Flipping through his pictures, Caroline swooned. “He’s a cutie!”
Annie nodded in agreement. “Wonder where he has been hiding all this time. I feel like between you, Sawyer, and Caroline, there are no men left.”
“You found Waylon, didn’t you?” I teased, putting my phone on the coffee table.
Strawberry coated Annabelle’s face as she bit her lip. “He’s a good one, isn’t he?”
“And you snagged him right when he got into town. That’s impressive,” Caroline commented before chugging at least half of her beverage.
“What are your plans tonight?” I asked Annabelle, waving for them to follow me into my bathroom to start the getting-ready process.
“Waylon is taking me to Rocks on the Roof tonight. I’m kind of nervous.”
I cocked my head to the side, looking at her through the bathroom mirror as Caroline called in to us from my bed where she had sprawled out with her papers and red pen. “Why? It’s not like this is your first date.”
“It’s our firstrealdate though.” She sighed while plugging in my hair straightener.
“You know he is crazy about you. Just wear the little green dress that’s in my closet and you’ll be fine.” I smiled at her as her face lit up.
“You mean it? You never let me borrow your clothes!” Annie was practically doing cartwheels.
“That’s because you ruined my three-hundred-dollar black dress during prefs junior year,” I reminded her.
“That was ages ago,” she whined.
“And she’ll never let you forget it,” Caroline yelled. “She’ll never let any one of us forget that.”
I threw my hands in the air. “I’m letting her wear the green dress, aren’t I?”
“And I love you for it,” Annabelle squealed as she wrapped her arms around my waist, squeezing me tightly.
“Where is Harvey taking you?” Caroline asked.
“Noble Fare,” I responded.
Both of them oohed as I ran my hand over my face.
“It’s too fancy for a first date, isn’t it?” I hated fancy first dates. They always made me so uncomfortable.
“Not at all,” Annabelle said reassuringly.
“Nope. I think you deserve it,” Caroline agreed before throwing a piece of paper in the air dramatically.
“You all right over there?” I turned around to check on her.
“If I have to see clover spelled wrong one more time on these papers, my head is going to explode.” She aggressively marked on the page in front of her.
“They’re first graders—be happy they can spell their own name.” Annabelle snickered.
“This is very true.” Caroline ran in and filled up our glasses of wine.
Annie ran the straightener through her long locks as I put on my mascara. It was comforting to have them with me. First date jitters were starting to bubble up quickly.
“Am I crazy for going on yet another first date?” I spit out.
“How will you find your perfect match if you don’t put yourself out there?” Annie asked. “You guys always complained that I wasn’t trying. You need to take your own advice.”
“I guess you’re right. It just seems so doomed at this point,” I admitted. I had kissed a lot of frogs, and none of them had turned into a damn prince. I couldn’t even remember the last second date I had been on. There were just droves and droves of awful firsts in my rearview mirror.