What do you wear to a date with your best friend?
This was the question that Stephanie was struggling with at the current moment. She frowned as she surveyed her closet. Normally, this would be easy, she'd have Chris here to tell her what to wear or what not to wear because he wasn't going to let her put out that evening. But he wasn't here, he was...getting ready too...because he was going out...with her.
She was still trying to think this entire thing through, but it wasn't like one of the plots from the sitcoms she loved to make fun of. This was not linear thinking here, there was no funny mishap and she and Chris weren't going to stumble among art thieves and somehow stymie their evil plan to steal the Mona Lisa or some other priceless work of art. No, they were going out to dinner, something they had done a million times before, but now...now they were on a date.
Did that mean they were dating?
Her eyes widened at that thought, date Chris, that just didn't make sense to her. But then again a lot of things weren't making perfect sense to her at the moment. For instance, she didn't even know that Chris's feelings had changed. Shouldn't she know that? Shouldn't she have been the first one to suspect that something was up? She was his best friend after all, she should be the first one to know when something was bothering him or when he had something on his mind.
She gasped a little bit as she realized that Chris had called off his wedding. What if he had called off his wedding because of her? That thought actually sobered Stephanie, and if she had been actually drunk, she probably would've thrown up from the realization, that's how sobering it was. If Chris had called off his wedding for her, then it was more serious than she thought. Not to mention all the pressure that put on her. Did Chris love her? Well, as a friend, yes, she was sure of that, but more...oh God, what if he was in love with her, and she was really just the last person to know? What if everyone knew and then she'd be expected to return his feelings.
She bit her lip at that and decided that concentrating on the task at hand would be the most productive. She flopped onto her bed and then sighed as Sam climbed onto the bed with her. "Thank God you're here for me, Sammy boy, or else I think I'd be going crazy."
Sam nuzzled his nose against Stephanie and laid his hand on her arm. She rubbed his head and turned to look at him, "You know, this is crazy, this entire thing, I mean, me and Snooks, it's like...I don't know, anchovies and ice cream, stupid, right?"
Sam snuffled and then climbed off and she frowned, she guessed he was tired of listening to his problems. She pursed her lips and closed her eyes. She didn't really want to go out with Chris the way that he wanted to go out, but he had sounded so desperate that she felt compelled to say yes. It was like when the nerdiest guy in school asks out the head cheerleader, except they usually turned the nerdy guy down, and she hadn't, so maybe she wasn't the head cheerleader, maybe she was the sympathetic popular girl, the one who doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the group and eventually breaks off to be her own person.
She groaned and looked at the door , damn him for staying in her house so she couldn't scream and throw things. For the first time in a long time, she had actually locked the door which she never did. Even if she were changing, she would just shut it a little bit and then change behind the door or in the bathroom. She was actually afraid of what was beyond that door. She had had her boyfriends, sure, but never had they been...Chris. She wasn't even sure that she wanted it to be Chris at all. Her brain was totally jumbled up and she couldn't decipher anything, it was like in those books where you're supposed to find out the secret message using some sort of code, oh, or like in the newspaper how they had the puzzler, and each letter was a substitute for another letter and you were supposed to figure out which letter was a replacement for another letter. The letters were all different in her brain, and she wasn't figuring it out at all.
She finally got up off the bed and picked one of her nicer outfits. She didn't even know where Chris was going to take her. All he had said was to be prepared for dinner, and that he had a place in mind, but it wasn't fancy or anything. Of course it wasn't fancy, she realized, Chris knew what she had. So he wouldn't have picked a place that was fancy because she had nothing to wear that could be considered fancy since she hadn't gone shopping at all since he had only asked her hours before and she usually liked a new outfit for a first date. She smiled a little at that; that was convenient, to have someone to go out with who knew exactly what you had so that you didn't have to think about anything. Okay, so that was one perk, but it was just one, and she wasn't going to think of any of the other perks.
