Summary: Caitlin is on a blind date. Sort of. She's never actually met Craig Anderson before, but they've chatted a lot on eHarmony and exchanged pictures. Admittedly... Caitlin's picture was over a year old when her hair was still fairly short. And thank goodness for that because, well... what she's seeing of Craig in person is less than flattering. But as long as he doesn't recognize her then she can pretend she's stood him up.
(Ronnie's just trying to study when the most beautiful woman he's ever seen sits down at his table and asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend. Of course he says yes.)
Notes: Inspiration for this story taken from Caitlin and Ronnie's alluded to first meeting in "Help Me (He's Cute)", a story I wrote a while back. The two fics aren't necessarily intended to be connected, but can be treated as such.
Blind Date
Caitlin doesn't really have a lot of time for dating. She's in her final semester of her Masters degree in bio and trying to decide whether she'll be going for her PhD or not. It's an incredibly busy degree to be going after and if it weren't for the fact that she didn't make friends easily which meant she was lonely a lot, Caitlin wouldn't have considered dating until after completing her degree program at all.
But she did struggle with socializing with her peers and didn't make friends easily and was incredibly lonely these days. So she'd signed up for eHarmony and spun up a profile. Caitlin used a picture from about a year ago when her hair was much shorter - her hair stylist was in awe, or maybe envy, of how fast Caitlin's hair grew - since it was her favorite picture of herself, but of course everything else was up to date.
There were a few different guys she messaged with.
First there was Hartley Rathaway, who was gay but wanted a friend which was something Caitlin hadn't considered a dating website to be useful for. But he was funny and smart and had similar difficulties that Caitlin did with socializing and making friends. They ended up hitting it off in real life too and it was nice to finally have a friend.
Caitlin also messaged a bit with a guy named Stephen, but while he seemed nice at first... he got more condescending the more they chatted. So Caitlin politely cut contact. Then there was Rick who claimed to be a twenty-something and unmarried but a little basic digging revealed he was actually a forty-something and married with two kids. Caitlin was not polite about cutting contact with him. Craig Anderson, though, seemed to be exactly what he portrayed himself as. Two years older than Caitlin and didn't treat her like being a girl meant that he was smarter than her just because he read a few articles in her field. Not married and definitely cute.
So Caitlin agreed to meet up with Craig. There was a coffee shop near campus and they were going to bring daisies to help identify each other better. Hartley had offered to come rushing to her rescue if she needed him, but they were meeting while Hartley had a physics final. So he wouldn't be able to get there for, like, an hour if something went wrong. Maybe she should have rescheduled, but she didn't.
She got there first and got a cup of coffee, settling at a table near the back near a guy who was clearly a student, given he was clearly cramming for at least one test. Probably more than one test. He was cute, but the sort of cute that Caitlin would be too nervous to approach without knowing at least something about him first.
He did have a nice smile, though. But he wasn't who Caitlin was here to meet.
It was right as Caitlin was reaching for her purse to retrieve the daisy that Craig walked in. And she... she hesitated. He hadn't noticed her yet and she wanted to get an idea of what he was like when he wasn't aware she was there.
He flirted with the woman in line in front of him which was not appreciated. He flirted with the woman in line behind him which got a giggly reaction that made him smirk. He flirted with the barista, ignoring the obvious signs he was making her uncomfortable.
Caitlin made a split second decision. She shoved the daisy further into her purse, grabbed her coffee, and quickly swapped around to sit at the empty chair at the table behind her. That put her facing the corner with the studious student already sitting there being the one facing the rest of the room.
"I'm really sorry about this, but can I sit here?" Caitlin asked.
"Uh, sure? Something wrong with the other table?"
"The table itself is fine. But I... was supped to be meeting someone here today. Sort of a blind date? A guy I met on a dating app. But I just watched him flirt with every girl in line and then making the barista super uncomfortable. I don't want him to recognize me." Caitlin hesitated. "I don't suppose we can pretend I'm here on a date with you, or something like that?"
The guy blushed. Which was cute. "I, uh, I don't see why not?" He held out a hand. "Ronnie Raymond."
"Caitlin Snow." They shook hands and Caitlin liked the firmness of his grip and how warm his hand was.
She reminded herself that she wasn't really here to be on a date with him.
"If you don't mind, I could use help cramming for my engineering final." Ronnie pushed a stack of note cards towards her. "If you can quiz me on the info written on those, it'd help a lot."
