First Impressions Series (1-2)

by Nicole R. Locker

  “Cason invited me to go out for some drinks on Saturday night, and then we’re going dancing at the Thunder Lounge. Oh my God, Zia, you should totally come!”

  “Uh, probably not. I don’t want to be a third wheel, and it’ll probably be a good time for me to get ahead on some assignments I have coming up.”

  Before she could protest, I quickly added, “But don’t worry! You won’t even notice I’m not there as soon as you meet up with Cason.” I had to dodge that bullet.

  “I guess. I just hate leaving you home all by yourself on the weekends while I’m out having fun. I feel like a terrible friend.” She over-exaggerated a frown as she turned away from the mirror she had been looking in and walked toward me. She sat beside me on her bed and grabbed both of my hands in hers.

  “Seriously, don’t feel bad. I am so happy for you, and it’s not like I’m going to just be sitting around here being bored. I have a lot of homework to do, so it’s really no big deal.” I hoped that would put her mind at ease.

  It did.

  “Well, you’ll at least have to help me get ready that night. Will you help me curl my hair? I can never do it the way you do, and I want it to look perfect!” She sang the last part like a giddy little girl.

  “You know it!” I smiled at her and went to my room to turn in for the night. I hadn’t slept well the night before, as was usual for a Monday.

  Once I got to my room, I closed the door and changed into my night clothes, which were a pair of pajama pants and a red fitted camisole tank. I headed to my bathroom and completed my bed-time routine, brushing my teeth and removing my makeup before crawling into my cozy bed.

  I connected my cell phone to the charger and checked for any messages as it lit up to charge. No new messages.

  I turned out the lamp and laid my head on the pillow, turning to face the wall opposite my night stand. Just before sleep overtook me, I thought to myself that I couldn’t believe how crazy I was for making an offer like that to Dylan, a complete stranger.

  Of course he wouldn’t take me up on it.

  Would he?

  And just as I slipped into that stage between wake and sleep, I heard the phone make the soft ding to indicate an incoming text. I incoherently reached to check the phone.

  It was a number I didn’t recognize.

  Unknown: Ok I’m in.

  Me: In where? Who is this??

  Unknown: It’s Dylan. And I’m in. I’ll let you help me.

  Unknown: If you still want to.

  Me: Ohhh. Ok :)

  Unknown: So what now?

  Me: Now we go to bed and talk about it tomorrow.

  Unknown: Ok sounds good. I’ll call you after practice.

  Me: Ok

  Unknown: Goodnight

  Me: Goodnight

  I programmed Dylan’s number in my phone and set it back on my nightstand for the night.

  It looked like I had a new project to work on.

  CHAPTER 2: DYLAN

  The next week was a killer with all the new assignments we got after last week’s mid-terms. Algebra class was eating my lunch, so to speak, so I figured I’d better do some studying between classes on Monday.

  I had an eight o’clock morning class on Mondays, but my second class that started at nine-thirty ended up being cancelled that day. I decided to sit and study at a table in the Student Central Building near the food courts to fill the time.

  By about eleven o’clock, I got a text from Jonas saying a bunch of them were meeting up at Chik Fil A for lunch if I wanted to join, so I grabbed my notebooks in a rush and headed for the campus shuttle stop.

  After meeting up for lunch, I grabbed my book bag and started heading toward the Science building for my Biology class when I realized my bag felt a little too light to be carrying that monster of a book. I opened my bag, and sure enough, no Biology book.

  I thought back to where I could have left it and realized I had set it in the chair next to mine at the table I had studied at earlier in the Student Central Building.

  I changed directions and hurried back over to see if my book was still where I had left it. As I approached the table where I’d been sitting, I noticed none other than the blue-eyed girl from the Book Shelf the other night with my Biology book in her hands. She had the front cover opened as though she were looking for a name of whom the book might belong to.

  “There it is! Sorry, I left my Bio book sitting here earlier. I thought I’d lost it,” I said, halfway in relief and halfway barely believing my luck. I could feel the spike of adrenaline rush through my blood stream at the sight of her.

  She looked up at me with those big blue eyes, and I couldn’t believe the coincidence that, after I had missed my chance to talk to her Saturday night, here she was, holding my Biology book, sitting right where I had sat just an hour earlier.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m glad you found it, then.” She smiled a polite but understated smile and handed the book to me.

  “Thanks,” I returned, smiling appreciatively.

  “No problem,” she said, before turning her attention down to her sandwich.

  Was she dismissing me? Did she know who I was? I thought maybe I should introduce myself. “I’m Dylan, by the way.”

  She looked back up at me. “Uh, nice to meet you, Dylan. I’m Marzia,” she replied.

  “Marzia. That’s an unusual name. I haven’t heard it before,” I told her, trying to draw her into some conversation.

  “It’s Italian. Marzia Benagli. I really just go by Zia,” she explained.

  “Well, Zia, it’s nice to meet you, too,” I told her.

  “Thank you,” she returned.

  And then, nothing.

