A/N: Sorry people! I have NOT abandoned this story, but you know, life and laziness aren't the best motivators for recreational writing. In the groove for this new semester, and my friend has been bugging me about updating (even though she cringes while reading fluff…) Also, I know my format is like all over the place, and I'm sorry if it's confusing. I can never remember what I'm doing. But anyway, I hope there's still people out there reading this and I appreciate those who I know are still there, and you know the drill, read, review, and enjoy! Also, all mistakes are mine, which is the only thing I claim to own.
Troian's POV
Sooo, my life is in a pretty awesome place right now. I've got an awesome job, I'm in perfect health, I'm doing pretty well for myself, and in a most surprising (and pleasant) recent development, I've got a date with a drop dead gorgeous woman, with whom I also work with, TONIGHT! I'd say I'm pretty damn good at this life thing, if I do say so myself.
Speaking of dates, let me just say once more how amazing last night was. I never imagined having that much fun with someone I really only just met, sharing a breath-taking kiss with said person and then getting to spend the night! Albeit, all happening unintentionally, but I digress, I'm officially dubbing last night as our unofficial first date. Well, at least in my head.
Currently floating around the house on cloud nine a couple of hours after leaving Shay's house. It's honestly quite disgusting, the smile that's breaking my face, and the singing as I trash my closet looking for something to wear tonight.
I've never been one to daydream about crushes or anything of the sort, but I can't help imagine what my days would be like with Shay.
I see us lounging in the middle of the afternoon on the couch with Shay tucked into my side, feet curled under her, and her reading glasses sliding on the bridge of her nose while she notes through the script. I can do nothing but watch her, silently swooning, with a fond smile as she scrunches her face trying to readjust her glasses. She glances at me questioningly and I only respond with a kiss to her temple.
Yeah, I'm never going to be a functioning member of society again. It'll just be icky lovesick eyes and rainbows all the time now.
Shay's POV
Not long after Troian left I pick up my phone remembering that I have to verbally assault Ashley for calling at the most inopportune moment last night.
"Hey chica! I tried calling you last night."
"Yeah," I deadpan, "I know and I have some choice words for you about that."
"Whoa, what's with the killer vibes? It's not like I interrupted you getting laid..right? Omg, that's why you're mad isn't it! You did not sleep with Troian did you?!"
"God, no Ashley, I did not sleep with Troian… well not like... that… but I might've, you know, kissed her a little." I respond, suddenly feeling more shy than angry talking to her about this.
"..." There's just a pause and I look at my phone to see if we had gotten disconnected.
"Ashley?"
"...You said what now?"
"Well, we were kind of joking around and fell, it just sorta happened. But it was amazing, that is until YOU called me right when it was about to get good."
There's more silence and I'm starting to think that it's one of those days for Ashley when all of a sudden I jerk away from the phone when she starts blaring, "She hit the floor! She hit the floor! Next thing you know, shawty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low!"
"Oh dear god, remind me why we're friends again? Honestly."
"Hahahahaha!"
I just drop to the couch and kick my feet up onto the table as I wait for her to get it out of her system. Her mind's inner workings pretty much only has three settings, the mind of a teenage boy, the mind of a child (there's a difference), and the mind of a shopaholic.
"Whooo! Okay, I think I'm good," and I can just hear her wiping the tear from her eye, "Man, I crack myself up. Ok, so, there was kissing, sorry about stopping that by the way, what happened? Was there freaking out? Running? Crying?"
"Are you quite done yet?" I ask slightly bemused. " No, there was none of that, the night went kind of normally, I mean we just hung out, and she stayed the night."
"No, well yes. Okay sorry, but firstly, you're the only hot woman I know who can take an equally hot woman into her bed and literally only sleep with her."
"Yeah, well whatever, I didn't even intend to take her that far!. We've already expedited like 4 steps already!"
"Yeah, well you're not normal."
"Ok, rude. I shouldn't even tell what else happened." I scoff and throw in a hair flip just for good measure.
"Hey! You can not withhold info like that! I'm your best friend, who else are you going to tell?"
I don't know whether to acquiesce to that somewhat true statement or feel insulted for the insinuation that I have no other friends.
"Again, rude. But she asked me out on a date, and I obviously agreed. we ate breakfast, and she left. It will be nothing fancy, just real low-key."
I swear I can hear her chuckling under her breath that sounds a lot like "hehe, shawty get low."
"I can hear you trying to restrain the excitement. Did you make her waffles? You're so cute."
"You're such a pain in the ass. I'm done talking to you. I have to pick my outfit out anyway and some non-existent errands to run that will surely keep me busy all the up until tonight." I say quickly, the girl really knows how to tease beyond the point of 'no longer funny'
"Alright, alright. Someone's a little touchy today, not on Troian, but I'll be sure to pick this up at work so that I can tell Lucy all about how our little Shay is growing up."
