Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Getting out of the clothes I’d worked in and into a shower was first on the priority list, and as I finally got home, I went right into the bathroom to start the shower. I pulled out my phone and checked my text messages, noting that the last one still was the one I sent to Sofia this morning, giving her my number.
The truth was, I had been thinking about her all day. From the second I walked out of the bar until right that moment, she had not been far from my mind. I wanted to talk to her, to feel that energy I felt when we were in the same space together. It was intoxicating.
Just before hopping in the shower, I decided to shoot off another text and take a risk. It was worth it if I got the right response.
Are you busy tomorrow? I texted.
I pulled the curtain closed on the shower and had a hair full of shampoo and my hands covered in it when I heard my phone bling with a new notification. Quickly, I rinsed off my hands, reaching out for the hand towel that hung just outside the shower, and wiped them off as best I could before picking the phone back up.
No, she had responded.
Would you like to have dinner together? Talk about chili secrets?
It was silly, but it was the right kind of silly, I thought. Something lighthearted that could get us together under a pretense that wouldn’t have as much pressure as me just asking her out. I thought maybe I was being a bit of a coward about it, but she sent back a laughing emoji and a response that made me feel like my instincts were still on point.
I won’t give anything away, but I would love to do dinner.
Seven sound good? I said, shampoo dripping down my back and into my eyebrows. I tried to brush them away with my hand, but it only made it worse. Groaning, I put the phone down and rinsed my hair.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I said as the burning sensation of the shampoo made me close one eye and barely open the other.
Seven sounds great, she’d responded, following that with her address.
I put the phone down, feeling elated, and went back to running my face under the water until I felt like I was no longer Spring Misting my eyeballs.
Getting out of the shower, I wrapped a towel around me and went into the bedroom, opting to only get sweatpants and a T-shirt. There was no one to impress, and I planned on enjoying my evening with a slight celebration since she’d agreed to go out with me.
Going to the fridge, I pulled out all the ingredients for pork and pineapple tacos and started going to work making a half dozen of them. Strictly speaking, I probably should stop at three, maybe four, but this was a celebration. And I was carb loading. At least that’s what I was going to tell myself as the sixth tortilla went down my gullet.
A couple of hours later, I was bushed and headed to the bedroom. I checked the messages again, making sure she hadn’t texted back to call it all off like it was some bad April Fool’s joke. When I saw she hadn’t, I put the phone on the charger, crawled into bed, and hit the light. But as soon as my head hit the pillow, my eyes opened, and I started trying to think of what I could do.
I had been so wrapped up in getting the date that I hadn’t thought about what we would do on it.
Eventually, I fell asleep, but it took a long while and more than one moment where I sat up in the bed, unable to sleep, and went through various ideas in my head as to what to do on our date. I had nothing. I was just going to show up at her place, ask her what she’d like to eat, and freaking wing it. I had no other plans that sounded decent.
As I drifted off into a stressful and not terribly revitalizing sleep, I worried I was going to screw this up before it even got started.
As the day wound down, I cut out early. Technically, I was on call, not on duty, but I wanted to lead by example and came in anyway. In uniform.
But by four in the afternoon, my on-call shift was ending soon, and I wanted to get home to get ready. I checked with the chief and headed out for the day, going right home to change and prepare myself.
Tony texted while I was deciding between jeans and khakis and went on about his recipe ideas, regardless of how often I told him that as his competitor, he shouldn’t be giving me secrets, and at six thirty, I got off the phone and into my car to head over to Sofia’s place.