She settled on a black blouse with a white skirt. It wasn't flouncy and it wasn't fancy, but it was nice, and she figured if Chris really wanted to do this, and if she actually considered this a date, she wanted to look nice, Chris or not. She went into the bathroom and observed herself, seeing if she needed to touch up her make-up. She looked at herself and tried to determine if she looked okay or not. It was strange because Chris had seen her at her worst, he had seen her when she had the stomach flu and was throwing up everywhere. He had seen her in every possible situation, so how could she possibly think that she was going to make up her face and be pretty when he knew all about her.
That's where it was starting to get complicated. Chris knew her, he really knew her, so how could she possibly play any of her tricks if he knew all of her tricks to begin with? She took a deep breath and touched up her lip gloss before flipping her hair forward and then back to gain a little volume to it. If Chris really wanted a date with her, why didn't he just plan to stay in? That was what they should've done, that way it would've been more comfortable and she wasn't expected to perform in any way.
She figured she was ready and then sat on her bed, like she was waiting for her own execution. Usually she was excited to go on a date because it meant free food and hopefully a good time. But she was dreading this. She was dreading this because she was friends with Chris, best friends, and it wasn't supposed to be like this. Finally, the doorbell rang and she got up mechanically to go downstairs and answer it.
Then there he was, in...date wear. Since this was an honest-to-God date, he had changed in Lance's room at his hotel so he could come pick her up. He was wearing his nice pants, the ones they had bought just two weeks before, and the blue shirt that she told him brought out his eyes. Dear God, they were in each other's lives, how in the hell could they date? They had nothing to talk about at all because they had said everything there was to say. She looked down to his hands and she expected to see the requisite bouquet, but instead, he had brought her a pack of Red Vines.
"These are for you," he said, thrusting them at her like they were actually flowers. She took them and he leaned in and she backed up quickly.
"Hey, hey, what are you doing?" she asked quickly.
"I was going to kiss your cheek in hello," he told her as he turned a rather fetching shade of pink, "but yeah, hey, you look great."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Is that the top you bought in Denver?"
"Yeah," she said, looking down at it. Yup, nothing to talk about, he knew it all already.
"You ready to go?"
"Yeah," she said, setting the Red Vines down on the table next to the door, "I already fed Sammy, and he has water, so you know..."
"Cool, see ya, Sammy," Chris said as Sam looked up at him, tail wagging. Even her dog knew him. He waited for her to lock her front door before they turned to the walkway.
"So where are we going?" she asked as they meandered down the walkway.
"Oh, it's this seafood place that I had heard about, you know, it's the coast and everything, why not try some seafood?" he said. "It's not like we're in Nebraska and asking about the fresh fish, right, because it wouldn't be fresh, and it would be gross."
"Yeah, I agree," she told him, "but yeah, seafood sounds good right now, nothing like catching your own food from the ocean, like a big man."
"We're not actually going fishing though, Stephers," he told her. She was keenly aware as he slipped his hand into hers. She felt herself tense and she knew that Chris had probably felt it too. She turned to her right and took a deep breath to calm herself down and relax so she wouldn't embarrass Chris.
"Oh, that's too bad, I was hoping to try that Rowan Martin fishing pole that you can shoot like a gun. What if you were to just...I don't know, shoot it at the fish, I think that would be kind of mean."
"Well, I'm sure that they don't use that, or you can just not get fish and get shrimp or something," he told her.
"True, true," she said as they got to the end of the walkway, and it was like they were frozen for a moment. "Are we taking your car or mine?"
"Mine," he told her. "I'll drive. I printed out directions."
"Always thinking ahead," she said lamely.
"Well, I don't think that this would be a fun time if we got lost."
"What have I always told you, Snooks? As long as you know how to get to the freeway, you're never lost," she told him, and now they felt like just a couple of friends going out for dinner because they were friends and nothing more.
They got to his car finally and he opened her door for her again. She gave him a tentative smile before climbing inside. He jogged around the car and got inside himself, starting up the engine and turning up his music. If she were really a date, he would've asked if she minded if he turned on his music, wouldn't he? That was kind of rude, she noted. But then she reached out and turned it down, rolling her eyes.
"Sorry," he said sheepishly. Sometimes she just really hated his music.
"It's okay," she said as she stared out the window.
"So uh...I'm not entirely sure how to go about this whole thing," he told her. "I mean, I know how to go on a date, I've gone on plenty, I just don't know how to go on a date with you."
