by Nella Tyler
Ashley had given me a hard time about it from the moment that Tyler left us at the entrance to the dorm building, heading off. “He’s right you know,” she’d told me as we waited for the elevator to take us up to our floor. “You have no idea how to have a good time and relax. You need to take some lessons from him.”
I started going through my clothes, wishing that I’d had time between classes and studying to go to the mall, or at least call my parents and ask them to send something to me.
Tyler had texted me maybe an hour after we’d met and suggested that we go out on Friday night and do something. I’d agreed to it and added his number to my phone, and ever since then we’d sent each other a few messages back and forth—mostly just friendly stuff, nothing really aggressive or intense.
“What was that crash?” I poked my head out through my bedroom door and saw Ashley walking toward my side of the dorm room, looking worried and amused at the same time.
“A box of stuff in my closet fell,” I admitted, cringing. I’d been sorting through my clothes so quickly and pushing the hangers around so hard that I’d shaken something loose on the shelf above them.
“You’re really nervous about this, aren’t you?” Ashley raised an eyebrow and followed me back into my room. “All right. I’ll help you.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’d want me to wear like, a miniskirt and stockings,” I said, shaking my head. I looked at my closet and sighed. I had no idea where Ty was going to be taking me—and somehow I couldn’t decide on which of the outfits in either my closet or my dresser was right for the occasion.
“For a first date? Nah.” Ashley sat down on my bed and looked me over slowly. “You do probably want to show some cleavage though. And wear your hair down.” I reached up to touch the braid I’d put my hair in that morning to keep it out of my face; I’d taken a shower in the morning too—same as I usually did—but I thought I might get another quick shower before I changed clothes and put on makeup.
“Down?” I thought of Dillon again. He had always had some comment to make about my hair when we’d been dating—about me constantly changing it, dyeing it or cutting it a different way. I’d only ever actually messed up my hair once or twice, but Dillon had never let me hear the end of it.
Why did it take me that long to break up with him? It had taken me ages to see his negativity for what it really was. He didn’t criticize me because he wanted to make me better: he had always criticized me, I realized, because he wanted to control me, make me be what he wanted me to be.
“It’s more sensual that way,” Ashley told me. “It makes you look all soft and feminine and sweet.”
“What if I don’t want to look soft and feminine and sweet?” I stuck my tongue out at Ashley and looked at my closet again to try and look over my options.
It wasn’t cold enough yet to really need to wear something warm, but I thought I almost definitely wouldn’t be wearing a miniskirt that night—it was just cool enough to be annoying to walk around in anything short, and on top of that I didn’t want to give Ty the idea that he could just make any kind of move he wanted on me whenever he wanted.
“Do you want to go on this date with him?” Ashley looked me over speculatively. “It seemed to me like you liked him pretty well.” I shrugged.
“I like him okay,” I said, thinking about the texts Ty and I had been sending back and forth. He’d asked about how I was doing in my classes, whether I had managed to figure out the material I’d been trying to learn on Game Night, and what kind of movies and books and music I liked.
“It’s just…guys suck so much.” I shook my head and flipped through the clothes in my closet again for a few moments. I found a dress that I liked—the hem came down to just above my knee, and it had long sleeves, so at least I wouldn’t get chilly. I thought I could wear it with a cute pair of boots, and maybe I’d wear my hair down like Ashley had suggested. “What do you think of this?”
Ashley looked at the dress and shook her head. “Nope. Not a first date dress. Way too much of you would be covered in that.”
“Why does that matter? I’m not going to sleep with him on the first date.” Ashley rolled her eyes.
“It’s not about sleeping with him on the first date,” she said, standing up and walking over to my closet. “It’s about getting the idea across that you might sleep with him eventually.” I laughed.
Ashley sorted through my clothes slowly, pausing on a few of the different pieces of outfits I had in my closet. She picked another dress out; it was a camisole dress, a little shorter in the hem than the one I’d picked out, with spaghetti straps and a sweetheart neckline. “This is what you want to wear,” she told me with a nod.
