What I like about you

I had been thinking about what Sean had said about Elise at my spontaneous sleep over and decided to call her to try and make plans with her for next week but she didn’t answer her phone. I tried calling three different times throughout the day and eventually just ended up leaving a message saying that I’ve missed her and would like to go to lunch to catch up sometime. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I have the feeling that Anna isn’t the only person Elise is refusing to talk to.

I put the thought out of my head as I got ready for my double date with Anna and Theo. Sean was going to pick me up at my apartment and, to be honest, I think I was looking forward to just being with him again more than I was our double date. That’s weird, right? I mean I just saw Sean; I should not be on the verge of extreme happiness at being able to see him a little over 24 hours later.

Anyway, I skimmed my closet and settled on a black and cobalt blue cocktail dress and some black sandal platform pumps. The dress’s blue straps crisscrossed in the back and the black skirt was lined with the same blue fabric. I put my hair up into a casual pony tail and spritzed on some apple-scented perfume as a final touch. I sent Sean a text telling him I was going to meet him outside. He hadn’t arrived yet but the weather was nice and I wanted to get out of my apartment. I said good-bye to Murphy before locking my door and walking down the stairs.

When Sean walked up I was a little surprised. He was dressed in a black buttonless blazer with a gray t-shirt underneath, dark jeans, and a pair of gray Chucks (this is Sean’s sense of formal and it totally works for him). I wasn’t surprised at how good he looked; I was surprised because he’d done his hair in a really weird way. It was too neat for Sean and honestly…it reminded me of Kevin. I wasn’t a fan and it made me really uncomfortable because all I could think about was Kevin and what had happened the last time I’d seen him.

“Hey,” He said giving me a kiss on the forehead and slipping his arm around my waist.

We started walking and, like a complete goon, I couldn’t stop smiling now that we were together.

“You’re in a good mood…did you talk to Elise?”

I stopped smiling and shook my head, “I couldn’t get a hold of her on the phone. I left a message, though, so hopefully she calls me soon.”

“Oh…”

I stopped walking and Sean turned to me, “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, I just need to do this, it’s bothering me.” I pulled Sean by the lapels of his blazer for a deep kiss and then threw my arms over his shoulders. While he was distracted I made sure to ruffle up his hair and I started smiling at my cleverness.

“Do you really hate it that much?” Sean said without breaking the kiss.

“You have no idea.” I laughed.

We resumed walking again and eventually met up with Anna and Theo at an Americana type of restaurant. When I saw them I could not contain my excitement! Anna is starting to show! She’s nearly four months along and is the cutest pregnant lady I’ve ever seen. She had her hair blown out and was a wearing a very demure pink dress that showed her baby bump very nicely. Theo was absolutely beaming, he looked like he was glowing more than Anna was.

We settled in to dinner and I can honestly say that tonight was one of the best nights I’ve had in such a long time. Anna was sharing pregnancy stories with me while Theo and Sean talked about the band and travelling, somehow the conversation turned to dancing.

“Oh, we haven’t gone in a really long time! I’m really excited to go listen to music tonight; Theo promised he would dance with me.” Anna said nudging Theo a little. He blushed.

“You know I think the last time I went dancing was when I…” my eyes slid to Sean and suddenly I was the one blushing. Sean choked on the water he was drinking when he realized what I was talking about.

Sean met me the night Zoey, Anna, Elise, and I had gone out to get me out of my Kevin funk and I had danced to his band’s music before we hooked up in a bar bathroom. Before that…I had met Kevin during one of our dancing nights, too, although I had only made out with Kevin, then. Apparently, my dancing skills attract men easily.

“OH.” Anna said, realization spreading on her face. She looked from Sean to me and smiled sheepishly. Theo was the only one who didn’t know what we were talking about. He had a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

“Sean and I met the last time Anna and I were out dancing, Theo,” I reached across the table to pat his hands and laughed.

“That was quite an eventful night…” Sean trailed off; he rubbed the back of his head which ruffled his hair up even more.

After some more conversation over dinner, we lost track of time and Sean had to leave before we could get our check.

“Aw, geez,” Sean said looking down at the 5^th text message he got from Gerry in the past 15minutes, “I gotta go, guys, how about I’ll meet you when you get over there, my manager is going to have a stroke if I don’t leave right now.”

“That’s fine, you’re the big rock star, after all, we’ll see you there, Sean.” Anna said.

Sean gave me kiss and handed me a wad of money under the table before hurrying out of the restaurant. I put his money in my purse and paid with a credit card about thirty minutes later (Anna was eating for two, now and as such she had a lot of food to eat. Theo and I were all too willing to help her out, though because it was so delicious). Once we made it to the bar, I grabbed a table for us while Anna ran to the bathroom.

“Theo…I don’t really want to bring this up….but you’re not going to bring up that thing we talked about, right?”

“Never….can we actually pretend that that particular conversation never took place? Cause I would really like that….”

I nodded as he reached for the drink menu laying the table and Anna rejoined us. We gave Theo our drink orders (Anna and I got ginger ales and Theo got a beer) and while he was at the bar she gave me her run-down of what she thought of Sean.

“He’s really great Faith and I am digging this music, he said he writes it himself, right?”

“Yeah he does…”

“Did-did I say something wrong?” Anna asked searching my eyes.

“No…I just…he is great, Anna…I’m in love with him.”

