My Best Friend’s Brother

They introduce themselves, and the brunette comes closer to me, leaving her friend talking to Adam. We are talking, and he, by competition, asks the brunette next to me a question. He knows that it’s not unusual for me to win these crazy competitions that we get into, but he still tries.

I am already positioning myself to play harder, but my cell phone vibrates with a message, and as soon as I check the name on the screen, Adan looks at me, knowing that I will lose this one.

The message says everything I wanted to read on a Sunday afternoon:

“Would you like a second-round now?”

… Molly…

I am alone at home. It is Sunday afternoon, and I have nothing to do but lie on the couch watching TV.

I don’t know what Chantal has gotten herself into, but she is having more fun than I am. I think everybody is having more fun than I am. Julie isn’t home either, which reminds me of her brother. It also makes me pick up my phone and text him, and he promptly replies:

“I’ll be right there.”

Now I am in my room choosing something nice to wear, which doesn’t show that I stopped what I was doing to get ready to wait for him.

I wear just a basic T-shirt and jeans shorts. Sometime later, almost half an hour, I heard knocking at the door. I want to say that I am not anxious, but in fact, I am.

When I open the door, I see Chris fully dressed as if he is going to a party or coming back from one. He looks fantastic, and I swear I have to hold myself back from throwing myself at him right now. But I choose to smile gracelessly and say:

” I didn’t know you were out or going out.”

He says nothing, and I continue:

”We can leave it for another time and…”

He interrupts me by saying:

”No. We are still going out.”

I look at him a little confused and ask:

”What do you mean?”

He says:

”You’re going out with me.”

Still a little surprised, he walks past me and sits down on the couch.

I turn to him, still looking like I don’t understand, and he says:

” I’ll wait for you to change. But please don’t take too long.”

I still look at him, and he gets up and comes towards me, holds one side of my face with his hand, and approaches me, saying:

”I swear I wanted round two right now. Right then, I did.”

He closes his eyes for a few seconds, and it makes me want to laugh because I know what he means, but I hold back, and he continues:

”But I have to make at least you change, if only a little bit, how you see it. So lets at least go out once and make this work even better.”

He looks me in the eye, and I catch myself thinking, how will I say no by looking in those eyes like that?

I end up agreeing:

”Okay.”

He gives me a quick kiss and heads toward the couch again. I go to my room. I never take long to get ready for a date, so this will be quick. I choose a not too short black dress and a cardigan because it is a little chilly.

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Sometime later, I’m ready. Chris stands up when he sees me, looks me up and down, and says:

” Wow, you look beautiful.”

I wish that comment didn’t make me happy, but it does.

He adds:

” I wish Julie was that quick.”

I end up laughing because I know what he is talking about. Going out with Julie is waiting half a century for her to be ready.

I like this version of Chris, I don’t know what he wants with all this, but at least I am no longer as suspicious as before.

… Chris…

I know I have no right to be jealous, but I wouldn’t say I like how the guys here look at her as we walk into this restaurant.

She would look at me from the corner of her eye when we weren’t talking in the car on the way here. I like to know that my invitation impressed her in some way.

”I think this is a good place.”

I say as we sit down at the table. Molly still looks at me in a way that makes me ask with a laugh as well:

”What’s so funny?”

She still masks a smile as she answers:

”Nothing. It’s just that this whole thing it’s a little weird.”

I ask:

”Weird good or weird bad?”

She analyzes for a while and smiles, saying:

” weird and good!”

I smile back and catch myself thinking I like seeing her smile. There haven’t been many times since I met her that she has smiled directly at me.

And this reminds me that I have and need to work a little more complicated if I want to change her opinion of me.

But I don’t want to be exaggerated because I’m not like that, and I don’t think Molly is the kind of girl who would like, for example, to have the chair at the table pulled out for her to sit on. But I think if she made it clear that she likes it, I would even consider making an effort.

I also wish she hadn’t worn this dress with this neckline because it’s hard for me to concentrate on food right now.

I take a deep breath. We don’t talk about many things, but there’s not enough to make us awkward, and that’s good. Molly is good at this, at socializing. I’d rather keep my mouth busy otherwise.

She catches me staring at her cleavage for the tenth time or so and laughs as she asks me:

” Won’t you want to finish your dinner?”

I look at her and say a little lower so that no one can hear us:

”That’s not really what I want to eat at the moment.”