  I looked at her trying to decide whether I should keep talking or just leave her alone. Maybe I was interrupting something, or maybe she was waiting for someone.

  All I knew for sure was that she didn’t seem like she was too interested in anything I had to say, since she was already looking down at her sandwich again.

  This was awkward.

  Deciding I wouldn’t make a fool of myself, I finally turned to leave as I told her, “Well, see you around. Thanks again for finding my book.”

  I wasn’t used to this happening. Usually girls hung on to my every word. Confused, I wondered if maybe she thought I was someone else, or maybe even that she had heard some rumor about me from a scorned ex. I knew how girls could make guys out to be jerks when they’d been rejected by one of us.

  What I did know was that I couldn’t just leave it at that. I would figure out a way to run into her again and ask her to hang out sometime. There was just something about this girl that made me want to know her. She was a mystery to be solved, and Dylan Porter was up for the challenge.

  * * *

  That evening, when practice finished, most of the guys were talking about heading over to Ethan’s place to hang out and drink some beer. I told them I’d swing by there after running home to change clothes.

  On the walk toward my apartment from the campus bus stop, I walked down the sidewalk right across from the university. The various shops and restaurants were all busy with students who congregated in them, including the Daylee Grind, which was a little family-owned coffee shop.

  The Daylee Grind seemed like a pretty chill place to do some studying, but I’d never personally been in there. Not that I couldn’t have used a little more studying from time to time.

  As I walked by the front windows that spanned the entire store front, my eyes honed in on a petite figure with long, brown hair and big, blue eyes. She was sitting tucked away at a table right by the outer glass wall.

  It was Zia. Now was my chance. I had to go in and talk to her.

  I walked into the coffee shop and approached her table, waving to a couple of people I knew on the way. Zia seemed pretty engrossed in her studying and didn’t seem to notice me walk up.

  “Zia?”

  She looked up at me in surprise. “Hey… Dylan, right?”

  “Hey
, I thought that was you. I was just passing by the window and saw you. I just got out of practice,” I explained.

  “Practice?” She looked puzzled.

  “Yeah. I play in a soccer league. Didn’t you know?” I wasn’t used to people not knowing who I was around here. I wondered if maybe she had just moved here or something, which would explain why I’d never seen her around before.

  “I guess not. Did you come here to study?” she asked as she looked at the book bag I was carrying across my shoulder.

  “Well, not really, but it seems like a nice quiet place to get a little homework done. You mind if I join you? It doesn’t look like there are any more tables open,” I reached for the empty chair in front of her, but I didn’t want to assume she was okay with me just taking a seat, in case she really did have a boyfriend or something. If not, then she definitely had the playing-hard-to-get routine down.

  “Sure, why not,” she responded as she glanced around the room. She seemed surprised at the crowd that had apparently accumulated while she hadn’t been paying attention.

  I pulled out the chair and sat, sitting my book bag on the table in front of me and rummaging through it to see what homework I had brought home with me today. I brought my algebra homework out that I’d been studying earlier that day before lunch.

  Once I got situated, I looked up and decided to see if a little small talk would bring this gorgeous girl out of her shell. “So what are you working on?” I asked her.

  “Oh, I have a paper I’m working on for Social Psychology,” she answered. “You?”

  “I have some algebra homework I need to do. You any good at math?” I joked with a smile.

  “Eh, I get by. Probably not math tutor material, though,” she admitted as she cracked a smile of her own.

  That seemed to be the ice breaker she needed, because the conversation flowed easily after that.

  While we were sitting there talking together, several people came by to say hi to me here and there, and it eventually occurred to me that she might be worried about people seeing her here with me if she had a boyfriend. As pretty as she was, by this point I was convinced she must have one, but partly out of concern and partly out of curiosity, I asked her, “You don’t have a boyfriend who’s going to get pissed that I’m here hanging out with you, do you?”

  “Um, no… It’s no big deal.” She paused for a short moment as though contemplating her next thought. “So what’s your story, anyway? I saw you the other night at the Book Shelf. You seem like you have quite a selection to choose from,” she jabbed playfully as she raised her eyebrows suggestively for emphasis.

  I couldn’t hold back a laugh.

  “Oh, yeah… that. Yeah, we won our soccer match last Saturday, so me and my buddies went up there to celebrate and have some drinks.” I hoped she couldn’t tell that her question had made me nervous, since she’d called me out on seeing all the girls who were talking to us that night.

  “I see. I knew I didn’t remember seeing you there before,” she told me.

  “If you saw us there, why didn’t you come up and say hi or something?” I asked her, recalling how I had hoped she would have done just that at the time.

  “Oh, you looked like you had plenty of company to keep you occupied. Besides, I’m more of a keep-to-myself kind of person,” she said. This explained a lot to me, as I didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that she may have been a bit stuck-up. Turned out she was just shy.

  “Hmm, that’s cool, I guess.” I wondered if there was a way to play this off so that it didn’t look like I was into all those girls we had been talking to that Saturday night prior. The truth was, I wasn’t, but it probably didn’t look that way.

