Chapter 2: Just a Kiss
"If you kiss on the first date and it's not right, then there will be no second date. Sometimes it's better to hold out and not kiss for a long time. I am a strong believer in kissing being very intimate, and the minute you kiss, the floodgates open for everything else." –Unknown
SPOV
I sincerely doubt I'm alone when I say that first dates generally suck. I had yet to go on a first date that wasn't incredibly awkward at some point. Whether it was ending up at a restaurant I didn't like or my date staring at my breasts like they were going to be dessert, something always went wonky. So even though I had high hopes for my first date with Eric, I was also airing on the side of caution just in case all that charm disappeared.
I had absolutely no idea where we were going but Eric had told me to dress casually. I chose a pair of dark washed jeans, a black camisole trimmed with lace and some sparkly black sandals. Since I didn't know how much time we'd be spending outside I grabbed a cropped jean jacket that matched my pants and a blue diamond encrusted ring that had belonged to my Gran. It was actually her engagement ring. I wore it for good luck.
For once, I was more inclined to find myself nervous that things were going to go perfectly than they were going to go terribly wrong. I smiled down at Gran's ring and tried to imagine what she would say if I told her about Eric. Meeting him at Alcide's wedding, of all places, had been a surprise. Even more surprising was finding out he wasn't attached to someone. But then guys who looked like him tended to go one of two ways, from my experience. Either they were put on lockdown early by their first high school girlfriend, or they ended up fucking anything with a pulse until an unplanned pregnancy stuck them with a baby mama.
When I told Jason that Eric had asked me out on a date before leaving the reception, he seemed fine with it. Of course by then, Jason pretty much had drunk his body weight in Coronas, so it's entirely possible he didn't really get what I was saying. When he called to make plans for the night of my date with Eric, I reminded him I was already busy. His reaction to my date wasn't what it was the first time around and he warned me that Eric wasn't usually the sort to settle down so I wouldn't get my hopes up too high.
I tended to take my brother's advice with a grain of salt. Jason was really one to talk about being in a steady relationship given that until he met and knocked up his fiancé, he had never kept a girl around for much longer than breakfast. If the sex was really good, a girl might get lunch out of the deal. The fact that he'd been able to maintain a somewhat solid relationship with Crystal for the last year was surprising. I love my brother, but I know from personal experience he ain't the easiest man to live with. God bless Crystal for taking him on as well as that baby.
I put in a pair of simple silver ball earrings and then headed to the bathroom to flat iron my hair. I figured I'd pull it back into a sleek ponytail so I wouldn't be tempted to play with it all night long the way I usually did when I got nervous. Besides, I had the cutest little hair tie had been dying to try out since I bought it and what better time than a first date.
When I was done with my hair I gave it a little spritz with a shine enhancer and a little hairspray to keep my flyaways at bay. After brushing my teeth I slicked on a coat of lip stain and headed back to my bedroom to make sure I didn't have anything embarrassing lying around in case Eric ended up getting a tour at the end of the night. I pulled the quilt on my bed where it had wrinkled just a little and straightened one of my pillows.
Satisfied with how my bedroom looked, I grabbed my jacket and purse and headed to the front of the house. Eric had said he would be picking me up at seven and if he was right on time, I had about ten minutes to spare. I did a quick walk through of the house tidying and straightening to make sure the house was in perfect order. Gran would have been appalled if I let a visitor into an unkempt space and I wasn't about to start disappointing her now.
Okay, so maybe I was a little obsessive based on the fact that I was straightening magnets on the fridge when I heard a car come up the driveway. I took a deep breath and told myself to calm the hell down before I completely freaked out. I don't know if it did a whole lot of good, but it was worth a shot. I forced myself to stay in the kitchen instead of running to the front door like I wanted to.
When the doorbell sounded I took another deep breath and as casually as I could, I made my way to the front door. I could see Eric through the delicate lace curtains hanging over the window and smiled at him since I wasn't sure if he could see me coming or not. When I opened the door, I ended up sucking in another deep breath. If I thought he looked good in a suit, he looked even better in his dark washed jeans and white button down shirt with the top three buttons left undone.