"Well, it was your idea," she pointed out. "It wasn't like I was the one who had this sudden urge to develop amnesia and forget that we were best friends."
He ran a hand through his hair and looked at her, "I'm just wondering if we should pretend like we don't know each other or what. I usually spend the first date getting to know the other person, but you probably know what underwear I'm wearing right now so it kind of makes it weird to talk about...well, about us because I know you."
"I know you too," she told him.
"Yeah, so pretending, I mean, we're not playing make-believe where I'm the daddy and your the mommy and Sammy is the baby, so you know, I guess we just go out like usual."
"Except it's not usual," she pointed out. "This is not usual, Snooks, I don't feel comfortable."
"Well, we're new at this," he told her as he continued to drive. "Don't you think it's supposed to feel weird, Stephers?"
"It wouldn't have if we were just going out as friends, until you practically forced me to accept your proposal. I thought that we were just going to dinner, I thought we were best friends, but right now I don't know what the hell we are."
"I like you, okay," he told her, "I just thought that maybe we could go out on one date to see how it went, it's not like we're getting married."
"Did you not get married because of me?" she asked point blank.
"Whoa, where did that come from?"
"Well, I don't know where thoughts come from, but I was doing some thinking and you didn't show up at your wedding and then you're asking me out, and I may not have a doctorate or anything, but I did have connect-the-dot books when I was younger, and I knew how to do them, so I knew to connect the dots, did you call off your wedding because of me?"
"I can't answer that."
"It's not cheating if you're not looking on someone else's paper," she informed him. "I just want to know if all of that was because of me."
"I don't know! Okay, I don't know, I just knew that marrying her would be a mistake!" he told her, raising his voice and she simmered in her seat. That was a lie and he knew it. It was because of her that he called off his wedding, but he couldn't just tell her that. She was already irate and this was already a really bad beginning to their date. Maybe he should've seen this coming, she sure did.
"I know," she said quietly, calming down, "I shouldn't question your motives, I'm not a detective and you're not hooked up to a lie-detector, even though you can beat the lie-detector test if you know how to, you just stay calm."
"You really do look nice, you know."
"I didn't have time to shop after the house show earlier," she told him. "So I just picked something that I thought would be nice and not too dressy, but still dressy, I mean, you know how I like to dress on dates, and I like to look nice, and I usually like to have a new outfit, I mean, you know, right, I'm stupid, of course you know."
"Yeah...so did you do anything to calm your nerves?" he asked, knowing that was almost a ritual.
"Nope," she told him. "I didn't think I had to, it's not like I was completely nervous, because I know you like me, and you know everything about me so there isn't going to be the awkward moment when I start scarfing down my food and you look at me like I'm crazy."
"No, as long as you don't look at me weirdly when I start building the food village," he said, glancing at her.
"Well, you have to keep the villagers safe from the volcano," she told him as they turned into the parking lot. "Hey, wait a second...this is my favorite restaurant."
"You think that for our first date I'd take you to somewhere that wasn't your favorite restaurant?" he asked incredulously, "Stephers, I know your tastes, so I figured, why not come to your favorite place."
"Thanks," she said, giving him a small smile. "At least you aren't like a normal first date, and then you take me to something disgusting like Mediterranean food, I can't stand that stuff, so this is good, very good."
"Great," he said, feeling like maybe this evening could be good.
They were seated by the familiar staff, who by this time knew who they were. They got their favorite table and ordered their favorite food and it was almost like they weren't on a date, but were just having dinner like normal friends. Stephanie could almost believe that until she saw the way that Chris was looking at her. It made her really uncomfortable because she had never seen him look that way at her. She vaguely recalled that he had once looked at Trish this way, and that was a little unnerving.
"Um...so..."
She looked at him and gave him an awkward smile, "So..."
"House show was okay, don't you think?"
"Yeah, it ran smoothly on my end," she told him. "Your match looked good."
"Good, good," he said, looking down at his water, watching the droplets run down the side of the glass, "I'm really glad that you agreed to come tonight."
