Boy Next Door

I woke up the next morning with a huge smile on my face. I got up and literally danced out of my room. I danced past Lauren and over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water.

“I’m guessing it went well,” Lauren said, noticing how happy it was. I didn’t tell her about last night yet because she was already asleep when I came home. My only response to her was a bigger smile, if that was possible. “So are you guys going to go on a date?” she asked. I nodded my head to answer her, not knowing if I could actually say words. “So what are you guys doing?”

“I don’t know actually. He said we’d go on a date Tuesday and that he’d text me later with the details,” I said.

“So how did you tell him?” I told her the whole story about last night. She thought it was really cute about how devastated Marc was when he thought I didn’t like him. Lauren excused herself and told me she had to go back to her dorm to get ready for her classes. The freshmen start before the seniors. My classes don’t start until Thursday. I faintly heard American Idiot playing from my room so I ran in. hoping it was Marc.

“Hello,” I answered cheerfully.

“You, me, dinner tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at six,” he said blatantly.

“Sounds like a date. Oh, but what should a wear?”

“Nice but not fancy.”

“Got it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See ya then.” I hung up the phone and walked back into my tiny living room.

“Hey,” said a man from my kitchen. I let out a deafening scream. No one was supposed to be in my apartment besides me right now. I tip-toed my way into the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as possible. I stuck my head out from behind the wall to see who had snuck into my apartment. I put my hand to my heart and let out a sigh of relief. It was only Mike.

“How did you get in here?” I asked, calming down from my mini panic attack.

“I know where you keep your spare key,” he said like nothing had just happened. I walked over to him and shoved him into the counter.

“Well you almost gave me a heart attack, you big fat meanie.”

“I may be mean but I am not fat,” he said defending himself. “So I hear you have a date tonight,” he said, changing the subject.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. What I do in my free time is none of your business Mr. Del Zotto,” I said. I don’t know why, but I felt like annoying him today. Anyways, I know he already knows. He definitely was talking to it Marc about it.

“Give it up, I already know,” he said, verifying my thoughts.

“I knew it,” I mumbled under my breath. “So why are you here anyways?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Actually, I wanted to ask you a question about Lauren.” He looked kind of nervous. I nodded my head, telling him to continue. “Do you think she’d want to go out with me, on a real date this time?” I nodded my head furiously.

“She would definitely say yes. Definitely ask her out,” I said, encouraging Mike to ask her out. “Oh so Mike, when’s Tuesday?” I asked, trying to figure out when my date is.

“Tomorrow,” he replied calmly.

“Ok… HOLY CRAP!!! MY DATE IS TOMORROW!” I said, freaking out.

“Calm down, it’s just a date,” he said, attempting to comfort me

“I know, but I thought it was Saturday, not Monday,” I said, still freaking out. I tried controlling my breathing, wondering why I was freaking out. It was just one date. I’ve been on plenty of dates before, what’s so different about this one? Nothing is different except the fact that it’s with Marc Staal, defenseman for the New York Rangers.

“Okay. I’m going to leave and call Lauren and you calm down for your date tomorrow,” Mike said while walking towards the door. I nodded my head in agreement. He left my apartment, leaving me there, freaking out.

I walked into my bathroom and took a nice, relaxing shower. That always calmed my nerves. After that I just sat around all day like I lived a very boring life.

*~*~*~*~*

“DANIELLE! YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO ASKED ME OUT ON A DATE!” Lauren yelled, barging into my apartment. It was around one in the afternoon. I gave Lauren an extra key to my apartment so she wouldn’t have to be with her bitch of a roommate all the time.

“Mike,” I said blatantly. She looked at me with a very confused expression on her face.

“How did you know that?” she asked as she placed her hands on her hips.

“Mike is my best friend. We always go to each other when we need advice. He asked me if you would like to go on a real date and I said that you would love to.”

“And how did you know that I would love to?” she asked, starting to get aggravated.

