Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Hi Jason. Are you busy tonight?
11
BETH ANN
I might be a girly girl, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be forward when I wanted to be. The very idea of asking a boy out was weird. Boys always asked me out, and I usually said no. That was how this worked. But Jason was entirely unlike all those accounting students that had tried to chat me up in class or when I got my job in the office. None of them looked anything like Jason, for one. And for another, none of them had that swagger, that grin.
Asking a man out was extremely foreign to me, but since he technically asked me out first, I tried to convince myself I was responding to him asking me out.
Still, I was on pins and needles wondering what he was going to say. I probably shouldn’t just sit there on the couch that was slowly becoming the sanctuary in the midst of the insanity that I was beginning to refer to as The Trailer of Perpetual Stuff. Being useful would be better. I could always go through a box and play another round of a game I called “What The Hell Is This?”
The thing was, I wasn’t doing too poorly. The main living spaces were clean and mostly empty of clutter. I just had the second bedroom—at least, I assumed it was a bedroom—a guest bathroom, and the main bedroom left. The laundry room had been finished up so I could use it, and the kitchen and living room were almost like my place at home. The dining room still had a few boxes in it, but I had cleared off the table and could at least eat there now.
I stood with the intention of bringing another box from the dining room into the living room and going through it on the couch when my phone alerted me to a notification. I picked it up and saw it was Jason.
A weird sensation went through me that I hadn’t felt since I was fourteen. The excitement of a new boy texting me, of me liking him and hoping that whatever was in the message, was something that led to another and then another. I simply hadn’t had time for dating in so long that I forgot what it felt like to have that early dating thrill when they sent me a text.
I am free and clear tonight. Do you want to go out?
Before I could even think of a response, my fingers were flying. Before I just sent the word “yes” and a million heart emojis, I stopped myself and thought about it. I wanted to play this as well as I could. Most of my really cute clothes were still packed away, so going somewhere a bit more casual was ideal. Something where we could relax a bit and chat and maybe eat something greasy.
Yes! I responded, deciding either it was emojis or exclamation points. But somewhere low-key.
Part of me was worried about what he would pick. He seemed like he was into me in a way that he might want to pick up the tab, but if he wanted to go Dutch, I also needed to make sure where we went was cheaper. I’d already spent most of my takeout budget, and I was still trying to figure out how to cook anything here if it didn’t rely on the range.
There was a short pause, enough that I thought about putting the phone down and going back to my boxes, when it alerted me again.
No problem, he typed. My cousin suggested a great bar-type place. Pretty much the only one in town, so real chill. Pick you up at seven?
I was so glad this conversation was being done over text and not a video call. I was smiling like a lunatic.
Seven sounds great, I typed.
Great, see you then, he typed almost at the same time.
Oh, thank God. The last thing I wanted to do was drive into town. Not only did I not know where I was going, but I was still a little iffy on my car being able to make it at all.
See you then, I sent and then tossed the phone on the couch and lay back on the cushions.
I had a date.
Not only did I have a date, I had a date with one of the single hottest men I had ever seen, who also was such a gentleman that he rescued me at a gas station, followed me home, and made sure I was safe before he left. My luck might have been kind of shit for a while, but for once, I was hitting jackpots, and I wasn’t going to question the universe. I figured it owed me a little.
I found myself extremely excited and had a hard time focusing on work. I had a bunch of stuff I could do online but struggled to actually make myself do it. It was the weekend, after all. Anything that I had in my online boards could be done tomorrow. But I felt like distracting myself and doing something productive for the job I had sweet-talked into letting me do remotely was for the best.