I gulped probably loud enough for him to hear it but my concern flew out the window the second he smiled at me. But then when his eyes started to travel me and take in what I was wearing, I got a little self-conscious again. His eyes glazed over just a little and I took that to be a good thing. When his eyes met mine, his smile grew.
"You look beautiful," he told me and then presented me with a small bouquet of mixed spring flowers. They were beautiful and smelled heavenly.
"Thank you," I smiled back and stepped out of the way. "Would you like to come in while I put these in water?"
Eric nodded and stepped inside the house, looking around a little as he did. I excused myself and hauled ass to the kitchen to put the flowers in a vase. I would have to doctor them up properly when I got home. I didn't want to keep him waiting. I brought the vase with me from the kitchen and set it down on the coffee table in the living room.
I grabbed my bag and my jacket from the couch before turning to Eric to ask, "Am I going to need a jacket?"
"It can't hurt. I'm not sure if we'll end up outside or not," he admitted with a hint of a smile.
"Okay," I briefly reconsidered my choice of footwear but decided if things got murky, I could always jump on his back. That'd be his punishment for not warning me when he had the chance.
After locking up the house Eric led me to his car, a sporty red Corvette that was so low to the ground I was thankful I hadn't worn a dress or I would have ended up flashing my hoo-hah to anyone looking my way. Eric held my door open for me and then closed it once I was safely inside the car. I would have leaned over to unlock his door but it was already unlocked. He lowered himself expertly into his seat behind the wheel with a grace I wouldn't have guessed he possessed.
"So are you going to tell me where we're going?" I asked him as he put the key in the ignition.
"There's a bar not too far from my apartment that opened last month that I've heard good things about. I thought we could check it out," Eric suggested. "Are you any good at playing pool?"
I bit back a smile and said, "I do alright."
No way was I going to tell him that I was a freakin' wizard when it came to shooting pool. For whatever reason, the Lord saw fit to bless me with the ability to perfectly line up a shot. I figured that was recompense for giving me a singing voice that made dogs in Boston bark.
"By that do you mean you'll grin and bear it, or does that mean you're going to play me for money and let me think you suck and then take me for all I'm worth?" Eric asked as he started the car. Music flooded the space and he scrambled to turn it down. "Sorry. I meant to turn that down before I came inside."
"It's fine," I smiled over at him. "What are we listening to?"
"The Black Keys. Never heard it before?" He asked and I shook my head. "Well then you're in for a treat."
The car started to move as Eric backed away from the house to turn around. Without even realizing I was doing it, I drummed my fingers against my knee in time with the rocky, bluesy music we were listening to. I noticed Eric bobbing his head slightly as he drove up my driveway. We were quiet for a spell, just listening to the music. Normally I would feel like the music was there to fill an awkward silence but with Eric it felt more like he was showing me a part of himself.
The moon was full outside my window and I kept my eyes on it as Eric sped down the highway. I didn't even want to look over to see how fast we were going but I was pretty sure it was well above the posted speed limit. Then again, why drive a sports car if you're going to drive like a granny on Sunday? My hand reached up to play with the end of my ponytail but I dropped my hand when I realized what I was doing. I was not going to play with my hair like a nervous sixteen-year-old on her first date. At twenty-four, that was completely unacceptable.
We got into Shreveport about forty minutes later, most of which were spent in comfortable silence. Eric pulled into a vacant space on the street and I'll admit I was a little jealous of how easily he parallel parked the car. It was a skill I never was able to master no matter how hard I tried. When Eric came around to let me out of the car he reached out for my hand. I gave it to him and he helped me up. Only when I was on my feet and the door was closed, my hand was still in his and I was content to leave it there for as long as he'd let me.
It was a little early for Friday night so Layla's wasn't too crowded. The place was close to looking like a cross between Coyote Ugly and that bar/coffee house in Reality Bites. For being a new place it looked like it had been open for decades, and well used at that. My hand remained in Eric's and he squeezed it a little tighter to his as we walked over to the bar to get a drink.
