What's My Age Again?

My date with Alex was today in thirty minutes and my mom apparently had a date tonight too. She told me yesterday, but I thought she meant a lunch date not an actual dinner date. Plus she was making me meet this guy tonight. As if I wasn't already stressed about my date with Alex. My mom was leaving at seven-thirty and I was leaving at seven. I got so lucky with the time differences. I told her that Kellin was picking me up so we could go see a movie and she believed me. Hopefully she wouldn't look outside and see that I wouldn't be getting in Kellin's car.

I was sitting in my mom’s bathroom with her watching her get ready. She still had a lot to do like her hair and makeup, but she had an hour. I was happy I didn't have to do all that. The thing that took me the longest was my hair, but it looked perfect so I didn't mind. The doorbell rang as I sprayed some of my mom’s hair spray in my hair and she was curling hers. My stomach fell and I began to sweat. It had to be Alex. Oh god my mom's going to murder me and Alex and use Alex's body to dig my grave

"I wonder who that is. Can you go answer it?" She asked as she continued doing her hair.

"It might be Kellin, but I'll go check." I quickly got up and went to the door. I was just going to have to leave quickly with him and tell him that my mom wasn't feeling well enough to meet him.

I opened the door with a huge smile that fell when I saw an older man standing there.

"Hello, you must be Jack." He said.

"Um yes?" I said confused.

"I'm Avery. I'm taking your mom out for dinner tonight." He told me.

"Oh yeah come in." I took a deep breath and stepped to the side to let him in. "I'll go tell her that you're here." I went to my mom’s room and found her finishing up her hair. She was nowhere near being ready, I don't know why this guy showed up so early.

"Mom that Avery guy is here." I told her and she smiled.

"He's early, but how did he look? Did you like him?" She asked and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah mom he looks good." I said. He looked like an average rich Doctor. I was pretty sure he was half white and half black.

"Well go talk and keep him company while I finish up."

"I don't want to talk to him! That's awkward." I complained.

"No it's not. Just go ask him questions and make small talk."

"Mom I don't want to." I whined.

"I gave you life and you can't do this one little thing for me?" She joked.

"You can't keep using that excuse!" I said and she chuckled. I got up and went back to the living room where Avery was sitting. He looked like he was in his late forties. He smiled at me waiting patiently for me to talk. He was actually very attractive, I hoped he wasn't using his charm to just to use my mother.

"She'll be down in a few." I told him and he nodded.

"We're not in a hurry our reservations aren't until eight." He said. I looked down at my phone and counted down the minutes I had to talk to him. Alex would be here to get me in eleven minutes.

"So um where are you guys going?" I asked.

"This Italian restaurant downtown. They just finished building it like two months ago." He said.

"Oh my mom loves Italian food." I commented.

We were both silent because that conversation was pretty much done for. I didn't know what else to say to this man. He was like five times my age so we didn't really have anything in common. I turned on the TV to block the silence.

I only had four more minutes to wait on Alex when Avery began talking to me again. "So are you doing anything fun tonight?" He asked.

"Um no not really. I'm going to see a movie with my friend?" I lied.

"A friend or a date?" He asked and laughed.

"A friend." I said seriously and he stopped laughing.

"Um oh well that sounds like fun." He said and I hummed.

My phone buzzed from Alex saying that he thinks he's outside my house. I texted him saying that I would come outside to check.

"I have to go now, it was nice meeting you, Avery.” I said and he told me bye. Then I went to my mom’s room to tell her that I was leaving.

"Bye mom." I told her.

"Bye! Have fun with Kellin!"

"I will." I said. Kellin was going to go out with Vic at the same time I was leaving with Alex do our parents would believe we were together.

When I walked outside Alex was parked in my drive way. He got out of his car and came over to hug me. He kissed me on the cheek as we pulled apart.

"You look amazing!" He exclaimed.

"So do you!" I said back. I tried to walk to the car so we could leave before my mom saw us, but he grabbed my hand stopping me.

"Shouldn't I go say hello to your mom or something to be nice?" He asked.

