Make My Heart a Better Place

I chewed my lip, mentally cursing Sarah for sending me off on this blind date. I hate blind dates. The last one I was sent on turned out to be a complete mentalist. Admittedly Sarah hadn’t set me up. A concerned aunt of mine had...concerned my ass. She just hated the fact that I put my career before finding a husband. I trusted Sarah’s judgement but it didn’t stop my nerves.

I sighed as I decided that I had lingered long enough. I couldn’t put it off anymore, so I took a deep breath and rounded the corner where the restaurant was where I was meeting this mystery man. Sarah refused to tell me anything about this man except that he’d be waiting with two deep purple roses and, in her words, without him I’d be ‘incomplete’...she then started singing Backstreet Boys so I presumed she’d completely lost it. This only made me more nervous about this date.

Could I really trust my best friend when it was quite clear that she’s a fucking lunatic?

“Can I help miss?”

I was brought out of my thoughts and focused to find that I had walked up to the hosts podium bit. I smiled hesitantly and nodded, tucking one of my curls behind my ear.

“Erm...I’m meeting someone here,” I told him lamely.

He nodded. “Do you have the name?”

I shook my head and bit my lip. “It’s kind of a...erm, no. Sorry. All I know is that he will have two dark purple roses on him.”

The host grinned and nodded. “I know who you are talking about. I’ll take you over. Would you like me to take your coat?”

I smiled in thanks and shrugged off my jacket, handing it over to him and glancing down at myself to make sure my outfit wasn’t creased. Sarah had told me to dress up so I had. But I didn’t want to seem overdressed, so at the same time it was nice and simple.

My heels clicked across the floor as I followed the host, my gaze flicking over any man I could see sitting at a table by himself and who didn’t look like he had company. I then turned my gaze to the floor as I wondered who Sarah could have set me up with. She told me I knew of him but had never actually met him. Seeing as I knew the majority of Sarah’s friends, as they were nearly all my friends too, I was somewhat confused as to who this could be.

“Here you go,” the host announced and my gaze snapped up, my jaw almost hitting the ground as I gazed at the man in front of me.

His lips curved up in a smile and his dark brown eyes sparkled with amusement as he stood from his chair, two purple long stemmed roses in his hand. I felt myself smile back and inwardly thank Sarah as he walked around the table to me.

“Lyndsey?”

I nodded and took his hand in mine as he stretched it out to me, my eyes wandering up and down the tattoos on his arms.

“That would be me, which means you are my mystery date that Sarah refused to tell me anything about,” I chuckled, having now gotten over the shock of who my date was. “But I now understand why she started singing Backstreet Boys at me.”

AJ laughed before holding out the roses for me. “These are for you.”

“Thank you,” I replied quiet as I took them, our fingers brushing ever so lightly. “Have you been waiting long?”

He shook his head and pulled my chair out for me, waiting for me to sit down before he walked around to the other side of the table and sat down himself.

“Not really. About five minutes,” he responded and shrugged as he smiled a little sheepishly. “I was slightly scared that you weren’t going to come.”

I smiled. “I’m not going to lie. I was tempted not to come. Last time I went on a blind date...he turned out to be a little bit of a mentalist.”

AJ chuckled. “I’m glad you decided to come.”

“Me too,” I smiled before we both lapsed into a small silence as we looked at the menu.

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“So what do you do?” AJ asked, interest laced through his voice.

“I’m a nurse,” I replied with a fond smile.

AJ smiled in what looked like awe before he nodded, obviously approving of my chosen career.

“So you like it then?”

I nodded enthusiastically. “I love it. I work in emergency so it’s pretty non-stop but I do really enjoy what I do. It’s nice knowing that I’m making a difference to people’s lives. Sarah doesn’t understand how I do it, especially with the hours I sometimes do. But I wouldn’t want my life any other way. I’m pretty content with it to be honest.”