"Yes, because that is how you create a professional work environment. Goodbye Ashley."
"Bye bye Shay! Make sure you're a perfect lady tonight, none of that trying to round sec-" Oops, I accidently hung up on her… Yeah, accident.
*A few minutes before 7pm*
Troian's POV
I'm jittery mess standing outside Shay's door. I glance over myself one last time, I rub out the invisible wrinkles in the white blouse I'm wearing underneath my blazer, and tug at the pants leg of my light wash faded skinny jeans.
Taking deep breaths is not helping, honestly, it's just making me a little light headed. Knocking at some point tonight would be great Troian. God, I suck at pumping myself up, it pretty much consists of 'don't puke, don't puke, don't puke' while futzing with my necklace.
Inhaling sharply, I finally knock, and proceed to hold my breath when I hear footsteps approaching the door. It flings open to reveal a stunning Shay in a denim jacket with a blue knee length dress underneath.
"Uh, hi. You look beautiful." I finally say after what feels like minutes, but was really only a few seconds.
"Hey, so do you." She says smiling shyly.
"So, your chariot awaits you milady." I mock bow slightly and gesturing for her to grab ahold to my elbow.
She grabs hold and I escort down to my car, I skip ahead a step to open the door for her. She thanks me ducking inside and I bow again in acknowledgment. As I walk around to the other side of the car and climb in Shay asks, "So, where are we going?"
"You'll see."
" You're really not going to tell me?"
"Of course not, sit back, relax, and let me woo you."
"Oh? Well woo away Ms. Bellisario." She says arching an eyebrow, almost in a challenging fashion.
"Thank you, I will."
For the next 20 minutes, we drive in a comfortable silence with my ipod playing softly in the background. We pull up in front of a small italian restaurant and Shay turns to me with a bright smile.
"I love Italian food!"
"Haha, great! Well then let's get the lady fed." I say as I put the car in park and step out, handing the keys to the approaching valet. I once again walk around the car and open Shay's door with the same flourishing gesture as before, offering my hand.
We walk into the restaurant and are immediately surrounded by a cozy, authentic Italian family ambiance as we approach the hostess' podium.
"Hi, we have a reservation under Hastings." I can see Shay smirking out of the corner of my eye when she hears the name I used.
"Of course, right this way Ms. Hastings." She responds leading us to a booth out of the way of the main restaurant traffic near a corner. She hands us 2 menus and tells us our waiter will be along shortly and we thank her as she walks away.
As we settle into our seats, I look up to see Shay still smirking at me. "Ms. Hastings huh? Should I be calling you Spencer too?"
"Haha, Troian will be fine. I've always wanted to use an alias like that; I was amusing myself." I say smirking at her.
"I see, and how amused are you with yourself?"
"Oh, very, highly amused. Just enough to possibly do it every time we go out." tossing a wink her way. Just as she opens her mouth to respond, our waiter walks up to the table and introduces himself.
"Good evening ladies, I'm Johnathan, I'll be your waiter for tonight. Are you ready to order drinks or appetizers?"
Shay looks up from her menu to me and nods slightly, we turn back to him and respond.
"Yes, I believe so, water is fine for me right now."
"And I'll have a lemonade, thanks."
"So, how's the rest of your day been since you didn't have me to entertain you?" I ask teasingly.
"Oh, you know, any day without you is like the dark days. But, I digress, I sat around wallowing and counting down the minutes until the moment you knocked on my door." Shay responded with a very convincing amount of sadness in her voice.
"It sounds like I'll just have to spend every minute by your side. You're much too precious to have such strong negative feelings."
"If you insist, as long as we are both coming to the same conclusion." She says winking at me
There's a pause of silence before we both burst into a fit of giggles before we remember where we are and try to stifle them at least a little. There aren't many people that I can joke with and tease like this. She just gets me.
"So what looks good to you?" Shay asks me, and the first thing to pop into my head is you. But my filter is actually working today and I say the chicken parmesan is always very delicious.
"Yeah, that does sound good, I think I'm going with a pasta dish, maybe the ramonne penne." I can't help but notice the cute Italian accent she tries to throw in there as she says it, topped off with the finger kissing motion.
"I think we're good to go then. Let's see if we can signal the waiter."
"That won't be necessary, it looks like he may be psychic." I turn around and notice our waiter walking towards us with our drinks in hand.
"Alright, here we go ladies, one lemonade and one water. Are you guys ready to order?" He says as he sets our drinks in front of us and pulls out his handy dandy notebook (See what I did there?)
"Yes actually, I would like the chicken parmesan with a side caesar salad, no dressing."
"And I'd like the ramonne penne dish also with a caesar side salad, italian dressing on the side."