“It might get chilly tonight,” I pointed out.
“So wear a sweater over it!” Ashley turned back toward my closet and shuffled through my clothes until she found a soft, loose cardigan in the same color as one of the flowers on the dress. “Wear this open over the dress, maybe a nice necklace and some earrings, and a pair of boots and you’re set.”
“Thank you, mother,” I said, pouting in Ashley’s direction. I looked at the dress that she’d picked out and decided it actually was kind of nice. It wasn’t so fancy that I’d feel like I had overdressed if we went somewhere casual, but it wasn’t a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, so if we went somewhere nicer I wouldn’t feel out of place either.
“Get a quick shower, do your hair and put on some makeup,” Ashley suggested with a nod.
“Why did I even agree to go out with him?” I sighed, throwing the clothes onto my bed and kneeling down to look into my basket of shoes underneath.
“Uh, because he’s totally hot and sweet?” I shrugged.
“I guess,” I said, blushing as I thought of Ty’s greenish eyes. Ashley was right about one thing: Tyler was definitely hot. “But I mean, my ex—Dillon—was hot, and he was sweet at first. And then he turned out to be a jerk.”
“Well, if Ty turns out to be a total jerk, then we’ll ruin his life,” Ashley said, grinning at me. “Say he’s got a tiny dick or something like that.” I laughed in spite of how nervous I felt and picked out a pair of boots that I thought would go with the dress Ashley had decided on for me.
“I will keep that in mind,” I told her, grabbing my towel. I thought—I hoped—that a shower would settle my nerves a bit.
I was determined that I would at least enjoy my date with Ty, and if nothing ever came of it that would be fine. Ashley had been at least a little bit right that I hadn’t had very much fun since I’d started at the college a few weeks before. A date would be fun, even if it weren’t the best date I’d ever been on. I took a deep breath and went into the bathroom I shared with Ashley, ignoring the way she chuckled at my nervousness. I thought that I would wear my hair down, like she’d suggested, but I was going to stick with my own preferences for my makeup and my jewelry. I didn’t want to try and pretend to be someone I wasn’t for Ty—not on a first date. If he didn’t like what he saw, that was his problem.
Chapter Four
I knocked on Nicole’s door five minutes before I’d told her I’d come and get her; my dad had taught me when I was young that it was only polite to arrive five minutes early for an appointment of any kind, with anyone, and when I’d become a teenager he’d said it was especially important for a date.
I smiled to myself as I thought about what I had planned for my first date with Nicole. I was fairly certain that she didn’t have any idea of what I had in mind—but that she’d love it nonetheless. I heard Nicole’s voice on the other side of the heavy door calling out that she was coming, and my heart beat faster.
I’d spent a good hour getting my car cleaned up and cleared out on the inside; there wasn’t anything really bad in it—nothing that would make it stink or anything—but I wanted the old heap to look as good as possible when I let Nicole into the passenger seat. I’d lucked out in my schedule for the day when one of my professors sent out an email to the entire class,
telling us that they had to stay home with one of their kids, so the class was canceled.
I’d spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for my date with Nicole: I’d gone to the bank to get the cash I knew I’d need, and I’d taken a shower, shaved, and picked out the outfit I wanted to wear. I was as ready as I could possibly be about twenty minutes before the time I’d given Nicole—so I’d spent the last ten minutes sitting in my room wondering if I was making a big mistake, planning the night the way I had.
The door to Nicole’s dorm room opened and I took in the sight of her. She was enough to make my mouth water: the dress she wore fit her like a glove, but looked sweet at the same time, especially with the sweater over it and the boots covering her feet.
Her hair was down, and for a moment all I could think about was how much I wanted to run my fingers through it, how much I wanted to touch it and how much I wanted to kiss her. I shook off the feeling and smiled. “I know I’m a couple of minutes early,” I said, shrugging off my punctuality.
