“But you did curl your hair.” Mattie looked at me like I had completely lost it.
“Yes, but I don’t wanthimto know that. I want it to look effortless. Like bouncy waves I rolled out of bed with.”
“As if the beauty standard for women isn’t already high enough, now we have to pretend like we didn’t even try while also achieving perfection?”
“Let me live,” I cried, finally flattening the piece successfully with the lukewarm flat iron. Mattie was right. This was out of sorts for me. I didn’t date often, but on the few occasions I had, I’d never been this much of an anxious mess.
The fact that Oliver and I had already established that we liked each other and shared more than a few kisses did little to quell my nerves. In fact, the reality that we’d already kissed left me even more nervous, becausewhatwas next? While everything in my body told me that I absolutely wanted this evening to progress beyond a quick peck, it didn’t mean I wasn’t any less in my head about it.
Oliver was like…incredibly attractive. And he was so extreme and outdoorsy and adventurous. And he was always so calm and collected and never seemed to have a care in the world. Why did he even want to hang out with me? I was an uptight mess of a human. Especially right now. At least when I had a thriving career, I could blame my bad personality on that. Now what did I have? I lived in my sister’s basement and could barely get a second interview.
Mattie must have sensed the nerves radiating off me, because she finally sighed and stood up before grabbing the tops of both my arms. We were almost the exact same height, so she stood behind me and angled her body so that her face would be next to mine in the mirror. “Chill, Frankie. You’ve already hung out with Oliver. This will just be like that except better.”
“No, this will be just like that but with the added pressure of the ‘date’ label being tossed onto it. What if it’s, like, thirty minutes away and we’re trapped in the car together and we can’t think of anything to talk about? What if I’m not dressed right?” I pulled at my navy sweater to examine it. I’d paired it with light-wash jeans, hoping the look was cute and casual enough to be appropriate for anything.
Mattie rolled her eyes and squeezed my arms harder before shaking me lightly. “First off, I don’t think ‘trapped’ is the correct verb to describe your date with a cute boy. And second, you two will fill the silence. Don’t worry about it. Oliver is the least awkward person I’ve ever met. He’s probably never met a silence he couldn’t fill.”
“Maybe I’ll finally be his match.”
“You’re being ridiculous. You’ve spent like twenty hours this week talking to random interviewers via video chats. How can you handle all that but are falling to pieces at the thought of spending a couple of hours alone with Oliver?”
“Because Oliver is different!” I cried, pushing past her out of the bathroom and looking at my outfit in the full-length mirror for the hundredth time.
“You look amazing and tonight is going to be great,” Mattie reassured me. “Stop stressing or you’ll psych yourself out.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Six fifteen,” Mattie said.
“He’s late,” I groaned. “I can’t stand it when guys are late.”
“He got here fifteen minutes ago,” Mattie said.
“What?” I could feel myself pale at her words. “What do you mean?” I hissed, creeping to the bottom of the stairs and straining my ears to listen. Sure enough, muffled sounds of two guys talking drifted down into the basement.
“Mattie!” I whisper-shrieked. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
She shrugged. “I figured I’d give you a pep talk.”
“Now he’ll think I take forever to get ready.” I shot her an accusatory glare.
“Youdotake forever to get ready.”
“He can’t know that!”
“Breathe, Frankie. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”
I took a deep inhale through my nose and blew it out slowly through my mouth. Regardless of how badly I was freaking out, I needed to get it together.
“Let’s go,” Mattie said, gesturing for me to lead the way up the stairs.
I took the steps slowly, breathing the whole time in order to get my heart rate under control.
“The conditions were unreal this morning,” I heard Oliver say.
“I can’t believe we got that kind of powder this late in the season. It was incredible,” Giles agreed.
“Hey,” I said, walking through the kitchen and dining room to the living room, where both the guys stood.
