Love is a Laserquest

“Hey, we're going to grab some dinner if you want to come, Steeger.” said a voice behind me. I didn't bother to turn around and see who it belonged to. I was too busy digging in my duffel bag looking for my phone to see if Lexi had called.

“Yeah, okay, man. I'll catch up with you guys later.” I said waving a hand in the air as I unlocked the password on my cell.

“2 new text messages.” I pressed my finger to the notification and reviewed my texts.

“One from Sharpie and one from Lexi. Yes! Well Sharpie can definitely wait.” I thought as I touched Lexi's name.

“So...want to get lunch at Millie's on Tuesday?” She felt awkward when she sent this, I could tell. Whenever she started a sentence off with “so” and then a pause, it meant she wasn't quite sure of herself or the situation.

“Yeah! Want to get dinner right now, too?” I wrote back. I was probably being too aggressive. Alexandria was like a turtle. Once you scared her into her shell, you had to give her time and space to feel comfortable enough to come back out.

I got dressed and packed my things up as I waited for a response. I didn't have to wait long.

“Can't tonight. Work to do. Excited for Tuesday though. 2 pm sound good?” I sighed a little in disappointment. I had pushed my luck by trying to move things along quicker than Lex was willing to go right now. I was smart enough to know “work to do” was a false excuse to try to spare my feelings. It was fine though. As long as I'd get to see her eventually, that's all that mattered.

“Yeah, sounds great! Can't wait!”

-x-

Lexi's POV

I put my phone down beside me, picked my pint of Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack back up, and looked back up at the TV as I unconsciously started shoving ice cream in my mouth. I wasn't actually paying attention to what was playing. I didn't even know what was playing at this point. My mind was elsewhere. Well...on Kris Versteeg to be exact.

I felt stupid for lying about having to work. Getting dressed and meeting him somewhere for dinner would be no trouble at all. I actually wanted to do that more than anything. But I knew deep down I couldn't let myself be so available.

Okay, so I was really following the advice of Sara and countless repetitive magazine articles geared towards desperate women with shitty love lives. Or in other words...me.

They contained legitimate cliche words of wisdom though! I couldn't just let him waltz back in. We needed to take it slow. Feel things out. I needed to know that I didn't still completely hate his existence. And above all, I needed to see where things stood with Eric. I knew breaking up with Eric and jumping into a relationship with Kris wasn't the answer right now. There were a lot of things that still needed to be worked through and talked about.

The more I thought about the situation, the more I realized this was the right move. Tuesday was only two days away. I could wait that long and I was sure he could as well. We would just have to wait and see where the day took us.