It's Our Time (Carolina Rebels 3)
I find us a table and a waitress immediately appears with a menu. Our table has a Never Have I Ever card game and Cards Against Humanity on it.
“How’d you find this place?”
“Teammate recommended it.”
She nods and we look over the menu and the beers, as the bar brews their own. Once we’ve placed our order, I notice Sydney’s legs doing their nervous jig thanks to the tabletop being glass. On
e of the first things I noticed about Sydney was that when she was upset or nervous, her legs constantly shifted positions to match how antsy she was.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Her eyes flick toward me. “This is odd.”
“What is?”
“Being on a date with you.”
I laugh. We’ve been friends for six and a half years, have been fucking on and off for five of them, and us being on a date is weird? “We’ve hung out before.”
“Not on an official date. It’s like the two parts of our relationship are colliding.”
I reach under the table and squeeze her knee. “It’s just me, babe. It’s just us hanging out.”
The waitress drops off our beers and Sydney picks it up, but doesn’t take a sip. “I’ve never drank alcohol.”
“Not even when you turned twenty-one?”
“Nope. Savannah had a stomach bug, so I didn’t go out. Things kept coming up, so we never went out to celebrate. When I’ve been on dates, I really don’t want that to be my first time drinking and that’s really the only opportunity I’ve had to drink alcohol because we don’t keep any at the house. Why is that making you smile?”
“I get another first.”
She smiles and then takes three sips of her beer. “Okay, I don’t like this. Let me try yours.” She grabs my glass out of my hand and after a sip, she’s switching our glasses. “See if you like mine better because I like yours.”
Hers ends up tasting good, so I keep it and let her have mine.
“Savannah,” she starts, but I interrupt her.
“This is a date. Even I know that dates mean no kids. I want to talk about you and only you.”
“But you already know everything about me.” She points this out as if I should already know this. She sort of has a point because I do know a lot about her, but not everything.
“No, I don’t. I don’t know how this compares to your other dates. I don’t know everything you did in the two years we didn’t talk. You didn’t tell me everything when we did start talking, so I don’t know everything about you. There’s still things to learn.”
“You know everything that’s important,” she says.
“I want to know everything, period, babe.”
Her legs cross at the ankle and then over the knee. “Like what?”
The waitress drops off our food and I realize the first two questions that come to mind, I can’t ask. I said we can’t talk about Savannah, which means I can’t ask how she chose to name her. Then, because it’s like I’m still a teenager and she looks fucking hot in her snug sweater and skinny jeans, I’m thinking about sex, which makes me want to ask how many other people she’s slept with. That’s not a good first question, so I need to ask something else.
“How is your relationship with your father nowadays?”
Sydney relaxes. “Better than it was. We had a heart to heart when Savannah was born and things have been better since then. He comes down to see her a few times a year, so you can expect to see him next month for her birthday.”
“That’s good. I’m really glad to hear that. Do you want more kids one day?”
“First reaction is to say no, but I think if I was more settled in life with a stable job with good income and most importantly, if I had a man by my side, then yeah. I wouldn’t mind giving Savannah a little brother or sister and…” Sydney’s voice trails off. She looks unsure as she gulps down more beer, looking down at her food.