Disclaimer: Austin and Ally is over, so in a way it doesn't exist anymore, meaning it's nothing. Nothing is owned by no one and everyone, so in a way, we all own Austin and Ally, right?
…
Okay, just ignore my weird logic; I do not own Austin and Ally.
Ally Dawson checked the time. 8:30. God, there were so many other things she could be doing on her night off. Like reading. Or clipping her toenails. Or mowing some stranger's lawn. Really, anything was better than waiting another hour for a blind date to show up.
Just as she began to seriously consider leaving, a man, a rather handsome one at that, sat down in the chair across from her. "Ally Dawson?" he shot her a smile and held out his hand. She took it and nodded, sending him a slightly timid smile of her own. "Hi, I'm Logan Shaw." Maybe he had a problem with punctuality, but he was definitely making up for it in the looks department.
"D'you wanna order?" he asked her and she nodded, pretending to study the menu, even though she had already decided what she wanted nearly fifty minutes ago.
"Yo, can we get someone to take our order over here?" Logan yelled, waving his hand in the air and Ally internally winced as the whole restaurant looked at them. After five minutes or so a waitress came over and Logan muttered "Took you long enough," just loud enough for both her and the waitress to hear. This time Ally didn't try to hide her cringe. She hated rude people in general, and people who were rude to wait staff in particular, considering she herself worked as a waitress.
"I'd like the chicken casserole," Logan said and then took out his phone.
"And I'd like the filet mignon," Ally said after an awkward beat. Oh, how she wished she had left after the first half hour.
"Will do. Your food will be here in twenty minutes or so," the waitress, Lisa, according to her name tag, told them. "In the meantime, can I offer you anything to drink?"
"We'll take two glasses of Chianti," Logan looked up from his phone for a moment. When he saw the waitress was still there, he made a shooing gesture with his hand, "Well? What are you waiting for?"
Ally wrinkled her nose. She hated red wine, and she knew that the brand Logan ordered for the both of them-without consulting her, might she add-was an especially cheap kind. Maybe if she could text Trish to get her out of here…
Just as she began reaching for her phone, Logan looked up from his. "So, how do you know Dallas?" he asked, referring to the person who set them up. Great. Now he tries to make conversation.
"His girlfriend, Cassidy, and I are coworkers, so I met him through her. What about you?"
"Dallas and I go to the same gym. He heard I was having some lady problems-" I wonder why, Ally thought –sarcastically, needless to say- to herself "-and told me he had a lovely lady to set me up with. And might I say, you don't disappoint," Logan sent her what Ally thought was supposed to be a charming smile, but was rather sleazy instead. After a moment his brow wrinkled. "Wait, doesn't his girlfriend work at a restaurant called Dawson's?" Ally nodded. "So… your last name is Dawson, and you work at a restaurant called Dawson's?"
"Err… yeah. My dad owns the place and I work there so I can learn how to run the restaurant once he retires."
"Wait, so what you're saying is we could have eaten at your dad's restaurant but instead I'm stuck paying for a meal?"
Ally nodded slowly.
"Well, then I believe it's common courtesy if you pay for my food as well as yours, considering you could have just saved us both the trouble of paying for food. People these days, really," Logan nodded to himself as if the problem was solved and then returned to his phone. Ally saw that as her chance to finally text Trish.
TRISH! CALL ME ASAP! She quickly typed in. Sure enough, after a few seconds, her phone began to ring.
"Ally? What's up with all the exclamation points?" Trish asked when she answered.
"Oh no, Trish, your great aunt Bertha just died? Oh, I'm so sorry," Ally told her.
"What? Ally, what are you talking about? I don't even have a great aunt, much less one called Bertha-"
Ally cut her off. "I know, I know, you were very close to her, and I understand you need the moral support, but does it have to be right now? I'm kind of on a date," she sent Logan a faux apologetic look.
"Good! So get on with your date and let me finish waiting tables! Your dad is glaring daggers at me and you know I'm already walking on a thin li-"
"Fine, I'll come over as soon as possible. Try to stay strong 'til I get there," Ally cooed into the phone, trying to sound as if she was comforting her mourning best friend rather than desperately trying to flee an awful date. She quickly hung up the phone before Trish could say anything else.
"Logan, I'm so sorry, but my best friend's great aunt just passed away, and she really needs me there with her right now," she told him, getting up and putting her coat on.
"Wait, what about the food?" Logan called after her as she made her hasty escape.
"I heard it's great. You can even eat my filet mignon!" Ally sent him a cheeky grin and left the restaurant.
As she walked to her car her phone started ringing again.
"Ally Dawson! I swear to god if you hang up on me one more time I will burn down your whole restaurant!" Trish yelled at her before she could even say hello.
"First of all, you wouldn't do that. You need this job. And second of all, I'm sorry. I'll explain everything to you tomorrow, promise."
