a steep incline and right behind it was a ditch for a ball to fall into.

I pulled her over when I saw her cast a glance at the giant panda and paid for three gold balls. I set one of them on the grass and took a swing. It was way too hard, I expected it to smack into the wall and fall into the ditch. Instead, it smacked into the wall and bounced into the jumbo prize hole. No one was as shocked as I was. The second ball didn’t get anything, but it didn’t need to, I’d already won what I wanted to win.

I wrapped an arm around her waist and she picked out one of those giant pandas while she laughed. I smiled over at her and suddenly realized I had my arm around her waist still. I quickly slid it off and asked if she was hungry.

We were sitting under one of the roofs with picnic tables eating. I was across from her and her panda was sitting next to her. She looked so happy. She seemed to be having fun, and that’s really why I wanted to be here in the first place.

“I think I figured out why there’s not a lot of people here.” I said after a while.

“Why’s that?” She bit into her hotdog and I saw some mustard on her bottom lip when she pulled it away.

“It’s raining.” It wasn’t raining really hard, but the roller coasters would be shut down until it stopped.

“Damn. I didn’t check the weather today.” She said, noticing the rain.

“Me neither.” She wasn’t wearing clothes for the rain. “Stay here.” I said, and I stood up and walked to one of the little gift shops they had. I bought her a blue zip up hoodie with the amusement park name on it and an umbrella. I handed it to her and smiled, “Don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I did. And the umbrella is for the bear. I didn’t think you’d want it to get wet. I can hold it though, you have your hands full.” I smiled and she finally took the jacket.

She stood up and zipped it up. She was about to pick up the bear when I touched her arm to stop her. I took a step towards her, almost closing the space between us, and lifted my thumb up to her lip. I let it gently swipe across her bottom lip and then whispered, “You had mustard on your lip.” I don’t know why I felt the need to whisper. I guess I just didn’t need to talk very loud with her that close.

“Thanks.” She whispered back.

I took a step back and wiped my thumb off on a napkin and tossed it in the trash. I smiled back at her and opened up the umbrella. She picked up the bear and hugged it close while we walked with the umbrella over us back to the car.

The bear was put in the backseat, and when Sara turned around from putting him in the car we were close once again. I could kiss her from here. Neither of us moved, we just stood there looking at each other.

“Sara—”

“Dev—”

We said at the same time. God, this may as well have been a fucking movie or something.

“You go first.” I smiled, hoping she didn’t have something to say that I didn’t want to her.

“Thank you. For everything. I didn’t think you’d be this sort of person when I first met you, and…I’m glad you proved me wrong.”

“I wasn’t this sort of person before I met you. I used to be able to look at other women, and I never took them out. The most I ever spent on a woman in the last few years was the price of a couple drinks.” Suddenly, what I wanted had a name. I knew exactly what I wanted from Sara. “Sara, I wasn’t this person until I met you, and I don’t want to go back to being who I was. I want to keep doing this. And I don’t want it to be friendly meals and sex; I want to take you on dates and stay home to watch movies. I want more than just friends who sometimes have mind blowing sex.”

“Is that your way of asking me to be your girlfriend?” Sara raised an eyebrow at me.

I hesitated, feeling my heart jump into my throat and block all sound. I wanted her to be my girlfriend, but I didn’t want this to end like Carrie. I didn’t want to get broken again like that.

You know what?

Fuck Carrie.

“Yes.”

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So, what do you think will happen? How do you like the story? Can Dev really just step out of her old life and into this one? Like, comment, all of that.