A Little Bit Older

In my life, I had done a lot of stupid things. One would think that by the time I reached my early-30s, I would have learned from the stupid things I’d done in the past. Instead, I think I made more stupid decisions with each passing year. My most recent stupid decision though definitely took the cake for most of the poor decisions I’d made over the years.

“Ah!!” I covered my ears as Meghan threw her arms around my shoulders pulling me into a hug. “Do you mean? Are you two really going on a date?”

“What is all the screaming about?” Zack asked walking into the dining room where I had been enjoying a cup of tea and reviewing some documents for work. Hot on his heels was Theo who had taken in the past few days to following Zack everywhere he went.

“Ruby has a date!” She exclaimed before grabbing Theo off the ground into her arms and planting a large kiss on his cheek. “Auntie Ruby has a date!” She told him as he squirmed to get out of her grasp.

“No.” He whined before she finally set him down. In addition to being Zack’s shadow, he’d also recently decided the only word he knew was ‘no’.

“With who?” Zack asked sitting down on a bar stool and picking up Theo to sit in his lap.

“Guess?” Meghan asked as she walked up behind her husband and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“No way.” He said turning his head slightly to push her blonde hair out of his face.

“Way.” She laughed squeezing him tightly. “He apparently asked her yesterday!”

“Like Matt Sanders? M. Shadows? Lead singer? The one who literally two weeks ago swore that he wasn’t going to start dating for at least a year?”

“The very one! God, I feel like a fucking magician right now.” Meghan beamed glancing over at me on the other side of the room and sighing happily. “You have to come with me to meet Val before the date! She’s dying to meet you. She’ll be so happy to know he asked you on a date.”

“It’s one date. It’ll mean literally nothing.” I said redirecting my attention to the paperwork in front of me.

“I can’t believe he asked you on a date. How did that happen?” Zack asked incredulously and I realized that this probably was a bit of a big deal – not to the extent that Meghan was reacting but still a big deal.

“We ran into each other at the park and he asked if I wanted to get dinner Friday while the kids were visiting their grandparents.” I shrugged trying to maintain my nonchalant air. I was the worst liar and I realized now that agreeing to Matt’s plan to get my sister off both of our backs meant that I would have to learn how to lie convincingly very quickly.

“Well I’ll be damned. You win that bet, Meg.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Meghan chimed in resting her head-on Zack’s shoulder.

“You two are ridiculous.” Honestly, it wasn’t even much of a date we were going on. We were going to grab dinner and discuss the details of how long we’d need to pretend to date to get people from bothering us about dating. I was hoping to get at least a year without Meghan’s interference to meet a nice guy on my own.

“I need to call Val and let her know. Are you up to meeting her tonight?” Meghan asked unwinding herself from Zach and moving to leave the room.

“I have a feeling I don’t have much of a choice.” I answered and she smiled widely before agreeing and leaving the room.

“You hear that, bud? Auntie Ruby’s going on a date with Uncle Matt.” Zack told Theo while ruffling the small child’s hair.

“No!” Theo exclaimed shaking his head and making his hair even more mess.

“I agree with Theo. It means nothing.”

“I don’t know, Rubes. Matt’s only ever dated like three girls before. I think it’s a pretty big deal.”
I rolled my eyes and didn’t respond to my brother-in-law. He was too much like my sister sometimes. It was no wonder that they managed to hit it off so easily after meeting. “I mean it!” He exclaimed after seeing my indifference.

“It’s not a big deal. It’s one date and even then, it’s probably just to get Meghan off his back about dating again. You never know, he could hate the way I eat. That’s a huge deal breaker right there. I talk with my mouth full sometimes and don’t even care that it’s rude.” I told him rushing out my words quickly trying to defend myself.

“Me thinks the lady doeth protest too much.” This time it was Meghan who chimed in as she re-entered the room. “Val will be here in 20. She’s bring ‘Chelle and Lace.”

“I will take that as my cue to leave you beautiful women to your girl time. We’ll be in the game room. Right, Theo?” Zack said setting the boy on the ground and heading out the room.

“No.” Theo responded while following his dad anyways.

Somehow I found myself trapped on the couch in Meghan’s living room with three other women. Surprisingly, I recognized the twins from Meghan’s wedding which was impressive because I realized that I hadn’t remembered or recognized any of Meghan’s other friends. The reason I recognized them mainly being that they were both utterly gorgeous – which shouldn’t have been very surprising to me given that Meghan was also beautiful. Honestly, it seemed like this band just attracted good-looking woman. Even Lacey was stunning.

We’d spent the previous few hours talking and I was slowly winning everyone over. Valarie had been the easiest to win over and I think most of that came from the fact that her sons already admitted to her that they liked me. Lacey followed suit rather easily once I explained what I did for a living because she was impressed by the fact that I had a PhD in organic chemistry. Michelle proved to be the hardest nut to crack and continued to grill me on how I would handle the “rock-star” lifestyle. I had to make up answers and lie a lot because honestly, I had no intentions of having to handle the “rock-star” lifestyle. At the end of it all though,

After all of that, it was relaxing to be resting in the living room with my sleeping nephew. Zack had told him that he couldn’t have dessert before dinner and had quickly become his least favorite person. This led to Theo identifying me as his new best friend. Not that I was upset about the turn of events; I knew in a few days he’d be over me too and he’d be onto his next favorite person.
I was starting to doze off when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Hey. It’s Matt. I got your number from Zacky. Hope you don’t mind. Busy? I stared at the message for a few minutes before deciding how I wanted to reply. If I even wanted to reply. I didn’t want to read too much into the message. It was probably just him being friendly. Then again, it may be him trying to replan or cancel our “date”.

Either way, I realized it would be too immature not to reply and that I needed to stop acting like a teenager. Not really. What’s up? I sent back trying to be nonchalant. For being a man that I was going on a fake date with, this little texting thing shouldn’t be such a big deal to me.

It was a few more minutes before my phone went off again. Heard you met everyone today. Wanted to see how it went. Of course, I thought and instantly relaxed. He probably heard from Zack that I’d been given the 4th degree from the girls and just wanted to make sure I was still living. I breathed a small sigh of relief.

It wasn’t terrible. They’re nice girls. Probably should’ve tried to meet them before announcing the date but whatever. Shit happens. I sent back before standing up and deciding I should put Theo in his crib and relocate to my room. If Meghan saw me texting, she’d know right away it was Matt and I was sure that I didn’t want to deal with that episode.

Good to hear. Still on for Friday?

Definitely. What’d you have in mind?

You like diners?

If they serve breakfast for dinner, yes.

Then that’s what I have in mind. If I pick you up at 6 would you want to drop off the boys at my parents with me?

Whatever’s easiest for you.

Cool. See you at 6 on Friday.

I didn’t reply and instead tucked my phone under my pillow and buried my face into my pillow. My heart was racing just thinking about the date. Already I could tell this wouldn’t end well for me. One date, I reminded myself.

“One date to get Meghan off your case. And then you’ll meet a nice guy at your own pace.” I whispered into the pillow trying to convince myself even further. “One date and we’ll pretend it was terrible. It might just be terrible…” I wasn’t sure how it could be terrible given that Matt was pretty much perfect in all ways but I couldn’t think about that. “It’ll be terrible.” I told myself one more time just to try and drive the point home.