  She was quiet, and that made me even more nervous.

  “It was mostly my buddies who were talking to all those girls. They usually drag me out with them so they can pick up chicks.” Okay, maybe no dragging was involved, but other than that it was true.

  “Oh, it’s cool. I totally get it. Variety is the spice of life, right?” Zia laughed softly, but seemed a little more agitated than she was trying to let on as she tapped her pen against her notebook on the table.

  Variety, I thought. If only. Maybe there was a variety of girls, but if you knew one, you knew them all.

  “So they say,” I agreed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, seeming to understand there was more to the story, as she straightened in her chair and leaned in toward me. Touched by the sincerity that she actually wanted to know, I somehow felt the urge to confide in her.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I mean, to be honest, I can have pretty much any girl I want, and I’ve dated quite a few girls since I started playing in the league here a couple years back.” Now that it was time to confide, I suddenly wasn’t sure it was the best idea.

  “But?” she prodded. She wasn’t going to give up that easily.

  Okay, what the hell, right?

  “But I don’t know. They’re all the same. I just get tired of it after a while. Ya know?” I hoped none of these girls were sitting around me right then to hear me say that about them, even though it was the truth.

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “But really, I have to be honest here. What did you expect?” She was suddenly turning it back on me.

  Now I was intrigued. This girl was calling me out, challenging me. I straightened in my chair to mirror her in front of me. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean, if you’re only looking for a certain type, then why do you expect them all to be any different from each other?” She leaned back and let that drive home.

  Hmmm, I thought. She actually had a point. What was that saying about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. If I wanted something different, I’d have to try something I’d never tried before.

  Zia continued, “What kind of girl are you looking for, anyway?”

  “I don’t know…” I did know, but how could I word this without sounding like a total ass? “Someone with a mind of her own. Someone who I know likes me for who I am and not because of who I am, I guess.”

  I thought for a moment and continued. “And it wouldn’t hurt if she was attractive, of course,” I said as I diverted my gaze to the table. I couldn’t look her in the eye and say that for some reason, as her glaring beauty was staring back at me. Since when was I shy about talking to a gorgeous girl?

  “Hmm…” she said, and it looked like the wheels were spinning inside that gorgeous head of hers.

  I waited for her to continue, but finally urged, “What?”

  “I’m just thinking. You seem like a nice guy, Dylan. I might be able to help you find the right kind of girl, if you wanted,” she offered.

  “You mean set me up with someone? I don’t know,” I said, thinking to myself that there was just no way.

  “No, I don’t mean set you up with anyone. Have you ever heard of the saying, ‘give a guy a fish and he’ll eat for a day, but teach a guy to fish and he’ll eat for life?’ Well, I mean that I can try to teach you how to fish,” she explained.

  “I got ya. Okay, you have my attention,” I told her, but added, “So how is this going to work?”

  “Well, we’d have to go out to some places where you can meet people, and I could help you figure out what to look for, what to stay away from, stuff like that,” she explained.

  “I don’t know. How do I know that you’d even be able to really help?” I questioned skeptically.

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she answered matter-of-factly, as she started gathering her notebooks.

  I felt a slight wave of panic, worried that she would leave and I would have no way to talk to her again. The prospect sounded great in theory, but what I was really interested in was getting to know her better. I wanted to figure this girl out.

  I knew if I went along with this, it would buy me some time with her, and maybe even help me figure out how to win her over. What I didn’t want to do
was waste her time if she really had no interest in me. What was the right thing to do? I needed more time to really think about it.

  “How about I think about it and let you know?” I finally asked.

  “No problem. That’s totally understandable,” she nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, so I guess I need your number, then. You know… to let you know what I decide.” I took my cell phone out of my pocket and started a new phonebook entry to type in her number. I noticed I had twenty missed text messages from different guys on the team asking where I was since I hadn’t shown up to Ethan’s place as expected.

  I couldn’t help but think what a change it was that I was asking someone else for their number for once instead of the other way around. It also didn’t escape my notice that she wasn’t asking for mine in return.

  Zia gave me her number, and then we both packed up to leave, going our separate ways.

  * * *

  From the Daylee Grind, I walked the couple of blocks back to my apartment and took my truck straight over to Ethan’s place, since I had already spent so much time hanging out with Zia. I knew if I went inside my apartment at that point, I probably wouldn’t get back out, and I had already told them I’d come by. I didn’t want to disappoint, since I knew they were expecting me.

  Ethan had a pretty nice place, a house that his parents had bought for him here in town while he was attending school here. Like me, Ethan came from a wealthy family, and it looked like they had paid an interior designer to decorate and a house maid to keep the place clean. Not a bad setup for Ethan and his two roommates.

  It certainly served as a great party spot when the mood struck, which happened fairly often in this bunch. I could see the appeal, and while my apartment had a lot of nice, high-end furnishings of its own, I preferred the living alone aspect where I could come home and relax in peace and quiet when I wanted to.

  When I walked in the door, I got a loud greeting from the crowd that had gathered in my absence, and Ethan handed me a glass of beer.