It was not his concern.
---
As Angel accompanied her to her front door, shoving his keys in his pocket, Willow got the distinct impression that he wanted to come inside.
"Well, thanks for dinner," she said, offering him a smile as she stood with her back to the door.
"No problem," he said, grinning at her. "You looked great tonight."
"Thanks."
"I mean, you always look great," he amended.
"Thanks," she said, feeling a touch more awkward.
“We should do this again.” He flashed her a smile.
“Yeah, we could probably do that.”
Since the date had gone well—and it was their second, technically, even though she hadn’t realized that hanging out in a group the first time had been a date—and she was agreeing to another one, it wasn’t at all unreasonable when he leaned in to kiss her.
Quickly dodging him, she went in for a hug instead, and he seemed surprised.
When she pulled back, he looked a little less excited. Still, he assured her he would text her later, gave her another once-over in case she hadn’t yet understood that he thought she looked good, and then finally turned to leave.
Willow opened the door and made her way inside quickly, locking the door behind her. Her stupid heels were killing her, so she happily kicked them off.
“So, how’d it go?”
Spinning around, she saw her mother in a robe, smiling at her.
“It was fine,” Willow said briefly, heading for the kitchen to get a drink. “The food was kind of salty, so I need an IV of water, but other than that.”
“Did you like him?”
Rolling her eyes as Lauren followed after her, Willow said, “Sure, Angel’s pretty cool. He’s funny, I like that.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“I don?
??t know, Mom. I wouldn’t start picking out the monogrammed bath towels just yet, okay?” she said lightly.
“It’s nice to see you doing something normal again,” Lauren remarked thoughtlessly.
Willow’s mood drooped slightly, but she knew her mom meant no harm. Still, she quickly grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and told her mom she needed to go change into something more comfortable, then made sure to tell her good night, just in case she was expecting Willow to come back down and share more details.
Once she changed out of her clothing and into comfy pajamas, she flopped down on her bed and checked her phone. She went online to clear her notifications and saw a few new complimentary comments on the picture Angel had posted of them together. He looked more territorial in it than she was altogether comfortable with, and she didn’t want him to go thinking they were a couple just because they went on—by her standards—one single date.
Her stupid ex posted some passive aggressive meme about a “whore” ex-girlfriend, which she suspected was aimed at her, but who really knew? When he passed her in the hall earlier that day, he had given her a pretty sour look, so it probably was. Seeing his bitchiness definitely made her regret dumping him though, so way to think that one through.
There was a new comment from one of her old friends that simply read, “deets!!!!!!! call me” which only served to enhance her annoyance with Angel.
Earlier in the day, he had posted a stupid status calling her “his girl” and he tagged her in it. As soon as she saw it, she removed the tag, lest everyone think she was in a new relationship, but since some of her friends lived on social media, she had not been quick enough.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered to herself as she closed out the app and opened up her messages.
She had to scroll down to get to the last one she had gotten from Ethan.