I was pleasantly surprised when he remembered I drank gin and tonics, but I went with wine instead. I knew I would sip wine more slowly than I would a gin and tonic and I didn't want to get hammered on our date. I wanted to be able to ask intelligent questions and remember his answers. Moreover, I didn't want to let the alcohol drown out my inhibitions and end up falling into bed with him because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
"So, Eric, where are you from originally?" I asked him once we were seated at a table outside on the little patio area they had set up. Rock music I didn't recognize was playing through speakers I couldn't see but seemed to be everywhere.
"What makes you think I'm not from right here in Louisiana?" He asked with a smirk while I swirled my wine.
"Well, you don't talk like a redneck, for starters, and it's rare to find a guy from around these parts who doesn't and has lived here his whole life." I explained to him.
His smirk grew into a smile and he said, "I was actually born in North Carolina. My parents are both college professors and when I was still a baby my father was offered a position at the Göteborgs University in Gothenburg, Sweden. So from the time I was about eight months old until just before I started high school, I lived in Sweden."
"So then you speak Swedish as well as English?" I asked with an excited smile on my face.
"I do, and you look…really excited over this," Eric chuckled a little.
"I'm sorry; it's just that pretty much anyone I've ever met speaks French or Redneck, so Swedish is a nice change of pace." I explained to him.
"Do you speak redneck, Sookie?" he smirked.
"Of course I do!" I nodded and sipped my wine.
"Okay," Eric straightened up a little in his chair and said, "Say something redneck to me."
"Something redneck…" I quirked an eyebrow in thought and then motioned for him to come closer. He leaned over and I leaned in to meet him. I was damn close to his ear I could feel the heat coming off of his body. In the sultriest voice I could muster I whispered, "Nascar."
Eric barked out a laugh and nearly doubled over because of it. He looked at me with intense amusement on his face. "That was pretty good."
I giggled and said, "Why thank you. I've been training my whole life for that. So do I get to hear you say something in Swedish?"
"What would you like to hear?" Eric cleared his throat.
"Not Nascar," I said with a laugh and shook my head. "Surprise me. Say whatever comes to mind."
"That's a dangerous invitation on a first date," he took a drink of his Heineken and thought for a moment about what to say. He cleared his throat again, looked me right in the eyes and said, "Du har ett vackert leende."
The foreign language did strange things to me and sent tingles running all through my body. I couldn't help smiling at him and asking, "What does that mean?"
"You have a beautiful smile," he said without hesitation and I know my damn traitor cheeks started to burn.
"Thank you," I took another drink of my wine. I needed to slow down.
"So I'm guessing you're a native to Louisiana?" Eric got himself situated in his chair.
"Yessir. I was actually born in the house you picked me up from. There was a nasty thunderstorm the night I was born and bolt of lightening took out one of the trees so the driveway was all blocked up. Luckily, our nearest neighbor was a doctor so he came over and delivered me. I've lived in that house my whole life, minus the four years I was away at school and even then I was just down at Tulane."
"You've never left the state of Louisiana?" Eric looked shocked.
"Of course I have; I've just never lived anywhere else."
"I see. So what's your favorite place you've traveled to?"
Ah the beginning of the interview portion of the date. The part where you hear bits and pieces of the other person's life and try to make an assessment of that person to see if they're as interesting as your attraction to them makes you hope they are. There is nothing worse than meeting someone you're attracted to and then finding out they have absolutely nothing else going on for them. For me it usually ends up that they don't have both halves of their brain working in tandem, or they have no sense of humor. I'm a girl who likes to laugh but I'm somewhat selective about it, in spite of my nervous giggles from time to time.
We talked about all sorts of things, from our favorite music and movies to some of the more embarrassing things we endured as awkward teenagers. The funny thing was I didn't really mind sharing stuff like that with him. It struck me as strange how I felt like I was talking to an old friend. There was just an immediate intimacy between us that I couldn't explain.