"Ook, sounds good, anything else I can get for you?"
I look to Shay for confirmation that we're good to go.
"Um, no, I believe that'll be all thanks."
He gives us a nod in acknowledgment and walks in the direction of the kitchen.
"So, can I just say that I'm really excited to be out with you tonight?" I start off, because I simply can not sit here like I'm not on a date with the woman of my dreams.
"I'm really excited too. I still almost can't believe that this is a date date and not a 'friend' date."
"Yeah, it took me all afternoon to wrap my head around that fact too, let alone that I had the guts enough to actually ask."
"Which, I'm really glad you did by the way. I'm kind of hoping that if tonight goes well, we can continue to do this." She says almost shyly, looking up at me through her lashes with her big brown doe eyes. I definitely plan to continue to do this as much as possible, and more, hopefully.
"Agreed, let's make tonight one of the best then shall we?"
"We're off to a pretty nice start."
"Oh, so am I wooing your socks off?"
"If I were wearing socks, they'd be sufficiently wooed away." She laughs
"Yess." I exclaim with a little fist pump, just to hear her giggle again.
There's another lull in the conversation, and we just sit glancing at each other every so often and casting coy smiles until our waiter comes back around with our food on a serving tray.
"Alright, here we go ladies. If you need anything else just let me know ok?" He says with a smile and goes on about his business. We both hum in appreciation for the delicious looking food and dig in. There's relative silence during the meal aside from a few comments and questions every so often, and the waiter stops by the table a couple times asking about the meal and bringing us refills.
A few minutes after we've finished, we decide that we're good to go, so I call the waiter to bring the check. I snatch it up before Shay can even think to ask about it, including the tip in the total, I provide my card and hand it back to him. I glance back to Shay and she's smirking at me with a quirk of her brow.
"What?" I ask innocently.
"Mmh, nothing. Nothing at all." She says not at all convincingly, I just laugh and ask if she's ready for part 2.
"There's more?" She asks, sounding genuinely surprised.
"Of course there's more! How can I woo the lady with just dinner? There must be dessert!" I exclaim.
"Oh, well how foolish of me! That is very much necessary." She responds with a wink.
We stand up from the table, after the waiter comes back with my card and bids a good evening, and walk back out to the front of the restaurant to wait while the valet brings the car back around. It only takes a couple minutes and the valet opens both doors for us as we step forward.
Settling into the car, I take us to our next destination. A just as small and twice as cute bakery that stays open late, and has an endless assortment of baked goodies.
"This definitely looks promising." Shay says, looking like a kid who just walked into the world's biggest toy store. I guess she did from what I've heard about Shay's sweet tooth. Another point, Troian!
"I'm glad this is to your liking. Go ahead, pick whatever and however many you want." And like all she was waiting for was the green light, she takes off immediately towards the macaroons and brownies.
I follow behind her, chuckling softly as her eyes light up at all the flavors. The store worker just greets us with a smile behind the register.
"You see anything you like?" The woman ask us.
"Yes, all of it." Shay says with a laugh.
"Am I buying out the store?" I ask jokingly.
"Nope, just half." She laughs back.
"Ok, I'm going to get two of each so you can try them with me, ok? I want...two orders of those, two of those, ooh! And 2 of those, aaand two of these. Did you want to add to this delicious platter?" She asks as she turns to me.
"Uh, nope, I think you've covered all the bases." I say as I look over the macaroons, cookies, brownies, and cakes she chose. We wait by the register as the woman gathers everything into one big box of yum.
"Ok, here we go. How are you guys doing tonight?" the worker asks as she's ringing us up.
"Great thanks." Shay says happily, glancing at me with a shy smile. Awww, she's so cute!
"Yep, pretty great." I chime. She tells us the total and for so many goodies, it's actually pretty cheap. I hand the woman my card and Shay picks up the box. She prints the receipt and hands both it and my card back and we head back out once again to the car.
"Onwards!" I exclaim playfully as I start in the direction of Shay's house. It's almost 9:00 when we get inside the house. The night's still young so we settle on the couch before I follow Shay into the kitchen for plates and glasses for wine.
"Can you grab the wine glasses? They're in that top cabinet above the sink. The wine's in the cupboard next to that if you want to grab a bottle." She asks
"Sure." I say as I bring down the glasses first, then reach a door over to pull a bottle down from the rack that's inside.
We gather everything in our hands and head back into the living room and settle down.
"Tonight has been really great Troian, thank you."
"The pleasure was legitimately all mine. Thank you for letting me take you out tonight. Is it safe to assume that we'll be going out more?" I ask shyly, almost scared though I'm fairly positive as to what the answer will be.
"I would very much like to go out a lot more. Consider me sufficiently wooed Troian Bellisario." She says with a wink and a giggle.