"Um you should, but she's getting ready for a date so I don't want to disturb her. You can just meet her later." I said and pulled him towards his car. He chuckled at my eagerness and opened the door for me.

"Thanks." I told him and he nodded and got in on the driver’s side. His car was pretty impressive. It was an Audi but I don't know what kind. I just knew it had two doors and looked like a sports car. It also drove smoothly as he pulled out of my neighborhood.

"So can I know where we're going now?" I asked and he smiled.

"Hmm nah I like making you wait." He joked and I lightly hit his arm.

"Jerk."

"It's a new restaurant so you probably wouldn't even know it if I told you." He said.

"I bet I would know it."

"Palomino?"

"...okay I've never heard of it." I giggled.

"Exactly!"

I liked that we could actually joke around with each other like this. That was really important to me, being with someone who didn't take things so serious. It actually helped me relax around him.

He pulled into the restaurant and I noticed that the restaurant was in the downtown area. I guess I didn't pay attention while he was driving. I reached out for the handle but Alex stopped me before I could touch it.

"No I'll come get it for you." He said and got out. I sat smiling to myself as he came to my side and opened the door for me.

"Thanks again." I said as he helped me out of the car. We walked side by side to the building. He held the door for me as we walked into the restaurant. He was literally a gentleman.

"Hi welcome to Palomino!" A guy greeted us.

"Hi we have reservation for two under Gaskarth." Alex told him and he nodded.

"I have you right here Mr. Gaskarth. You two can follow me."

He sat us at a table that was off to the side. There were two wine glasses on the table which made me panic. I knew Alex was going to try to order wine for us.

"Can I get you two anything to drink?" The waiter asked.

"Um yeah can we have a wine menu?" Alex asked. The waiter nodded and grabbed a menu off of another table. He excused himself to give us extra time to think.

"White or red?" Alex asked me.

"I um I think I'm just going to get water. I want to give my liver a rest for tonight." I said nervously and he laughed.

"Yeah I should probably be doing the same, but I'm not as strong as you." He joked and I exhaled in relief. I picked up a food menu and began to browse. It was Italian restaurant so almost all of the dishes has some sort of pasta in it.

"Have you ever eaten here before?" I asked.

"No this place is really new, but some of my friends tried it and said it is really good." He said. I don't know why hearing that this restaurant was new made me feel nervous. I pushed the feeling to the back of my mind and continued to look. The chicken alfredo was the only thing really catching my eye.

"Do you see anything you want?" Alex asked.

"Um I think I'm going to get chicken alfredo." I said and he nodded.

"That sounds good. I can't choose between lasagna or eggplant spaghetti." He said.

"Ew eggplant? Get lasagna like a normal person." I joked and he laughed.

"You sound like a picky eater. I'm going to have to break you out of that habit."

"I'm not a picky eater. I just don't eat things that look gross." I said and rolled his eyes.

"Alright! Are you two ready to order?" Our waiter asked as he came back to our table.

"Yeah we're ready. He's going to have the chicken alfredo and I'll have the eggplant spaghetti." Alex ordered for both of us.

"And to drink?"

"A water and a glass of your Pinot Noir please."

"Of course sir! I'll be right back with your drinks." He told us and walked away. The waiter didn't check his ID so I probably could have gotten away with drinking with Alex.

"Have you ever tried any Pinot Noir? It's really good!" Alex said.

"No I've never tried it, but I think I've seen some people talk about it on Twitter." I told him.

"Wait do you follow me on Twitter?"

"Yeah why?" I said.

"I can't see when regular followers follow me so I'll have to go find you and follow you back. I just didn't want to seem rude." He worried.

"Alex you have like a million followers. I didn't expect you to notice me out of all of those people." I giggled.

"Well now I know to go look for you." He smiled at me.

"Hopefully your fans don't notice. They seem a little intimidating." I said and he chuckled.

"You'll be fine. We have the best fans in the world, they won't bother you too much." He assured me and that sparked an idea in my head. What if Alex mentioned that we were dating and his fans looked me up and saw my real age.