“No—it’s nice,” Nicole said, smiling back at me. “It saves me the trouble of pacing around the common area all nervous for five minutes.” I chuckled.
“Well, then, should we get on the road?” Nicole hesitated for just a moment and then she nodded.
“Let me just check that I’ve got everything,” she said. She looked in her purse and muttered “Keys, phone, ID card, wallet…” and then looked up at me, her cheeks still pink. “Okay, let’s go!”
I had put more thought into the date I was going to take Nicole than I probably should have—definitely more than I would have admitted to anyone. “Where are we going?” Nicole asked me when I unlocked and opened the passenger side door to let her in.
“We’re going to the county fair,” I told her, grinning. I waited until she’d pulled the seatbelt around and closed the door behind her before walking around to the driver’s side of the car.
I looked at Nicole’s face in the mirrors as I walked, hoping against hope that she wasn’t thinking about how stupid a date that would be; but instead of looking skeptical or disappointed, I saw that she looked incredibly excited—easily as excited as she’d looked when she’d won her prizes at Bingo.
“You know, I kept meaning to go to the fair and I kept missing it because I was busy with other things,” Nicole told me when I climbed in behind the wheel. I grinned, pleased with myself.
“Then I’m glad I thought of it,” I said. “This is the last weekend it’s going to be in town, so I thought since I’m supposed to be showing you how to have a good time and relax…” I shrugged, pulling out of my spot. “I thought it would be fun.”
“I hope so!” In the corner of my eye I saw Nicole smoothing the skirt of her dress over her legs. “Please tell me you’re into rollercoasters,” she added.
“Oh, totally,” I said, nodding as I began to steer my way off campus. “The scarier the better.”
“Me too!” I glanced over to see that Nicole was getting even more excited. “And the rides where it’s like a swing, but it goes up into the air, you know? I love those.”
“Yeah. Those are always a good choice—especially if they’re the kind where you can swing around.”
“Yes!” I turned the music on just for a little bit of background noise—not loud enough to drown Nicole out—and we started chatting: about music, about movies we wanted to see, about the dining hall and the terrible food we were missing out on.
It took about twenty minutes to get to the fair, and then another ten minutes to park; but we’d gotten there after the big rush at the ticket lines, which was something at least. “Now,” I told Nicole, when I saw her reaching into her purse as we got closer to the ticket booth. “I asked you out, so I’m paying for this—all of it. I don’t want to see your wallet the entire night unless someone needs your ID for something.”
Nicole laughed and shrugged, her dark eyes dancing as she looked up at me, and I thought that it wasn’t possible for her to have any idea at all how utterly adorable she was.
“If you insist,” she said, her hand leaving her purse.
I bought wristbands for the rides and tickets for the food trucks, games, and snack stands—more than I thought we could possibly get through for the night—and then we were walking into the fair. “Where should we go first?” Nicole looked around and I couldn’t blame her; there was so much going on all around us, it was almost impossible to choose a direction.
“Well we probably want to play some games first, right?” I spotted a ski-ball game, and next to it one with water guns. “Games, and then a couple of rides, something to eat…”
“That sounds good,” Nicole agreed. She looked in the direction of the games and glanced at me. “Ski-ball?”
We went from one part of the fairgrounds to another, playing games, eating whatever called to us, and getting onto the most exciting rides, one after the other. I was glad at least that Nicole had an iron stomach; even the gravitron didn’t shake her up, even though she’d eaten half of a funnel cake only a few minutes before. Every so often I saw Nicole start to reach for her purse, but as soon as she saw me looking at her, she stopped.
After we made one lap of the fairgrounds, we decided to take a break for a while and just talk and relax. “What’s been your favorite thing so far?”
“I have to say it was probably the gravitron,” Nicole said, grinning and shaking her head. “Either that or the deep fried Oreos.” I laughed. “What about you?”