AJ almost grinned as I said that, his head bobbing up and down in a nod again as he considered what I’d said.

“I totally admire that. There aren’t a lot of people nowadays who’d actually openly admit to being happy with their life. Too many people look for the bad.”

“They do,” I agreed with him somewhat sadly. “I see it quite a lot at the hospital. It’s pretty sad actually and the people who bewail their lives very rarely have something to bewail, which just gets on my nerves.”

“That’s true.”

I nodded before looking to the side as the waiter came over.

“Are you finished?”

I glanced at AJ and he nodded as he looked at me. I smiled and nodded too.

“Yeah we are.”

“Okay,” the waiter replied as he took our plates. “Your desserts will be out in a moment.”

I smiled in thanks as he walked away and my eyes lit up when I remembered what I’d ordered for my dessert.

“Thinking about your dessert?”

I chuckled and nodded. “Yup. Chocolate fudge cake is a big weakness of mine.”

AJ laughed and I bit my lip as the sound vibrated through me.

“So...you do music?” I voiced and AJ chuckled and nodded.

We launched into a conversation about how he started and as he spoke I couldn’t help but feel completely stunned by him still. I grew up listening to Backstreet Boys and had once had a huge poster of AJ on my wall. I drooled over him from afar and now I was drooling over him from about a foot away. It all seemed surreal to me.

I took in everything about him as he spoke. The way he used his hands to accentuate different points he was making, to the tone in his voice as he talked about the different parts of his life. AJ was very expressive in everything he did and it made me feel drawn to him in some way.

I was definitely slowly finding that my long time crush on him was slowly turning into something more. Even more than just your standard feelings of lust.

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“My last proper relationship was a disaster,” I admitted as AJ walked me to the apartment I shared with Sarah. “Six months wasted on a guy that turned out to actually be gay. He told me that I was his last test. I didn’t appreciate that.”

AJ chuckled. “I bet you didn’t but that sucks.”

I nodded. “Sucks doesn’t even cover it. What about you?”

“Nope, definitely not gay,” he replied, sending me a teasing smile.

I rolled my eyes and nudged him. “You know what I mean.”

He nodded. “I was engaged but it broke off. I was going through some stuff and it just didn’t work out due to it. It was my fault really but it still hurt you know?”

I bit my lip and nodded before looking up to see that we were now outside my front door. I took a deep breath and turned to look at AJ.

“I had a really good night tonight,” I told him in all honesty. “You were a really nice surprise.”

AJ smirked slightly. “So were you. I never know whether to trust Sarah’s judgement.”

I shrugged. “She’s a bit of a lunatic, but I think that’s why we all love her.”

AJ chuckled and nodded before glancing at me and rubbing the back of his neck somewhat.

“I don’t suppose...would you like to do this again one night?”

“I’d love that,” I replied with a bright smile.

He grinned and we exchanged numbers, with promises of meeting up soon.

“I’ll talk to you soon Lyndsey.”

I nodded. “Look forward to it Alex.”

He smiled, his brown eyes sparkling again, before he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine quickly. It was so quick and so light that I hardly felt it, though I did feel the sparks that erupted within me. I looked at him quickly before pulling him back to me and kissing him harder, our tongues tangling a moment later. With my back pressed against the front door, I let AJ’s hands wander slightly against my body, feeling them undo my coat so he could press his hands against my waist the material of my dress pushing against my skin.

I stumbled back but didn’t fall, AJ’s hands gripping me as we both looked over my shoulder. I rolled my eyes when I found myself staring at a grinning Sarah. I glanced back at AJ and he chuckled before righting me and letting go.

“Sarah?”

“Yeah,” she replied to me.

I looked at her and leant forward, grabbing the door and closing it not being able to hold my laughter as the door closed on her shocked face. AJ laughed as I looked at him and shrugged.

“She needs to mind her own damn business,” I pointed out before pulling him back to me. “Now where were we?”