"Fine," Trish grumbled. "But this better be good," she hung up pointedly.
Ally rolled her eyes and then decided to send Dallas a quick text. You're in SERIOUS trouble. Watch your back.
"So Ally, can you please tell me why my boyfriend is so terrified he refuses to leave our apartment?" Cassidy asked her the next day while they were sitting next to the bar at Dawson's, waiting for customers to arrive. Austin, the barista, snorted at Cassidy's sentence.
"Yeah and why you hung up on me last night," Trish joined the conversation.
"Trish, get over it! I said sorry, like, seventeen times!"
Trish grumbled and shrugged.
"Anyways, Cass, to answer your question, Dallas set me up on a blind date last night," Ally began, gaining Austin, Trish and Cassidy's full attention.
Before she could continue though, the restaurant's youngest chef, Dez, joined them, and assessed the situation. "Ooh, is Ally telling another bad date story? I wanna hear too!"
Ally rolled her eyes. "So Dallas set me up with some guy he knew from the gym. The guy, Logan, was an hour late, which was an awful way to start to a horrible date-"
"But didn't you date some guy who was perpetually late for a month a while ago?" Cassidy asked. "Doesn't seem bad enough to start threatening my boyfriend."
"Or hang up on me."
"Trish! Where was I? Oh, yeah, so after he arrived, Logan was on his phone most of the time, except for when he was reproaching me for not telling him we should eat here so he wouldn't have to pay for his food, or when he was demanding I pay for both our meals as compensation. Plus, he ordered red wine for the both of us, without asking me if I was okay with it first," Ally finished.
"Was it at least good red wine?" Austin asked.
Ally shook her head, and despite the lousy date she had just finished talking about, she couldn't hide a grin. It was just so typical of Austin to ask that. "Nope. He ordered Chianti."
"What?!" Austin seemed horrified. "Wh-who orders Chianti? And on a first date, no less? Cass, if Dawson doesn't kill Dallas, I will."
Cassidy rolled her eyes, but didn't argue. Austin was highly pedantic when it came to drinks, some would even call him obsessive (Trish) or a perfectionist (Dez). But that made him a great barista, so no one could really complain.
"Maybe you should have your dates here from now on. That way we'll be able to monitor the situation, and Austin will be able to make sure no one tries to poison you anymore with cheap red wine," Trish suggested. "And the way to a guy's heart is through his stomach, so someone might come for the food and stay for the Ally."
"That sentence was so weird I'm surprised I understood it," Ally said dryly. "But… that might actually be a good idea."
"Great, so it's settled. And lucky for you, my aunt got remarried a few weeks ago, and my new step cousin, Mike, is absolutely perfect for you. We talked a bit at the wedding and he seems just like your kind of guy, all about how being yourself is important and blah blah blah. Plus, he's hot. I can try to set the two of you up, if you want," Cassidy offered.
Ally considered the offer. On the one hand, after last night's disaster, she wasn't very eager to go on another blind date, but on the other hand, if Mike was as sweet as Cassidy described, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Then again, the last time Cassidy had set her up on a blind date, the guy got drunk twenty minutes in and tried to steal her car. Although, the time before that-
"Dawson," Austin cut off her inner debate, "You're overthinking it. Either you want to go on the date, or you don't. No need to start planning the potential wedding."
"I wasn't planning the wedding!" Ally rolled her eyes at him, and then turned to Cassidy, "Fine I'll go on the date. But you best be a better judge of character than your boyfriend or so help me, Cassidy."
So, in my previous story I said I'd leave it up two a vote on whether to keep this as a one-shot or turn this into a multi-chap. It was tied, so I wanted to keep it as a one-shot, but I realized that it'll take me forever to complete it, what with school and everything, and I felt bad, so I decided to split it up into a multi-chap. Sorry if this causes any inconveniences.
Anyways, welcome to my first multi-chap (yayyy). This'll probably be, like, seven chapters (and maybe an epilogue). The next chapter is also finished, so I might post it next week, depending on whether I'll write something for Valentine's Day or not.
I haven't got a lot of inspiration lately, so if you guys have an idea or prompt you want me to write send me a message or write it in the comments.
By the way, I think this may be the first story I'm posting that I wasn't half asleep while writing (unless it's horrible, in that case I'm sleep writing and will have no recollection of this in the morning, okay? Okay. (Maybe okay will be our always (sorry, my friend is obsessed with The Fault in Our Stars and it's kinda stuck in my head (sorry again, these are a lot of parenthesized side notes)))).
Thank you all for reading, and have a good day.
P.S. The only thing I'm sure I like about this story is the cover. It took me a few hours to make it, but I'm rather proud.
P.P.S. Sorry, that was a long author's note, if you read it all the way through, I admire you. I'm actually really quiet in real life. Yeah… I'll just stop talking now.