"Not a problem." Caitlin picked up the cards, shuffled them a bit, and then scanned the first card before formulating a question.
He answered perfectly, stumbling over his words a bit. Probably nervous about his upcoming test.
Ronnie had noticed her walk in, of course. When the most beautiful woman in, possibly, the entire world walks into a coffee shop, well... of course Ronnie was going to notice her.
Of course, she's completely out of his league. So he smiled politely when he noticed her glancing at him when she came to sit down at the table near his, but otherwise tried to put her out of his mind. He had three finals left, only one of which was open book. The other was a paper that he was mostly finished with and wasn't due for another three days anyway. It was tomorrow's engineering principles exam that Ronnie was concerned with the most. So he'd come here for the caffeine buzz and the relative quiet in order to cram.
(His roommate needed music to study. Ronnie most definitely did not.)
Thus he was taken entirely by surprise when the beautiful Miss Caitlin Snow moved to join him at his table and agreed to help him cram for his test after asking him to help her avoid her blind date. Which Ronnie was happy to help with. Guys who were flirts weren't necessarily bad people, but guys who made service industry workers uncomfortable were jerks. Ronnie was a service industry worker himself - he worked the counter at Big Belly Burger - and the number of times he'd needed to tell a customer to back off when they were making one of his coworkers uncomfortable was a rather ridiculous number at this point. (Janine often wondered aloud how Ronnie could still single when he was so gallant and he'd just tell her that he hadn't met the right woman yet.)
Caitlin was super helpful with his test revision. And while he was fairly confident he knew the material well, she was beautiful and that made Ronnie nervous. Just like taking actual tests made him nervous too. So he figured if he was getting a 95% passing rate answering Caitlin's questions now, then he'd do just as well on the actual exam. And since it was written, his stammering now wouldn't be a problem then.
Eventually the note cards came to an end and the two of them started chatting about themselves. Caitlin was a bio student finishing her Masters, Ronnie was a mechanical engineering student about to finish his Bachelors degree and, hopefully, get accepted to start on his Masters in the Fall. She was smart and funny and Ronnie wasn't sure he'd smiled at anyone quite this much in a long time. Or ever. And Caitlin's smile was just... it was the kind of smile that set butterflies off in his chest.
Honestly, Ronnie's not really sure how long they sit there drinking coffee and chatting. He gets them both refills - Caitlin pays him back when he returns with the drinks both times - in case Craig is still loitering around. He'd feel bad about the guy waiting for a date who won't show if the guy hadn't gone and hit on the barista at the counter a few more times, Caitlin shrinking behind her hair every time it happened. He didn't seem to be the kind of guy who took rejection gracefully, but instead tried to steamroll right over it instead. But he does eventually leave and Caitlin relaxes. And continues to stay even though now she doesn't have to risk walking past her blind date to leave.
"So is this the guy you were meeting for your date?"
Ronnie and Caitlin both jumped and looked up. "Hartley?" Ronnie asked, startled.
"Oh, no, this is Ronnie Raymond," Caitlin frowned between them. "But you two know each other already?"
Ronnie shrugged. "I'm in a calculus class Hartley is a TA for."
"You passed your final, in case you were wondering. Grades get posted tomorrow, but you got, like... a ninety-something percent?" Hartley frowned and then shrugged. "Definitely a ninety-something."
"That's a relief," Ronnie breathed. "Thanks for letting me know."
"So if you're not the guy Caitlin was here to meet..." Hartley looked around for a moment and dragged up a chair. "I'm nosy. Tell me what happened?"
Caitlin obliged. "Anyway, I was getting such bad vibes from him that I swapped around from the chair behind me to this one and asked Ronnie to act like we were on a study date."
"He was definitely harassing the barista a bit," Ronnie added. "I was happy to help. And, honestly, you were a big help to me too, Caitlin. I feel a lot better prepared for tomorrow's final after you helped me prep."
Hartley was eyeing them both with an amused, smug expression that Ronnie chose to ignore.
"Good. It sounds like it'll be a difficult test, but I know you'll do well on it," Caitlin replied encouragingly. "I... I don't suppose you'd like to meet up again? No dodgy eHarmony dates involved?"
Ronnie beamed. "I'd like that."
"Awwww," Hartley crooned teasingly.
"No nosy friends either," Caitlin grumbled at Hartley, who just snickered.