Remembering Sundays

The door to the all too familiar coffee shop dinged as Zack walked through the door and glanced around. A week after their first date, Zack was now meeting Emma and her best friend for the first time. He was nervous, but not as nervous as he had been before the date he had taken Emma on. But from what he could tell, this was her best friend the other girl was really protective of her and if this didn’t go well Zack was screwed.

Finding Emma sitting at a table close by facing the door, he took a breath as he headed over to the table. Her best friend was sitting opposite her with her back turned to him and he tried to calm himself down and he came closer. Emma saw him first and a huge smile broke out on her face as she stood and met him and wrapped her arms around him in a greeting as the other woman at the table turned to face them and he caught a glance at her. And as soon as he saw her he recognized her as the other girl that had been with Emma at the music store when he had seen her before they had officially met.

When she let go of the hug, he saw the slight blush on her face but tried to hide it by looking next to her where the other girl now stood. “Zack, this is my best friend Lauren, and Lauren, this is my boyfriend Zack.”

“Hey Lauren, it’s really nice to meet you!” Zack replied, offering the blonde his hand and trying to swallow his nervousness.

Lauren smiled and took his hand, “Yes it’s nice to meet you too finally. Emma won’t stop talking about you.”

Zack blushed at that and took a seat across from the other girls. Noticing that neither of them had any drinks, he offered to go and get them some and excused himself as he went to the line. He took those five minutes as he ordered to take a deep breath and calm himself down. And when he returned to the table with the three cups, he took one more deep breath before sitting across from the girls and smiling as he handed out the drinks.

After only a matter of minutes of talking, Zack finally relaxed. Lauren was actually really nice and didn’t glare at him or threaten to hurt him if he broke Emma’s heart. He could tell instantly that they were really good friends and that Lauren looked out for the younger girl and they were basically inseparable. But the best thing was that Zack didn’t feel like the third wheel like he sometimes did while out with pervious girlfriends and their best friends. They didn’t share any inside jokes leaving Zack out and chatted about anything and everything they could think of.

Nearly three hours later, Lauren finally announced that she had to leave. She was engaged to her boyfriend of five years and was going to meet up with her future in-laws to discuss wedding plans. Emma hugged the older girl and Zack just smiled and tried to hide the shock when Lauren hugged him before waving to the two of them and then rushing out the door to her car. Zack and Emma decided to leave also and Zack grabbed their now empty cups and threw them away before taking Emma’s hand and heading through the door out into the beautiful Californian weather.

“So, what do you think?” Emma asked, biting her lip and looking absolutely adorable as she turned to him to wait for him to reply.

Zack just smiled, “She’s really awesome, I can tell why you two are friends. You’re so alike it’s scary. I think in another life you two were sisters or related somehow.”

“Haha! Yeah, when we first met it was like we had known each other for years instead of minutes after we first started talking.” She laughed making him smile more as he lead her to a little café that he figured they could grab some lunch at.

“How long have you two known each other? It seems like we burned through a lot of topics in a matter of hours but never got around to that one. You met at work right?”

Emma nodded, “yeah. She is the third grade teacher at my school and I’m the fourth grade and we met the first day of class. That was three years ago now just after I moved here from South Dakota. How did you and Ben meet?”

Zack just rolled his eyes at the mention of his best friend. He had introduced them a few days before so it had been his turn that day to meet her best friend. And surprisingly the meeting had gone well. Ben hadn’t embarrassed him too much and Emma didn’t get weirded out by him thankfully.

He explained once they were seated at a table and began talking more, enjoying all the time they were spending together lately. After the first date, they had nearly been inseparable, either talking on the phone or talking in person. They hadn’t gone on another date yet but maybe the random meet ups could be considered dates. But Zack really wanted to do something a little nicer than a small informal café with the standard food. Emma was already special to him and he wanted to show her that. Maybe he was going to have to plan another date for them soon.

Once they were finished eating, Emma also had to go since she was teaching a late beginners to sign language class she did once a month at the school she worked at. So once the bill was paid and they were standing to the side outside the café, Zack leaned down and kissed her cheek lightly as a goodbye gesture as she promised to call him later that night once her class was done.

Standing there a few moments as she walked away, he could wipe the smile off of his face as he finally turned and made his way back to the coffee shop where he had left his car. The whole drive home consisted of replaying different parts of the day and the smile growing even more on his face as he remembered. He was turning into a complete hopeless romantic and he actually really didn’t care.

“Dude, you’re ridiculous,” was the first thing he heard from his best friend as he walked through the door to his apartment.

He found Ben sitting on his couch, playing a video game and he just rolled his eyes as he kicked his shoes off and joined him on the couch. “And you’re referring to?”

“The fact that you have this gigantically huge dumbass smile on your face. You’ve only known the girl for a little while and you’re head over heels.” Ben explained without looking up from the game.

Zack rolled his eyes, “whatever. I really like her.”

“I can tell,” was all Ben muttered before jumping up from the couch as he began yelling at the tv because he lost the game.

Zack just rolled his eyes, allowing the conversation to end as he grabbed his own controller so he could play against Ben as he began a new round. It was about time he stopped acting like a complete love struck high school girl and gain his masculinity back. And what better way than playing video games?