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A Loving Feeling – Chapter 4

Naomi

It's date night and I am absolutely bricking it. I haven't been this nervous since, actually stuff that. I don't think I have ever been this nervous. I know that in reality what I am feeling is stupid. Emily and I have been best friends for years. We know everything about each other, I mean for goodness sake we have lived together for the past 2 years. The best thing I can do is just treat this like any other dinner we have ever been on together and pretend that nothing is different. We were pretty much like a couple anyway so I don't know why I'm worrying.

Currently I am looking through all the clothes in my wardrobe and regretting that I didn't go shopping for a new outfit earlier this week. People always I have an interesting fashion sense but I think I'm finally starting to understand what they mean. My clothes aren't exactly what you would call 'date worthy'. Everything is so overly floral or comes with some kind of political slogan on it. How Emily manages to out in public with me wearing half of this stuff I will never know.

After about 20 minutes I successfully climbed into my wardrobe and found a simple black dress with a large white belt to tie round the waist. I opted to wear my black shoes with the smaller heal as new we were walking to the restaurant and it wasn't the smallest of treks.

I exited my room at the same time that Emily came out of hers. She looked stunning as always in a strapless white dress with red heels on and I wasted no time in telling her she was beautiful. She looked to floor in what I think was an attempt to hide her blush but I could still see the discolouration of her cheeks slightly. We walked down the stairs and I helped her put her coat on when we reached the door. I love living in the UK but it is bloody cold most of the time.

We had agreed to not do anything to fancy for our date. After an hour of discussing our options we had come to an agreement that we would go to Emilys favourite pub. It was about a half hours walk away from the flat but I wasn't complaining. Emily had put her arm through mine and was snuggling as close as possible to me to protect herself from the wind. As we walked Emily amused me with tales from her day at work. She worked at the library at the college. Ordinarily her days were relatively mundane, just her signing books out for the students and putting the back on the shelves when they returned them. However every now and again she would tell me how she had come across a pair of students going at it like rabbits on one of the table or against a book shelf, or how they would always try breaking the rules by using the library as a smoking and drinking area. The students always ended up incredibly embarrassed and I enjoyed hearing the stories as they reminded me of how we were when we went to roundview.

The pub was packed as usual but we managed to find a slightly more secluded to corner to sit in with just one elderly couple sat at another table. When we had both decided on what we wanted I headed over to the bar to place our orders. As I waited for someone to come to the till I glanced over at the table and saw Emily had already engaged the elderly couple in conversation. When I headed back over the couple had gone back to whatever they were talking about. I sat down and waited for the food and we continued our conversation from earlier on.

When our food arrived I looked over at the other table and saw the elderly couple leaving. Before they left they turned to us and wished us an enjoyable evening. I don't normally mind people being nice but I find it a bit weird when it's people I have never even met before. Then I remembered that Emily had been chatting to the earlier.

"You know when I went to order. What were you talking about with those other people?"

"Relax Naomi, it was nothing bad. They just asked if you were my girlfriend."

Girlfriend. That's not something we had discussed. We were just talking about going on a date and maybe another one if I didn't manage to completely screw this one up which was always a possibility.

"Soooo. What did you tell them."

"I said that as of this moment it was undetermined and that this dinner was a sort of test to see if you were worthy of being my girlfriend."

"I take they knew you were joking."

"Who said I was joking. It is difficult for someone to be awesome enough to be with me. I mean we already knew you were interesting enough to be my best friend. But girlfriend, that's on a whole different level. "

"Well what if I don't want you to be my girlfriend. I'm not sure I'm comfortable dating someone who is so incredibly full of themselves."

"Haha. Naomi, lets just get this out there now. Will you be my girlfriend?"

"I would love to Emily. Thank you." The tone of my voice made it sound playful and that I was playing it was to posh but she knew that I really meant what I had said. Being Emilys girlfriend was an appealing an idea to me as winning the lottery of for most other people. Except she's obviously worth more then a few million pounds.

The walk back from the pub was blissful. It was like the second we agreed to upgrade our relationship status to girlfriends all the worries I had had melted away. We walked in a comfortable silence just listening to the sounds of Bristol all around us. Cars and buses drove passed us and other couples and groups of people would smile and nod slightly in greeting as they walked past us. I was in such a good mood that I started greeting them back and I'm really to miserable a person to do that most of the time. As our street came into view I slowed our pace down slightly. I know it was cold and it had started to rain slightly but I just wasn't ready for our night to end.

Eventually though the inevitable had to happen and we arrived back at the flat. I let us in and helped Emily with her coat again before hanging both hers and mine up on the rack next to the door. Emily had already made her way into the kitchen and when I arrived she had the kettle on and to mugs sat on the side. When the kettle was boiled and the tea was made it was like a normal evening for us again. We sat and watched a movie on sky, laughed at all the bad jokes that were in it and all the while just feeling comfortable in each others presence. The only difference I noticed was that we were a lot more open to touching each other. A hand on a hand or on a leg. A small kiss every now and then on the cheeks or on the lips. By the time the film was finished and we were contemplating going to bed I was sandwiched between the back of the sofa and Emily herself. But nothing we didn't felt strange. It was the most natural thing I could imagine doing in my life.

When Emily started to get up and say she was going to bed I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. I checked the door was locked and followed her up to her room. I knew that nothing would happen tonight between us as neither of us were fully ready to take our relationship to that level.

"Naomi. I just wanted to thank you for tonight. I had a wonderful time with you and I hope that we can do it again sometime."

"Emily, don't get me wrong I loved tonight but I think next time I want to do something really special for you. Something that I would probably complain is overly mushy and romantic but that know you will love even though you never admit to liking that sort of thing."

"Sounds intriguing. Do I get to know what it is we'll be doing?."

"I don't think so. I want to be able to surprise you. To sweep you of your feet as they say. But I promise that whatever it is you will love it and I will pretend to love it just for you."

"Well I think I can go to bed happy now knowing that I have another date to look forward to. Goodnight Naomi."

"Goodnight Emily." At this point I lent forward and gave her a slight kiss. I watched as she entered the room and slowly closed her door before turning and getting ready for my own bed. When I entered my room I couldn't help but do a little happy dance. It was like all the nerves and excitement that I had felt throughout the evening just came to the surface and resulted in some really embarrassing dance moves. Luckily though there was no one there to see them so it didn't really matter.

I lay in bed that night for a couple of before I fell asleep. I could do nothing but reflect on the evening Emily and I had had and how perfect it had felt. In a way I felt slightly disappointed that we had wasted so much time that we could have had together. I loved how we were as best friends but I knew now that these feeling I had for Emily had been present pretty mush since we first started talking to each other at college. Maybe even before then when we were really young. There must have been a reason that I was to nervous to talk to her when we were in nursery. I means kids aren't even suppose to be that nervous at that age are they. I could only imagine where we would have been know if I had asked her out in college or even during our university years, although that would have been particularly difficult with us living apart from each other during that time. Long distance relationships can be so difficult to keep.

When my eyes did eventually close and sleep overcame me the only thing that was present in my mind was Emily, and as I slept I dreamt of her and the life I knew we would be able to have together now that we knew of each other feelings.