"Mission accomplished. So, how do you like your treats?"
"They're amazing! You've just supplied me with my next addictions. Like seriously? Wow."
"Yeah, I'm an enabler. I might have heard a thing or two about how big of a sweet tooth you have from Ashley."
"Ugh, Ashley will tell you all sorts of embarrassing things about me, I just know it."
"I found it quite adorable actually."
She just smiles shyly to herself as she glances at me quickly before ducking her head. I smile at her and before I can even think better of I move a little closer to her across the couch and brush a piece of silky brown hair behind her ear. I can see the slight blush sweep across her cheek as she turns her head towards me slightly.
I like these moments. Where we don't need words to express what we're feeling or thinking. We can just sit in silence, looking at each other, smiling, blushing. But sometimes, words are nice too. Like when I have the urge to kiss her and I'm not sure how well that'd be recepted. This is where the nerves, that have been conveniently absent throughout the night, appear.
"Uh, I know that this was only the first date and we're taking this fairly slow, but when would you say that kissing would be acceptable?" Her eyes widen for a second before her face morphs back into a shy, coy look.
She leans forward a little before she pauses a few inches from my face. Her eyes almost black and the desire is palpable.
"Well, you tell me. Do you want to kiss me?"
In response, I swiftly close the distance between us, capturing her lips with my own. She lets out a moan showing her pleasure with my answer, and immediately weaves her hand into my hair, pulling me that much closer. I raise a hand to her cheek and tilt my head, deepening the kiss and letting out a moan of my own.
My heart is pounding in my ears and all that can be heard is the sound of heavy breathing and the whispers of moans. God, her lips are heaven. The kiss is soft, but not lacking passion. Not the aggressive kind, but the kind that burns you from the inside out. The kind that threatens to suffocate you. And it is glorious. The feeling of our lips sliding against one another, feeling her hands in my hair, feeling her skin burn beneath my fingers.
I whimper because it is almost physically painful to pull away from this goddess and everything she's doing to me, but the lack of air is becoming problematic. I pull away with a gasp, and we're both left panting heavily. I'm sure if I looked in a mirror, I'd have a very similar look to Shay's right now. Wanting.
"I guess, that answers that question." Shay says with a breathless chuckle. I'm feeling pretty stupefied right now, so all I can do is nod. She takes one look at me and giggles before she pecks my lips one more time and I have half a mind to chase after her.
"Wow." Good job Troian. Just like walking, one word after the other. "Uh, just wow." She's still giggling, and now let's move past mono-syllabic words shall we Troian?
"Yeah, I like that, we should do that more often." I say like a spaz.
"Agreed, lots more." She nods with a serious look.
"So...more wine?" I ask picking up the bottle already refilling my glass; gotta calm my still pounding heart.
"Yes, please. Thanks." While I refill hers. When I sit back against the couch, I notice how close we are exactly. Our shoulders are pressed against each other and our thighs are brushing. I glance at her hand resting on her thigh and contemplate interlacing our fingers, but I'm feeling pretty good right now, so I lift my arm and rest around her shoulders, encouraging her to lean into my side.
She smiles at me and willingly falls into me, snuggling a bit, moving her hand to my knee while her other holds her wine glass. My fingers automatically start running through her and I sigh contently, taking another sip of wine. I feel the whisper of the kiss she presses to my cheek and a grin breaks out on my face. I have no idea when music started playing, or for how long it has been. Weird, but she has good taste at least.
"I can't believe we're here right now." I wish I was able to see the way we look together right now.
"Yeah, it's a bit surreal. I mean we both went from single to going out and cuddling on my couch pretty quickly. But I'm not complaining, I'm quite enjoying myself." She says with a cheeky smile and snuggles further into just to prove her point.
I squeeze her closer saying that I'm definitely not complaining either. Because, hello, you've seen this woman right? How lucky am I.
"I think we're both lucky." She says with another kiss to my cheek. Wait, I said that out loud? Gah, hello filter? You're supposed to be working!
"Yeah, we are." I say, placing my own kiss upon her temple. We just sit there, content to be in each other's arms, knowing I could spend the rest of nights for forever just like this.
A/N: Ok, here ya go. We're moving things along. This chapter was a pain to write, it felt so much longer than it actually is.. I know I said before I was on a roll, but that lasted all of 5 minutes into writing this. And I tweaked and rewrote this like 4 times, and I was writing bits at a time. So sorry it took so long once again. I also had to keep writing til I got to a place I felt I could end it. Anyway, the next chapter will be a time jump, not sure how far yet, but the day to day will kill me. Let me know what you guys think, if you're still there, thoughts and opinions are still very much appreciated. I'm so happy with the reception I've gotten for this story so far. You guys sure know how to make a gal feel special ;) Til next time folks! Much love.