"See this?" I asked, leaning forward to show him a small scar just below my neck on my chest and Eric nodded. That was a bit of a test to see if he'd check out my boobs while he was looking and he passed with flying colors when he didn't. "I got that while I was down at Lake Charles with Jason and some of our friends a few years ago. I got stinking drunk on rum and coke and a couple of the guys went outside to smoke and I followed them out there. We were staying on a houseboat that belonged to Sophie-Anne's parents. So I'm outside, stumbling around on the deck of this boat completely wasted and when I look over the side of the boat I think I see a group of fish playing in the water. Well, stupid, drunk me decides it'd be a great idea to lean over a little further. The next thing I know, my balance is completely gone and I start to fall forward. Thank God Alcide grabbed me by the hood of my sweatshirt and yanked me backward to keep me from falling in. The next morning I woke up and had this awful zipper patterned line on my neck and no idea what the hell I did to get it. The moral of the story? No rum and coke for Sookie."
Eric laughed at my story and lightly touched the small scar on my chest from that damn zipper. "I like scars," he admitted and smiled into my eyes. "Usually there's a pretty good story behind how a person got it."
"So what about you? Do you have any scars?" I leaned forward and propped my chin on my fist.
"Many. My mother threatened to wrap me in bubble wrap when I was nine. That year I broke my left arm, my right foot and three fingers. All at different times, mind you."
"Jesus what were you up to as a kid?"
"Boy stuff," Eric shrugged. "Around that time extreme sports had just started to become something more mainstream so I wanted to ride dirt bikes, skateboard, inline skate and whatever else was fun. I broke my arm going skiing with my father, actually, and I still don't think Mom has fully forgiven Dad for it. I broke my foot skateboarding after I was expressly forbidden from doing it without a parent present. And my fingers got broken while I was playing soccer. I got knocked over on the field and some tank of a kid stepped on my hand."
"Ouch," I cringed for him and he showed me his left hand. His middle finger seemed to have retained the most damage. "That looks like it must have been painful."
"It wasn't fun," he said with a quiet laugh. "I think the worst thing though was when I took a dive headfirst off my bike and skinned up half of my face."
I gasped and covered my mouth. "Oh my gosh! That had to be horrible."
"It was pretty gross. To make matters worse it happened three days before picture day when I was twelve." He told me with a goofy smile.
"Oh no!" I laughed behind my hand.
"The pictures were…well, they were colorful. I think that was the only time I ever had my pictures retaken but I have one of the originals around somewhere. Mom wanted to throw them away but I stole one out of the trash."
"Why did you want to keep a copy of it?"
"I thought it was cool at the time. I mean, I looked like hell but I considered it a badge of honor of some sort, you know what I mean? I seriously looked like Two Face from the Batman comics which really only made the whole thing cooler in my opinion."
"You were into comic books?" I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing.
"Hell yes. I went through a total nerd phase for a while. I got really tall really fast and my coordination went seriously out the window until I was about seventeen. I figured I had enough scars and stories about broken bones, not to mention my father pretty much begged me to stop scaring my mother with freaky new injuries," Eric admitted and I couldn't help laughing again. "So I had to find less active ways to occupy my time. It was actually my father who got me into reading them in the first place. He had a lot of first editions he'd collected and it ended up becoming a hobby we chased together."
"Awww that's sweet," I smiled at him and I swear he blushed a little. "You were a comic book nerd. I never would have thought."
"What were you into when you were fourteen?" He asked in response, clearly eager to get off the subject. It was sweet.
"When I was fourteen? Mmm…probably boy bands," I admitted with a laugh when Eric looked at me like I had two heads. "Well, it was that time in pop culture. I thought Justin Timberlake was seriously hot."
Shoot me. I was fourteen and 'N Sync was the most popular band on the planet. Not to mention I love dancing and that's what that music was made for. Back in the days when MTV still aired music videos, I was glued to TRL everyday after school and told Eric as much. I almost always missed the first half of the countdown but the best videos were always at the top end anyway. I remember getting all teary eyed and depressed when they retired Bye Bye Bye. Pathetic, I know.
"You know, it's a good thing you met me," Eric leaned a little closer to me again and his hand landed on mine on top of the table.
"Why's that?" I met his eyes and hoped he hadn't felt my hand jump a little when he touched me.
"Because you'll finally learn what good music is." His smile was devastating that close up.