“I really liked that—what was it called? The one with the helicopters.”
“Oh yeah!” Nicole giggled. “Though I was afraid you were going to lose your dinner on it.”
“Me? You were the one who scarfed down that deep-fried Jell-O,” I pointed out playfully. “If anything could have made me barf…”
“There are a lot more rides,” Nicole countered. “We might actually get really, really close to each other by one of us holding the other one’s hair back.”
“I don’t have enough to get in the way.” I tweaked a lock of her hair and brought the tip of it just under her nose. “Don’t think you have to go on every ride just to impress me, by the way. The fact that you managed the Sky Walker ride without flashing anyone is impressive enough.”
“My Grandma taught me how to be a lady,” Nicole said, putting on a snobby expression. “Just because most of the time I don’t actually do any ladylike things…”
“Oh man, now I want to see you at some tea party or something,” I joked, shaking my head at the image.
“I would fit right in! You jerk—I know how to act properly.” Nicole swatted at me, and I went along with it, cowering in front of her.
“Okay—don’t hurt me! I believe you.” I tousled her hair—I’d been looking for an excuse to touch her like that, to find out if it was as soft as it looked. It was. “Ready for more thrills and excitement?”
“I’m ready if you are,” Nicole said, looking up at me with a challenging glint in her eyes. We made another round of the fairway, and I saw the Ferris wheel. “Oh god, how many people do you think have paid the guy to have him stop it at the top?” Nicole grinned at me. “Please don’t do that.”
“What? You don’t want a romantic movie moment on your first date? Have I been that terrible?”
“It’s such a cliché!” Nicole gestured at the Ferris wheel, shaking her head. “It’s so gross. Let’s not even ride it. I don’t want to tempt you.”
“I think you’re just afraid of heights or something,” I told her.
“I am not!” Nicole pouted and I grinned. “Fine, we’ll ride it. But if it stops at the top and you try to kiss me there, I’m going to shove you out of the car.”
I didn’t try to make a move on her there—it was obvious that even if she were joking, it wouldn’t work to do it anyway. Instead we laughed at the couple that actually did kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel and got off still laughing.
We dared each other to get on more and more exciting ri
des: the Tower of Terror, the Whip Crack, and finally, after a long wait in line, we were climbing into the cars of the scariest, most intense roller coaster the fair offered: the Kraken. “Now, don’t think I’m going to think less of you if you scream,” I told Nicole playfully as the ride technicians belted us down into the seats.
“Oh come on,” Nicole said, reaching over to give me a shove. “You’re going to scream before I do.”
“I will bet you a kiss that I don’t scream,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “One kiss. It’s not on the Ferris wheel.”
“Okay,” Nicole said, grinning. “If you don’t scream, you get a kiss. If you do…hmm.” She pressed her lips together as she considered. I had been wanting to kiss her—almost needing to kiss her—all night. “If you scream then you give me all the rest of the food tickets, and you have to eat whatever I buy with them.”
“Deal.” I reached over and offered her my hand to shake. The rollercoaster started up a minute later, and I clenched my teeth as we rocketed away. I will bite my own tongue off before I’ll scream, I thought, determined to earn my kiss. I knew that Nicole would probably let me kiss her anyway; but I was set to actually earn the reward, to stick by the letter of my agreement.
I heard Nicole let out a shriek next to me when the rollercoaster plunged into the deepest descent of the ride; but I managed to keep my lips pressed together the whole time, my heart pounding in my chest, my blood roaring in my ears along with the wind. The rollercoaster slowed to a stop and my heart was still pounding, adrenaline flowing through my veins. The safety belts came off, and I turned to Nicole. “I didn’t scream,” I told her, smiling slightly.
“I was so looking forward to trying to figure out what combination of things would make you puke,” Nicole said, shaking her head in pretend disappointment and then ruining the look with a laugh.
