Chapter 3: THE DINNER

Friday came faster than I wanted it to. All week, I’d been watching the days move like someone else was turning the pages, and suddenly it was Friday morning and my stomach felt tight for no reason I could explain. School dragged in that slow, sticky way it does when you’re waiting for something you aren’t sure you want. Every clock I passed seemed to jump ten minutes ahead, like time had already decided for me.

Liv didn’t bring up Daniel at lunch. She just sat across from me, unwrapping her sandwich, and watched me push my fries into a pile I had no intention of eating. She didn’t have to say anything. Liv had known me since fourth grade, since I shared my pudding cup with her when she forgot her lunch, and she could read me better than I could read myself most days. But she didn’t ask, and I didn’t offer. Saying his name out loud would make the whole thing real, and I wasn’t ready for real yet.

“Still on for tonight?” she asked finally, when the bell rang and everyone else was already standing, chairs scraping against the floor.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and tried to sound normal. “I guess.”

“You don’t sound sure,” she said, not unkindly. She was never unkind. She was just honest, even when I didn’t want her to be.

“I’m not,” I admitted, and that was the most truthful thing I’d said all day.

After school, I went home and stood in front of my closet until the clothes blurred together. Nothing looked right. Nothing looked like the kind of girl who goes to dinner with Daniel Reed, who wore button-downs on casual Friday and had a 4.0 that teachers quoted like scripture. I pulled out my jeans and put them back. I held up a dress I’d worn to my cousin’s wedding, then shoved it back on the hanger because it felt like I was trying too hard. Mom wasn’t home yet. Aaron was in the garage, the steady sound of metal on metal coming through the walls. The house felt too quiet, and my room felt too small.

In the end, I went with black pants and the gray sweater I’d had since freshman year. It was soft from too many washes, and the cuffs were a little stretched out. It wasn’t impressive. It was safe. I didn’t know if I was dressing for Daniel or dressing for me, but at least I could breathe in it.

At 5:55, I heard a car door shut outside. My stomach dropped, even though I’d been watching the clock all afternoon. When I looked out my window, Daniel’s car was already in our driveway. It wasn’t a teenager’s car. It was the kind of car parents drove to business meetings, clean and dark and expensive in a way that didn’t try to show off. He stepped out, buttoned his wool coat with one hand, and walked up the driveway like he’d done this a hundred times before, like my front porch was already familiar to him.

“Door,” Aaron called from the garage. He didn’t look up from whatever he was working on.

“I know,” I said, louder than I needed to.

I opened it before Daniel could knock. The air outside was cold, and I regretted not grabbing my jacket sooner.

He smiled when he saw me. It was the same smile from the library, straight and white and practiced, the kind of smile that looked good in yearbook photos. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said, reaching for my jacket on the hook behind the door. My fingers felt clumsy.

“You ready?” he asked. He wasn’t impatient. He was just ready, like he always was.

“Yeah,” I said, because there wasn’t a better answer.

He stepped aside so I could lock the door, then walked me to the passenger side of his car and opened the door for me. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t need to. He just stood there, one hand on the top of the door, and waited until I was seated before closing it gently. The inside smelled new. Not new like Liv’s truck, which always smelled like grass and dirt and old fries. New like leather and something faintly citrus from a vent clip. There were no wrappers on the floor, no empty water bottles, no textbooks sliding around. It was clean in a way that made me sit up straighter.

Daniel got in, checked his mirrors, and backed out of the driveway without turning the radio on. He drove with both hands on the wheel, exactly at the speed limit, and I didn’t know what to do with the quiet.

“Where are we going?” I asked once we hit the main road, just to fill the space.

There’s a place downtown,” he said, glancing at me before his eyes went back to the road. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Okay,” I said. My hands were in my lap, and I had to stop myself from picking at the edge of my sweater.

He asked about my day. I told him it was fine. He told me about debate prep and a tournament next month. I nodded in the right places. It wasn’t awkward, not exactly. It was just quiet in a way that felt deliberate, like he’d planned the silence as carefully as he’d planned the restaurant.

The restaurant was the kind of place I’d only seen from the outside. Cloth napkins, low lighting, menus without prices. Daniel gave the hostess his name, and she led us to a booth near the window without checking a list. He pulled out my chair. I sat down, trying not to look as out of place as I felt. He sat across from me, folded his hands on the table, and studied the menu like it was an assignment he intended to ace.

“Order whatever you want,” he said, not looking up.

“Thanks,” I said, and scanned the menu for the cheapest pasta I could find without making it obvious that was what I was doing.

He ordered steak, medium, with a side of asparagus. I ordered fettuccine. When the waiter left, Daniel leaned forward a little, resting his forearms on the table. “My mom says you’re smart.”

That caught me off guard. “Oh. I don’t know her.”

“She knows your mom,” he said easily. “PTA.”

“Right,” I said, remembering the newsletters Mom sometimes left on the counter. “That makes sense.”

He asked about my classes, and when I told him I was taking AP Chem, he nodded like he was actually impressed. He talked about college apps, about his dad’s firm and how he was thinking about pre-law. He asked questions and waited for the answers. He didn’t check his phone once. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t do anything that wasn’t polite, respectful, and interested. He checked every box on the list I didn’t realize I’d been keeping, and the fact that I was keeping a list at all made my chest feel tight.

“Do you like it here?” he asked after our food came. The pasta was good, but I could barely taste it.

The food’s good,” I said, cutting a noodle in half.

“I meant with me,” he said, and his tone didn’t change. It wasn’t a challenge. It was just a question.

I didn’t look up right away. His hand was on the table, not touching mine, but close enough that I could see his knuckles were clean. No grease under the nails like Aaron always had. No ink stains on his fingers like I got from doing math homework. Just clean, unmarked skin.

“It’s nice,” I said finally, because it was. It was nice. It was also a lot of other things I didn’t have words for yet.

“Good,” he said. “I want it to be.”

He smiled again, and I smiled back because that was what you were supposed to do when someone smiled at you. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

When the check came, he reached for it before I could even glance at the total. He set down a card that probably had his father’s name on it, signed the slip when it came back, and thanked the waiter by name. On the way out, he held the door open. Outside, the air had gotten colder, and he opened the passenger door for me again before walking around to his side.

On the drive home, he was quiet for a few minutes. Then he said, “My mom wants to meet you.”

“Oh,” I said, and my hands went cold even though the heat was on.

“Sunday lunch,” he added. “Nothing formal. She just wants to put a face to the name.”

I should have said I’d think about it. I should have said I’d check with my mom. Instead, I heard myself say, “Okay,” before I could think through what that meant, before I could ask myself if I wanted it.

He didn’t respond to that. He just nodded once, like it was settled.

When we got to my house, he parked and turned the car off. He didn’t try to hold my hand when he walked me to the door. He didn’t lean in, didn’t try to hug me, didn’t do anything that would make me have to decide whether to step back. He just stopped on the porch, put his hands in his coat pockets, and said, “I had a good time.”

Me too,” I said. It came out quieter than I meant it to.

“I’ll text you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Okay,” I said.

He waited until I was inside and the door was closed before he went back to his car. I watched through the side window as he pulled out of the driveway, his taillights disappearing down the street. No extra rev of the engine. No music blaring. Just gone, clean and quiet.

The house was silent, Aaron’s bedroom light was off and Mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet. I hung up my jacket, took off my shoes, and went upstairs without turning on any lights.

Daniel was polite, he was respectful, he opened doors and asked questions and didn’t check his phone at dinner. He told his mom about me and he wanted me to meet her. He checked every box.

And I didn’t know why that didn’t feel like enough.