"Yeah, I could use a good meal, I'm too thin, that's what Mom says," Stephanie nodded, thinking about how she even thought of his parents as her own. "I don't think I am, but...well, you know that."
"Yeah," he said, never thinking that he would have nothing to say to Stephanie, but that was the situation that he found himself in right now. There was a tension rising between them that seemed almost...alive. He couldn't quite explain it, but this was going very badly.
"You know everything about me," Stephanie shrugged, "not a lot of mystery."
"Did you talk to your parents...oh wait, yeah, your mom wanted to set you up, right?"
"Investment banker," she responded, thinking about how at this point, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea...unless she was now dating Chris, was she dating Chris?
"That would've been funny to see, you and an investment banker, what would you talk about?"
"Banking," Stephanie said, then winced at how lame that was. "I mean, I wouldn't go out with him anyways, my mom is just being my mom, completely controlling."
"Yeah, I know."
"Of course, this is about the point where I'd ask about your parents," Stephanie said, "but...well, I consider them my parents, and the last time you saw them, I saw them, so...there goes that talking point."
"I wish I had written down topics on index cards," Chris chuckled nervously as their chips and salsa finally showed up. "Hey, at least you don't have to get food for me since I'm here."
"Oh yeah, no one to rant to at the end of the date, that's no fun," she said in a little bit of a pout. She usually went to Chris after a date to dish about it to him, and to assure him that she hadn't put out. Her eyes widened and she choked on her water a little as she thought about whether or not Chris wanted her to put out.
"Stephers, are you okay?"
She swallowed hard and tried to erase the image of her and Chris having sex from her mind. If he didn't like her putting out on the first date with other guys, there was no way he'd expect that from her tonight, right? Eww, the thought was not one she wanted to think about anymore. She nodded weakly and gave him her best smile, which ended up looking like a grimace, "Went down the wrong pipe, not that we actually have pipes, because we don't, we have this flap of skin that makes sure that we don't get like, food in our lungs."
"Interesting," he said, taking another sip of his own water. This was going very badly. "So any good storylines or anything going to happen?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted, "I have a meeting tomorrow about that, I could tell you what you're doing afterwards."
"Awesome, perks of being the best friend to one of the writers," he joked, but it hardly sounded like the usual joke that he would make with Stephanie.
"So uh...I heard you were getting new ring tights." Oh Lord, they were talking about ring tights!
"Yeah, new design, which is cool, I guess because I'm turning heel again."
"Yeah, I like you as a heel, it suits you," Stephanie told him. "You play both well, the fans always love you either way. They still cheer you."
"Good thing, right, I'd hate to be a jobber, not that your parents like putting me up at the top."
"I do have to fight to keep you there."
"Thanks for that."
"Sure."
Mercifully, their food came and they ate silently, the tension getting thicker and thicker by the second. Stephanie was just feeling so uncomfortable right now, in this situation with Chris. She didn't want to go on a date with him, why did he have to change everything? He was making everything change and she didn't like change, she didn't like this...whatever this was becoming. Chris couldn't like her that way, he looked like he was as bored as she was.
When their food was taken away, Stephanie leaned on the table, her hands folded in front of her, "Snooks, I'm having a terrible time, I think this is the worst date I've ever been on, and I've been on bad ones, why did you have change everything?"
"What?"
"Everything!" she hissed. "You had to go and change everything. I was happy with where we were, I was happy with you as my best friend and you had to go and change everything! You had to change and...I don't know what's going on, or where we're at, or where you're at, and it's weird, Snooks, this entire thing is weird and I hate it."
"Stephers, just give it a chance, a real chance," he pleaded.
"No, I don't want to change, you don't even act like you like me or anything," she said. "You're just as bored as I am, you're not having fun, I know this because I know you. I know you, Snooks."
"Okay, so this isn't the best date--"
"Isn't the best date?" she scoffed. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me? I think watching paint dry is more exciting than this, or watching the chocolate melt off a candy bar is more exciting. You had to change everything, and for what...nothing! Nothing!"
"Stephers..."
"I'll be waiting in the car, I want you to take me home after you pay."
"But Stephers..."
"No Snooks, I don't want to do this anymore."
And he was left alone with a check and a broken heart.