She ran out of the room, and I went back to putting my things together for the day. I hoped I had encouraged her, but I hoped more than that she would get over this crush before too long. I knew with kids it could go either direction. She could be infatuated with him for years, or she could lose interest in him by next week.
But, talking about Trevor just put my own date back on the forefront of my mind. I couldn’t talk about it with the kids. It wasn’t an appropriate topic to be sharing with them here at work, so I would have to spend the day just basking in the joy I felt after the night out with him, and hoping that he would be the one to reach out to me first.
I knew it was old fashioned to think that it was the man’s job to reach out to me, but I was okay if he wanted to be old fashioned. There was just something about the way he treated me that made me feel like I was the most important girl in his life, and since that was a blind date, I gave him major kudos to being able to do that.
I wouldn’t let it go too long. I would be sure to reach out to him if he didn’t text me in the near future. But, every time I checked my phone, I had the faint hope that he would have reached out to me already.
But, I pushed that out of my mind as I got to work grading the homework from the day before. I couldn’t be lost in my own thoughts all day. Not with how many things I had to do. But, I felt a renewed sense of energy as I went through the paperwork, and I knew it had to do with my renewed outlook on life.
My mom already said she expected me to come over after school that day and tell her all about how things had gone with the date, and I promised her I would. She would be someone who would want to sit down and hear how everything had gone, even the things friends would think was boring.
And I was already looking forward to that.
She clearly already liked Trevor or she wouldn’t have set me up with him. Now, knowing that she wanted me to go out with him, I knew a lot of the hard part of dating was out of the way. That is, if we were going to continue in that direction.
I wasn’t sure where we were going long term, but I did know I liked this guy. I liked him a lot.
The way we were with each other felt so natural, I could hardly wait to see him again. There was a big part of me that wished that we had met before. But, I was also telling myself that I had to take this slow. I didn’t want to dive in and get myself wrapped up in something that wound up hurting me in the end.
Every relationship was a gamble, I knew that, but there was something about this one that filled me with a rush as I thought about it. I looked forward to seeing where we would wind up, that was for sure, but I was looking forward to the journey along the way.
The text from Raya reminded me I had someone else to talk to about this.
It would be through text and between lessons, so I would have to say as much as I could in as few texts as possible, but I knew she would have tons of questions after randomly running into us at the dive bar the night before.
And I was eager to tell her.
There were so many thoughts going through my mind, it was difficult to stick with any one in particular.
All I knew was that I was happier than I had ever been, and I was looking forward to waking up in the morning. I was eager to see where this would take me, and it filled me with an excitement I hadn’t had in a long time.
I liked it, that was for sure, and I never wanted it to end.
This could be the start of something magnificent.
And I wanted to see where it was going.
ELEVEN
Trevor
“Sorry, I’ve got plans,”I said. “Raincheck?”
“Since when do you have plans for anything?” Nick asked.
“I’m trying to get to know someone if you haven’t noticed,” I shot back. He gave me another look and shook his head. I knew he wasn’t really offended over the fact that I’d turned him down to hang out after work, but I really wanted to see Harper again.
It was so rare for me to think that way about anyone. I wasn’t really the kind of guy who liked to go out and do anything after work, and the times that I did manage to go out, it was because of Nick prompting me to do something with him.
Today, I had my own ideas of what I wanted to do, and I had a feeling Harper would want to join me. At least, I hoped she did.
I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind since the dinner, and I wasn’t at all shy about wanting to ask her out again. I had said so to Nick more than once, but I hadn’t said anything specifically about it yet today. So, of course, he was surprised.
Though, the grin he gave me told me he easily guessed what I would be doing with myself.
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I would choose a girl over hanging out with me any day.”
“Oh, stop,” I told him. “We spend more time together than I spend with anyone else. You can stop with pouting about me being busy for once.”