"Yeah hopefully..." I whispered.

"They never really bothered my exes. Just stocked them a little, but nothing too serious." Maybe it wasn't serious for his exes but for me it was serious. I just nodded in response so I wouldn't give away how much that bothered me.

Our waiter came and sat out drinks down and left us again.

"Have you only dated guys or have you dated girls too?" I asked since we were on the topic of exes.

"I've dated both, but more girls than guys. I think dating guys is easier though." He laughed. "What about you?"

"Oh I've never dated anyone." I said honestly and he raised an eyebrow at me.

"You've never dated anyone?" He clarified.

"Yeah I've um never met anyone I was interested in dating until I met you." I hoped that didn't sound weird or anything.

"Wow that makes me feel really special. I'm going to try really hard not to fuck this up." He gestured between us.

"Don't worry, everything thing is perfect." I told him. He was about to open his mouth and speak, but his eyes looked behind me a something else.

"Hey that's Dr. Adams." He said. He realized that I wouldn't know who that was and added. "He's been my doctor since I was like sixteen."

I turned to look and see and nearly passed out. It was Avery and my mother walking to the hostess. I quickly turned around before they could see my face. If they were seated anywhere near us I was going to take my knife and stab myself before my mom could do it. Well she would talk to Alex first, find out that he was seven years older than me, and then stab me.

"I want to say hi, but it looks like he's on a date so I won't interrupt him." He said. "Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost."

"Yeah I'm fine. Just hungry." I lied. I was screaming in my mind. I wanted to look again to see where they were being seated, but I didn't want to risk being seen.

"They're bringing our food now." He said and I sighed. I actually lost my appetite, but I was going to force this food down.

Our waiter sat both of our plates down and left us to enjoy. I think my mom and Avery were sitting in another section because my mom would have spotted me by now.

"This looks good!" Alex exclaimed as he grabbed his fork.

"Mine looks good. Yours has eggplant so it doesn't." I said and he rolled his eyes.

"Here try it." He put some on his fork and held it out to me.

"Noooo." I whined.

"I promise it's so good. It doesn't taste like eggplant. It doesn't even look like eggplant." He was right. It was fried so it looked more like chicken.

"If I die from this I'm going to come back as a ghost and haunt you." I complained.

"You're so dramatic." He chuckled.

I opened my mouth and let him push the fork into it. I reluctantly pulled it into my mouth and chewed. It wasn't bad at all. I had no idea what eggplant tasted like, but this tasted more like chicken. It just had a different texture to it.

"It's good." I said and he gave me an I-told-you-so look.

"I'm going to make you try new things more often." He said.

"Please don't. We got lucky with this one."

***

Alex and I successfully made it through dinner without my mom or Avery seeing us. Now all we had to do was walk out without being noticed. Alex placed a tip on the table for our waiter and we stood up. I looked around the restaurant and saw my mom and Avery. They were still eating and talking so we had time to make it to my house before they could catch up. I looked away and quickly followed behind Alex to the door.

We walked outside to his car and he opened the door for me again. I thanked him and he got in on his side and began taking me home. I was grateful we got through our first date without any complications. Things could have gone really bad really quick.

He pulled into my driveway and turned off the engine. "I'm going to make sure you get safely to your front door." He smiled at me.

"Okay." I said. I got out and he held my hand as he walked me to my front door." Thank you again for dinner. I really enjoyed spending time with you." I told him when we made it to the door.

"You're welcome. Thanks for agreeing to come. I would really like to take you on a second date." He said nervously, as if I would really tell him no.

"I would like that too."

He let go of my hand and put his hands on my waist so he could pull me closer to him. Then he leaned down to attach our lips. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed back. This was the perfect way to end our date. We kissed for a minute or two and then he pulled away.

"I should let you get in. It's freezing out here." He chuckled. It was really cold, but I didn't notice while I was with him.

"Yeah it is.” I chuckled.

"I'll text you before you go to bed tonight."

"Okay. Goodnight Alex."

"Night Jack."

We hugged and he gave me one final peck on the lips.

Notes

Their first date!