Nora was nervous; she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this way- butterflies swirling around in her stomach, knees barely able to hold her up standing. She felt like she had so much riding on this- she was already so invested and they’d only been talking for around two weeks. It was probably because she’d fantasised about him for years and now it was finally happening.
Nora gave herself a quick once over in the mirror. Her hair needed washing really, but nothing she could do about that now. She’d just thrown on leggings and a crop top because he’d said he wanted her to feel comfortable, so comfortable she would feel. Her mom and sister told her she looked nice and hoped that she had a nice time. She just played it down though- they didn’t need to know how much she wanted this to go well, because she’d be slightly crushed if it didn’t.
‘I’m outside’, his text read. ‘Or at least I think I’m outside your house anyway’.
She told her family goodbye, grabbed her keys, and went outside to meet him.
Did I tell you that she was nervous?
Because god was Nora nervous.
He had in fact parked outside her house. She opened the door, trying to climb into his car as gracefully as her awkward disposition allowed. As she got in, he smiled at her, and her heart did a little flip in her chest.
Fuck, he was going to break her heart with a smile like that.
‘Hey’
‘Hey’
They were both a little awkward and nervous, but that was okay because Nora thought that if he was as nervous as she was, then that meant he was already invested too.
***
They drove back to his house in comfortable silence, just taking in the presence of the other. When he pulled up, he found that there wasn’t a lot of room to park, and ended up breaking off his wing mirror trying to squeeze onto the drive.
‘That’s your fault’, he laughed.
‘It isn’t, I wasn’t driving’.
‘We’ll I’ve never done it before, and since you were in the car…’ She laughed at that and he led her inside.
They spent most of the night talking and listening to music, just trying to get to know one another. Nora was scared of saying anything too intimate, so she made sure to keep the conversation on rather inconsequential topics. But as the evening drew to a close, and the hours of the day were slowly coming to an end, the conversation turned more serious, more deep. And Nora didn’t like that because she wasn’t ready to tell him how broken she was yet, or how sad she’d be if he decided she wasn’t enough for him.
But the thing was, he said the opposite of what her miserable heart was thinking.
‘Do you not think we could be something good?’ he asked, almost out of the blue when the conversation had died down a little.
And god did she- that’s all she wanted. And not just with anyone, but with him. But she couldn’t say yes, it was too soon; she didn’t want to jinx it, didn’t want to get her hopes up. So she just shrugged her shoulders instead.
Then he pulled her onto his lap.
And he kissed her.
And Nora melted into him because nothing had ever felt so good- she’d finally found someplace that she wanted to stay.