9 The Date: Part Two

We hang there for a while, talking about last night and how he, Shawn, and Ian decided to hang out at his house a little more after he dropped me off and how Shawn, after a few beers, had the brightest idea to jump fully clothed in the pool without waiting for James to explain that it had cleaning chemicals in it. This caused Shawn's skin to become all itchy and apparently, at that point they were all too drunk to acknowledge what happened and stop laughing.

He leans over and gets the picnic basket next to us, once he opens it, I see that it had in it everything that we might need, and that makes a nice dinner in this boat. There was a bottle of white wine with two glasses, a box of mini pizzas, two small sandwiches, two jars of salad, and two other little jars of cheesecake along with utensils. It all seemed homemade and I can't think of any restaurant in town that would pack its food this way.

"Did you make all of this yourself?" I ask him still amazed and just noticing that I'm starving.

"Do you like it?"

"Of course!" All I can think about, right now, was how satisfying the packaging is and how delicious this food looks.

"Well, then a magician never tells his secrets." He smiles victoriously which makes me giggle.

He pops the bottle of wine and serves me a glass.

The food is amazing, even though it got a little cold but it's still totally enjoyable and I can bet that the cheesecakes are from Luciana's.

James put some music on from his phone and the boat was barely moving, and after filling my stomach and drinking around four glasses of wine, I am now a little tipsy which makes me enjoy this date a little more if that's even possible.

It started getting a little dark so I decided to get out my phone and light up the torch but James puts his hand on mine stopping me from positioning my phone so that it lightens up our surrounding.

"I actually thought about that too." He leans over and gets the huge bag that I forgot about until now, he gets out two lanterns and lights them up, putting each one at an end of the boat and I smile unconsciously "I also brought you this.," he gets out a chunky long cardigan in what seems to be a beige color "figured that you'll need it."

I wrap it around me gratefully since I already started regretting wearing a skirt like an hour ago.

"Thank you, but we could just snuggle." I move closer to him and wrap my arms around his body and he wraps his right arm around me, placing a soft kiss on my head.

"I think I prefer this." he laughs.

We stay like this for a moment, humming to the music and sipping wine, and then an idea crosses my mind.

"We should take a picture! This is our first date and I just realized that we don't have any pictures together." I turn at him taking my phone out.

"We do actually have a picture together." He smiles at me victoriously.

I look at him questioningly and he takes his arm from around me to take out his phone and I pout unconsciously which he notices apparently because he puts his phone on his left hand and rewraps his arm around me smiling.

He navigates through his gallery and shows me an actual picture of us, it's from last night.

"Shawn sent me this picture this morning." he explains.

We were sitting on the couch, I had my arms wrapped around his and my head resting on his shoulder while his rested on mine. My eyes were closed and he wasn't looking at the camera either. It was a cute picture, we truly seem like a real couple and that makes me smile and I ask him to send it to me. I've been doing lots of unconscious things tonight and it feels nice to just hang out with him without overthinking anything. No Ian, no Michelle, nothing, just us two.

I find myself wondering if I, deep down, wanted this relationship because when I'm with him I forget the reason I'm doing this and it only comes back to me when I see Ian.

"We should still take a picture, to memorate our first date."

"Okay.."

"Let me just set up my phone," I carefully stand up and put the picnic basket to support my phone "can you give me your phone, the lightning is a little dim." he hands me his phone and I open its flashlight then set the two phones so that I get nice lighting and frame, it takes me about two minutes to be satisfied with everything. I finally set up a timer and go back next to James but of course, I trip, on nothing just being my clumsy self. James catches me with a laugh and I thank God that I didn't kick anything down, nor the phones, nor ourselves in the water especially.

The timer goes off before I even take my seat next to him and he offers to set the timer this time so that I don't trip again.

Now he has something to embarrass me with.

In the first picture, we just hold each other, smiling at the camera with my cardigan now wrapped around the both of us.

The second one, he turns to me at the last second and kisses me on the nose.

And the last, he grabs my face with his hands and kisses me on the lips, a kiss that goes beyond the picture and I entangled my fingers in his hair, his mouth travels from my mouth to my neck and I lean back giving him full access to it. His kisses are sweet, gently biting and licking different spots of my neck which makes me moan escape my mouth and I feel his lips smile on my skin.

He leans down closer and the boat suddenly moves which makes him jumps back and we start laughing like crazy, gaining our previous seats.

"I now regret choosing a boat for a first date." he comments still laughing.

He takes both our phone from where it was now facing down, he hands me mine and checks the time with his.

"It's almost 9 p.m. we should probably head back."

I agree with him even though I wish we would stay a little longer in this serenity, but I never trusted the lake at night either.

I stay still in my place, afraid that if I get up, I might fall in the water while James paddles us back to the shore. Once close to land, James jumps down and ties the boat while I gather the lanterns and the picnic basket. I hand them over to him before taking his hand and jumping off the boat.

We arrange everything in the car's trunk and head back to town.

When I spot the first street lights of the town, I get a little disappointed. I thought this date will be longer, we spent around 3 hours together but I enjoyed myself during each second and I want more.

My mind drifted away to a conversation I had with Ethan a couple of days ago. He asked me why I was doing this whole shenanigan.

"Ian will never come to you and tell you that he likes you or whatever you're wishing for, especially not now after you started dating his closest friend in town." He said "Do you even wish that? I think you have no clue what you're actually doing and this will end either really badly or miraculously good."

I fear he's right and I'm dreading the day when I'll have to make an actual mature decision.

I don't even notice when James stops the car at first, I turn to him to thank him for the date but then notice that we're not in front of our house but the cinema.

"Are we going in?" I ask perplexed, it's already past ten and I've always known that they usually project old and boring movies this late.

"Well the night is still young." he smiles getting out of the car.

I wonder what kind of movie would they be projecting at this hour when I see the poster on the wall.

"Funny face! Seriously!" I am a big Audrey Hepburn and Funny Face is one of my favorite "Who told you?"

"I have my sources." he half-smiles taking my hand in his and dragging me inside.

He shows our tickets and we go in, the movie is about to start and there are only a few people scattered around and we decide to take one of the couple seats in the back.

"I've always wanted to do this." I say before grabbing his face and kissing him passionately, who didn't hear that the cinema was for making out! You get movies and books telling you how couples would go watch a movie to end up making out during the whole thing. And I've never been on a movie date.

"I thought you liked this movie!" he whispers between two kisses, the movie already playing on the screen.

"Maybe I just like you more."

He chuckles pulling me closer to him, and I find myself almost sitting on his lap.

We spent the movie kissing, laughing, and singing along for my part. By the time the credits play, James's hair is a mess and a couple of my cardigan's buttons are opened.

"We're a total mess!" I laugh fixing my attire, we look like two horny teenagers.

"All I can say is that this was a better plan than the boat." he smiles placing a final chaste kiss on my lips.