For a split second I thought he might kiss me, or maybe I was just hoping he would. It felt like one of those moments but instead, he pulled back just a little bit, still keeping his hand on mine.
"Want to go see if a pool table is open?" He suggested instead and I nodded.
Playing pool was the furthest thing from my mind just then but maybe that was a good thing. I really needed to slow down.
o.O.o.O.o
"Worst pickup line you ever heard." Eric said as we walked to my front door.
"Oh God, I've heard some bad ones. I think the worst was how do you like your eggs in the morning, scrambled or fertilized?" I cringed at the memory of the particularly gross guy who had said that to me while I was in a jazz bar in the French Quarter with my college roommate Amelia.
"Please tell me you junk punched the guy who said that to you," Eric shook his head.
"No, but my roommate did. Amelia's a little more aggressive than I am." I said as we climbed the steps to my front porch. "What's the worst pickup line you ever used?"
"I don't." Eric said and I laughed in disbelief. "I don't, I swear. They never work and only become fodder for girls to talk about on first dates with respectable guys, or for girls to tell their friends about when they bitch about what pigs men are."
I could have been offended by his presumption but he wasn't wrong. I couldn't even count the number of times that particular subject had come up. Pickup lines were the kind of thing that straddled the line between hilarious and offensive and it was hard to tell which way they were going to go.
"Okay, so then what's the worst pickup line you ever heard?" I asked and leaned against the front door.
"That shirt is very becoming on you. If I was on you, I'd be coming too." He recited without hesitation and my mouth dropped.
"That's just gross!" I laughed along with him. It was amazing what sorts of things people would say, thinking it was sexy. How wrong they often were.
Then all of a sudden Eric got a little closer to me and reached for my hand. It was amazing how easily our hands fit together. "Best first date," he whispered, his face getting closer and closer to mine.
"Right now," I whispered, my eyes focusing on those freakishly kissable lips that were closing in inch by inch. "You?"
"Same," he whispered and then his lips brushed against mine.
If I got tingles from holding his hand, kissing him caused a damn near grand mal seizure. My lips followed his, not wanting to be left alone so soon. His free hand brushed my cheek and our eyes met. I smiled at him and then leaned in to really kiss him and I swear I exploded inside. I'd never had a reaction like that to kissing someone before. His hand moved to the back of my head and attempted to tangle itself in my hair. Damn ponytail messed up his plan so he settled his hand on my throat instead.
But before we could go too far, I broke the kiss as gently as I could. My body screamed in protest but I had to. All I could think about was that if he kissed that good, the sex would be even better and I wasn't going to be that girl. I had never done the one night stand thing and I definitely didn't put out on the first date. I didn't even follow that three date rule.
"I have to go inside before I drag you in with me," I smiled nervously at Eric after catching my breath a little.
"I would be okay with that," he said in a teasing tone.
I sighed and said, "It sounds like a good idea now but I don't want to regret it tomorrow. Does that make sense?"
He nodded then leaned in to kiss me again. Just one more kiss and I would go inside. I figured that was an acceptable reward for flexing my will power. Only that kiss ended up lasting for almost ten minutes. I really didn't want to shoo him away but I had to.
"Can I see you again?" he asked when I pushed him back.
"I would love that." I squeezed the hand I was still holding in mine.
"Good. Then I'll call you tomorrow and we'll set something up." He promised and raised my hand to kiss the back of it.
"Okay. Thank you for tonight. I had a great time." I didn't want to let go of his hand but he was probably going to want to take that with him when he left.
"Me too. Goodnight, Sookie," he smiled as he backed down the steps, an impressive feat since he didn't look down once and he didn't stumble.
"Goodnight," I turned to unlock my door and stayed right there on the porch until his car disappeared at the end of my driveway.
Yep, that was definitely the best first date I'd ever been on.
*shoots myself up with insulin* I have extras if anyone else needs a shot. I'll be honest, writing fluff usually irks me a little, but this is fun so far for me. Huh. Maybe it's because I love picturing Eric as a comic book nerd. Who knows. Anyway, I appreciate the response from the first chapter. I'm glad you're liking this so far. Reviews are love!