Drop Dead.

Melanie and I made up after I decided to stop being childish and leave my room. We both apologized profusely, her for pushing me and me for yelling, and I told her that I’d give Andrew a chance, despite the fact that I’d never met him and hadn’t heard of him until now. But I let Melanie choose my outfit, a simple navy blue cocktail dress and a pair of black heels.

“If I break my ankle, I’m suing yeh,” I warned her jokingly. She stuck her tongue out at me and ordered me to sit in the chair in front of my vanity so she could do my hair and makeup.

I got scared when she came at me with a brush, hairspray, and a flat-iron, but when I looked in the mirror, she hadn’t made me look horrible. In fact, I liked my hair slightly curled. Then came the blush brushes and mascara wands. Once again, I feared for the worst, but it wasn’t necessary. I knew Melanie wouldn’t make me look like a two-dollar hooker for my first date in years. When I stood up from the chair and turned around to face my best friend, she squealed and quickly sobered.

“I’m damn good,” she boasted, planting her hands on her hips. I grinned wryly and shook my head, but I had to agree with her. She did an excellent job. “All right, ‘e should be ‘ere in shortleh.”

Just as the words left her mouth, Oliver poked his head through the doorway and announced Andrew’s arrival. I didn’t have butterflies like I was expecting. Instead, I felt indifferent about the whole situation. When I walked into the living room, Oliver was standing next to Andrew and I tried not to blush beneath their Oliver’s gaze.

Andrew was decent-looking. He was about as tall as Oliver, but nowhere near as skinny. He had muscle beneath his light blue dress shirt, khaki pants, and matching blazer. His hair was lighter than Oliver’s and his eyes were blue instead of Oliver’s brown.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Charlotte.” And his accent wasn’t as thick. I held out my hand for him to shake and instead he grabbed it, leaned over it, and kissed it lightly. Normally this would be the part where I’d blush and look away with a shy smile, but this time I only smiled.

After small talk, Andrew suggested we leave so he put his hand on my lower back and shooed me out the door. I bid a quick goodbye to Melanie and Oliver and we were gone. Andrew drove a black SUV kind of like mine, but his was shinier and looked more expensive. His interior was leather while mine was cloth and I hoped I didn’t scratch it. He had an expensive stereo system that played Michael McDonald (really?) on low volume.

He asked me about my job (“small coffee shop, nothing big”) and I asked him about his (“photographer for Vogue”). He asked me how long I knew Melanie (“since we were sixteen”) and I asked the same about Oliver (“only a few months”). Then he went on to talk about how he’d gotten into photography and finding out he landed the job at Vogue. I smiled, albeit falsely, and congratulated him on that. He’d gotten half-way through his entire life story before we even reached the restaurant.

Oliver hadn’t warned me that he was a big of an egomaniac, so I had to find out myself. In the middle of dinner, I thought he’d run out of things to talk about (himself) but I was clearly mistaken. I could barely get a word in edgewise because he would hold up a hand and say, “Wait, this is the best part.” Every. Single. Time.

And that wasn’t even the worst part. That honor belonged to the fact that, regardless of how annoying it was to hear Andrew blab on and on about himself, the entire time I was comparing him to Oliver and how this date would have gone if it was him in Andrew’s place. I was almost positive Oliver would be avoiding himself as a topic throughout the entire dinner.

I took notice that Andrew’s laugh was nowhere near melodious as Oliver’s was. Andrew’s was deep and reminded me of those old-fashioned British men in the top hats who smoked out of pipes. Andrew’s blue eyes didn’t light up like Oliver’s did when something made him laugh. They remained dull and almost lifeless until he was talking about himself – so basically, they shined all throughout dinner.

Melanie and Oliver drilled me with questions when I got back to the apartment and, not wanting to be rude, I plastered on a fake smile and told them I’d had a great time and that I’d be seeing Andrew again soon. They both seemed ecstatic, albeit Melanie a little more than Oliver. He sent me a grateful smile and a nod, both of which flew right over Melanie’s head, and it was painful to force a smile back.

The truth was, I had no intention of ever seeing or hearing from Andrew again. When he dropped me off and leaned in for a kiss, I politely turned my head away and let him kiss my cheek. He played it off as shyness and asked for my number. I gave him a fake one. I hated being rude, but who wants to sit through an hour or so of someone jabbering away about themselves? I could never get a word in because his voice would override mine, which was way ruder than my faking having a good time.

I went to bed that night with an empty head for once.