Dubya

When Sean came back from his meeting with Gerry I helped him clean up his apartment and find a new coffee table online before I went home to shower and feed Murphy. We made plans to do something tomorrow and Sean seemed to be in a really good mood. I know it sounds kind of cliché but I was happy this morning. I mean really happy. As I thought about the conversation I had with Zoey and everything that happened with Sean, I couldn’t help but feel like Sean and I are now in a new phase of our relationship; like we’ve taken it to the next level.

I called Zoey after Murphy’s needs had been met so I could make up for our girl-date and my subsequent freak out.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Zoey, what are you doing today?”

“I was going thinking about going grocery shopping.”

“Well, I would like to take you out to lunch. You name the place, money is no object.”

“Are you trying to buy my love?”

“That depends….is it working?”

“Kind of. Can we go wherever I want?”

“Naturally.”

“Okay. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

“See you then.”

I clicked off the phone and went to go shower and get dressed. I had just put on a pair of jeans and a white spaghetti-strap shirt when Zoey rang my bell.

We ended up going to a pretty fancy café that Zoey had read about in a local magazine. They had fresh fruit platters, French cuisine, various sandwiches and pasta dishes, it was so hard to choose.

I ordered us some garlic rubbed bruschetta and a nice bottle of wine to start us off as we looked over the menu.

“Wow you’re really pulling out the stops,” Zoey said looking at me over her menu.

“I feel really bad about ignoring you the way I did. It was selfish. I just thought I’d take you out so you could tell me about your date with Wesley. I owed you, at least, food for acting like that.”

“It’s fine, Faith. And actually…we’ve gone out twice since our first date.”

“Well,” I said moving my eyebrows up and down, “have you guys…?”

“Not yet, but it’s definitely headed in that direction.”

“Is he absolutely marvelous?”

“Yeah.”

Just then the waiter came over to take our orders. Zoey ordered a bowl of French onion soup with homemade parmesan croutons, a warmed side salad with a raspberry vinaigrette, and half of an arugula and roast beef sandwich on crusty artisan bread. I ordered the French onion soup and croutons as well, a regular sized roast chicken sandwich with arugula and provincial spices on squishy parmesan dusted bread. For dessert I ordered us a fruit plate with fresh strawberries, melons, oranges, and grapes.

“You didn’t have to do that Faith.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. What did you and Wesley do on your date?”

“He took me to the aquarium.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he noticed the sea turtle paper weight I have on my desk and the sea turtle charm on a charm bracelet I wear sometimes, so he thought I’d like it since they just opened their sea turtle exhibit. We had a blast. He bought me one of those ridiculous foam hats in the shape of different animals. Mine was a sea turtle and he got a polar bear. Then he took me out to dinner at a nearby McDonald’s.”

“McDonald’s?”

“Yeah. I had a great time. We were going to go to a different place but we were too hungry to make the trip. It was nice.”

“Well it obviously went well or else you wouldn’t have gone out on a date with him.”

“It did. We kissed on our first date. It was nice.”

“Awwww!”

Our food came while Zoey blushed and it was AMAZING. We will definitely be going there again, the prices weren’t even that bad because it was their lunch menu. Holy crap I think I might have a sex dream focusing on the food we ordered, it was that good!

“So what about your other dates with him?”

“We did the normal dinner and a movie thing on our most recent, but on our second date we went bike riding around the lake and had a picnic. We’re supposed to go out tomorrow and I’m the one who planned it. I think he’ll really like it.”

“What are you planning for him?”

“I’m going to take him to the huge flower garden just outside the city and ask him to bring his camera. I think he’ll like taking pictures of the different flowers and landscapes.”

“Wow, that’s going to be so much fun, I wish I could go,” I joked.

“Wesley’s…different Faith. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy and comfortable with someone this early on in our relationship. When he looks at me, I feel like I’m the only person he ever wants to look at, like I’m the only woman that exists for him. When he kisses me it’s so soft and gentle…he respects me a lot more than…”

Zoey got quiet then, thinking about her last serious relationship (and also the last person she had sex with) with Sean a personal trainer (not my Sean) who cheated on her with one of his clients. None of us really liked him that much but Anna, Elise, and I decided to not say anything because Zoey was so happy with him. It wasn’t until he started hitting on Elise that Zoey realized what a slime ball he was and cut him out of her life. She’s gone on dates since they broke up (two and a half years ago) but nothing stuck. They were pretty serious too, they dated for over a year. I watched Zoey as she receded into her thoughts and realized why she was having such a hard time believing Wesley was into her. Sean was a personal trainer and he was hot, but he also knew it and took advantage of it by cheating on Zoey every chance he got. I can only imagine the things he said to her to make her feel so unworthy of love. None of us really know what happened between Zoey and Sean the night they broke up, she’s never talked about it and we never pushed the issue. She went into a trance for weeks after they broke up and then one day she just snapped out of it. The three of us were so thankful to have Zoey back that we didn’t want to ask her about it. It was so rare for Zoey to even mention Sean.

“Hey…Wesley’s not like him.”

“I know.” Zoey smiled at me as I touched her hand.

We moved on to other topics while we finished our lunch. The fruit plate I ordered was absolutely gorgeous, there were perfect balls of melon, the strawberries were cut to look like swans, and the oranges and grapes were arranged to look like flowers. It was almost too pretty to eat.

Zoey and I decided to do some light shoe shopping before parting ways, but not before I noticed Zoey get a text.

Her face lit up before she blushed and smiled. She tapped out a text on her phone’s keyboard and pressed send. I didn’t need to ask who it was, it was clearly Wesley. She had the same look on her face when she talked about him during lunch.