“Because you haven’t stopped talking about him since I introduced you guys to each other,” I said, stating the obvious. I hopped up off the couch, running to my bedroom. I ran back into the living room when I realized that Lauren wasn’t following me. I grabbed her arm and dragged her to my bedroom. I pointed to my closet. “Help me find something to wear tonight. Marc said to dress nice, but not fancy.”

“Okay I’ll help you, but only because I’m in a good mood.”

After endless combinations of outfits I finally found something to wear. I looked at my clock and realized that we spent four hours looking for an outfit. I shooed Lauren out of the room to put on my outfit. I walked over to my full-length mirror. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and smiled. I walked over to the door and opened it. I did a little twirl to show Lauren my entire outfit. She smiled and told me I looked gorgeous. I thanked her and walked past her to go put some make-up on. I took me a while to figure out how much make-up to put on. I never out on a lot of make-up, but deciding to put on eye-shadow or not was a big decision for me. I put on eye-liner and mascara and decided to put on a light pink eye-shadow. I put on some lip-gloss and walked back into my kitchen. I grabbed my phone off the counter and looked at the time; 6:53. I shoved my phone in my pocket and went to go find Lauren.

“How do I look?” I asked nervously.

“You look gorgeous. And stop being so nervous. It’s just a date,” she said, comforting me. I sighed, knowing she was right.

I heard the light knock at the door. I walked over, took a deep breath, and opened the door. I smiled up at him. “You ready?” he asked me. I nodded my head, linked arms with Marc, and skipped down the hallway shouting “Follow the yellow brick road!”

I sat impatiently in his truck as he drove to whatever restaurant we were going to. I kept asking him where we were going, but he kept telling me that I would find out when we got there. It turns out that we were going to this little Italian place a couple blocks away from Central Park.

Dinner was extremely nice. Marc was a total gentleman the entire time. I was actually surprised when he pulled out my chair for me. I’ve been on plenty of dates before, but not one of the guys were ever as nice as Marc was.

I frowned as Marc paid the bill. I offered to pay about a million times but he refused to let me. Marc looked up at me and saw me frowning. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied. He saw right through my lie. "I just don't want the date to end yet," I said honestly.

"Good, because I had something else planned for tonight," he said with a smile.

"What?" I asked. He smiled even wider and stood up. He started laughing and ran out of the small restaurant. Instead of sitting there looking like my date hated me and ran out on me, I got up and bolted after him, laughing hysterically. I got crazy looks from everyone else in the room. I saw him stopped at a crosswalk and ran towards him even faster than before. I got close to him as soon as we got the signal to cross. I ran past him and into Central Park. I looked behind me to see how close Marc was. He was about thirty yards away. Just as I turned to face forwards, my shoe broke. I fell right onto my back and started laughing. Marc was lying next to me a few moments later.

Marc and I sat there for what must have been hours just talking and looking up at the stars. I took my phone out of my pocket and looked at the time.

“Marc, it’s almost 2 a.m. We should probably get going,” I said. He sighed and nodded his head in agreement. He got up and helped me up off the ground. He started walking and I just stood there.

“What are you waiting for? You just said we should get going,” he chuckled.

“My shoe broke. I can’t walk with a broken shoe,” I said. He laughed and looked at me like I was insane.

“Well what do you want me to do about it?”

“Give me a piggy-back ride!” I squealed.

“Fine,” he said, defeated. He jogged over to where I was standing and got low enough so I could get on his back. We got back to the car in a few minutes. During the ride home we sat in a comfortable silence. He drove back to our apartment complex and drove into the parking garage. I got out of the car and walked over to Marc. I told him to get down so he could give me another piggy-back ride since my shoe was still broken. He did as I requested and gave me a piggy-back ride up to my apartment.

“Thanks for walking me to my apartment,” I chuckled. He laughed at my comment.

“It was no problem,” he replied. “I had a really great time tonight.”

“Me too.” We stood there for a few seconds just staring awkwardly at each other. He leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Goodnight Danielle.”

“Night Marc.” I gave him one last smile before walking into my apartment. I quickly changed into my sweats and went straight for my bed. I thought about tonight and how perfect it was. I couldn’t imagine having it any other way. I sighed a peaceful sigh and fell into a nice relaxing sleep.