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“You should at least give her a heads-up,” Ivy said, waving her hands in the air for the polish to dry. “It’d be rude to stand her up. Shoot her a quick text.”
“I still don’t have her number!” I was still tempted to do a no-show. If not for the fact that I would run into her at work, I might’ve done that.
Deanne took hold of my hand. “Stay still, dammit.” She brushed a coat of hot pink over my thumb. “Isn’t this what you wanted? You’re really into this girl.”
“I’m not!” At least, not while I was sober. “At the most, at theverymost, I’d want to try having sex. Tara isn’t that kind of girl. She told me she doesn’t sleep around.”
I left out the most concerning part about her having high standards. What if I didn’t meet them?
The others traded a look. “That’s true, but she knows the score,” Lora said, going over her turquoise toes with a clear top coat. “If she wasn’t into hooking up, she wouldn’t have said yes to the date.”
That was true. There was no way she could’ve taken me drunkenly asking her out as something serious.
“I don’t know how to do this.” My hand jerked as I spoke, and Deanne got polish all over my skin. “How do I go on a date with a girl?”
Deanne got up to find the nail polish remover, then swiped some across my hand. “Shouldn’t it be easier than dating guys? Just think about what you’d like, then do that.”
“But it’s different.” I brought my hand to my mouth as if to bite my nail, then stopped myself in the nick of time. “If Tara is supposed to be the guy, shouldn’t she be the one taking me out?”
“Then just treat her like a guy,” Lora said.
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Ivy looked skeptical. “She’s still a girl, even if she’s in boy clothes.”
That reminded me of the similar comment Tara had made last night, and I shivered at the thought of what was under her clothes. “Besides, she doesn’t have a car, and I already said I was going to take her out.” I wasn’t sure how my mind had offered up that suggestion.
“So just treat it like you’re hanging out,” Deanne said. “You did it before.” She cleaned up the last bit of misplaced polish, then started in on another coat.
“That’s true,” I said. “But what if we end up just feeling like regular friends?”
“Then you made a new friend,” Lora said.
I pouted. I had enough friends already. I wanted more than that from Tara.
Once we finished our nails, I headed home quickly. Then, with my heart in my throat, I drove over to Tara’s. I remembered her low-rise apartment building from the time I’d dropped her off. The grass didn’t look particularly well kept-up under the layer of gray snow, and some of the bricks on the outside were crumbling.
There was nobody outside. How was I even supposed to find Tara without her phone number? I sat back with a sigh. At least there was no way she could miss me in this massive truck.
I waited… and waited… and waited a little more. It was ten past six when I checked my watch. I had just started to drive away when I spotted a figure on the sidewalk in the distance. It was Tara, struggling along with about six bags of groceries.
I hit the gas and made a U-turn, then drove alongside her, lowering the window. “Hop in.”
“You’re here.” She stared at me, standing still as if in shock.
I pointed to the passenger seat. “It’s freezing, and those look heavy. Hop in.”
“I… okay.” She climbed in, although she struggled with the height of the truck. “I didn’t expect you to show up.”
My heart was racing. “Why not?”
“Other than the obvious?” She jostled her shopping bags over her legs until they fit, then swung the door shut. “You were drunk. I didn’t think you’d even remember.”
“I don’t black out every time I have a few drinks,” I said as I drove the few hundred feet to her place.
“I guess last night was normal for you.”
“In the sense of how much I had to drink, yes.”
I stopped in front of her building, then hesitated. If she hadn’t been expecting me, maybe she wasn’t interested in going on a date. That gave me an out. After all the worrying and stressing I’d done, I could say goodbye now. It might still be awkward, but it’d be even more awkward to keep pushing this.