“Why do you look so sad then?”

“It’s…complicated.” I said sighing at what a lame explanation that was.

“Well, you can expect a phone call from me soon drilling you about it since you’re being so vague wi- thanks sweetie!”

Theo slid into the booth with our drinks right at that moment and Anna covered well. We listened to Sean’s band play and then they finally had a break so he came over and sat next to me. I opened my purse and placed Sean’s money in his hand under the table.

He looked at me, confused, and I waved him off and whispered, “It’s not a big deal. Dinner was my treat.” He shoved the money back in his pocket and shrugged.

Just then I saw Jake and Eddie across the room and waved them over to say hi (Guy was outside talking to his girlfriend on the phone and Gerry was sulking in a corner looking at his iPhone and constantly checking his watch).

“Faith! And how are you on this fine evening?” Jake said leaning on our booth. Eddie came up behind him and stood next to Sean.

“Hello Jake and Eddie. How are the wedding plans going?” They smiled at each other and we shared a laugh. I realized that Anna and Theo didn’t know anyone from Sean’s band so I took the liberty to introduce them.

“Jake, Eddie, this is my friend Anna and her husband Theo, we just had dinner with together and I wanted to introduce them to your music.”

“Ah, so that’s where you were. No wonder Gerry’s pissed.” Jake said to Sean as he shook hands with Anna and Theo.

Jake and Eddie excused themselves to go see some friends hanging out at the bar. I opened my mouth to ask Sean, what exactly Jake meant about Gerry when a waiter came over with a beer.

“Ma’am, this was sent to you by the guy over there.” He pointed to a blonde guy in a green shirt leaning against the bar about 15 feet down from our table. The waiter slid the beer in my direction and I looked from the waiter, to the blonde guy, and then to Sean with a look of confusion on my face. I could see the gears tuning in Sean’s head as he looked at me and then at the guy standing near the bar. Sean raised his eyebrow at the smug look on the guy’s face, grabbed the beer, toasted him, and drank it. Anna and Theo were sharing an uncomfortable moment on their side of the table, so I decided to try and make a joke about what had just happened.

“What kind of loser does that?”

“Yeah…did he actually think that you would have…I mean…who actually thinks that works…” Anna said trying to help me out.

Sean put the bottle down, gave me a kiss, and left to go back on stage; his break was up. I was a little relieved when Sean left because the tension of the whole situation went with him. When the waiter came by I made it a point to make him take the beer away and made sure I shot a disgusted look at the guy who had had the audacity to send it over to me.

After awhile, a new band took over for the night and Sean rejoined our table.

“Do you want a water or something?” I asked him.

“No, I think I owe you a dance, though, right?”

“That means I’m going to have to keep my promise,” Theo said in mock annoyance.

Anna clapped and bounced in her seat as Theo started edging out of the booth. Sean held my hand as he went to slide out but I held him back while Anna and Theo made their way to the dance floor.

Sean sensed what I was doing and smiled at me, “I’m fine, let’s go dance, you’ve never seen my awesome dance moves before.” He was right, we spent most of the night we met talking in a booth, making out, and exploring the different uses of a bathroom’s wall and Sean’s hotel room.

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it if Sean really was okay so I followed him and we started dancing. Sean is pretty nerdy when it comes to his dance moves but I’ve got to admit, I had a great time. He doesn’t take himself very seriously when he’s performing so it was nice to see that it also overflows into other areas where others might be watching him. Anna and Theo were having a great time too, from what I could tell and then everything stopped being fun.

“Could I dance with you?”

Sean had just twirled me around when I heard the guy who had sent me the drink earlier.

“Dude, can you not see she’s with someone?” Sean asked, extremely irritated, there was no remnant of happiness to be found on his face.

“I asked her, not you.” He looked at me, completely ignoring Sean, who was standing behind me, “He will let you speak for yourself, right?”

I glared at the guy who had basically just ruined my evening, “I want to dance with my boyfriend, not you. Stop bothering me.”

Anna and Theo had stopped dancing and had come to stand by Sean and assess the situation.

“We should go…it’s late…” Anna said grabbing my arm and trying to pull me through the door. Theo had already started to lead Sean out.

When we got outside we started walking towards the restaurant from earlier because that’s where Anna had parked. She offered to drive us to Sean’s apartment and we accepted. I didn’t really want to go back to his apartment, but it would have been rude and ridiculously out of Anna’s way to loop around and take me back to my apartment for the night so I just bit my tongue. The car ride home was completely silent.

I followed Sean up the stairs and into his apartment and we ended up lying on top of his bed in our nice clothes, staring at the ceiling and not really knowing what to say. I kicked my shoes off after awhile and took my hair down, Sean took off his blazer and kicked his shoes off too and followed it up with a big sigh.

“Are we going to talk about what happened?” I said it a little more angrily than I meant for it to sound.

“What good would that do? It’s pretty clear what the problem is…”

“Is it?” I turned my head to look at him for the first time since we were dancing in the bar.

“Yeah…I’m not good enough and I’ll never be good enough for you.”

I sat up and looked down at Sean.

“I don’t make as much money as you, whenever we go anywhere guys look at us and wonder why you’re with someone like me, and I can’t even please you sexually! When are you going to realize this?”

“Sean, you know that none of that ma-“

“Yeah, you say that now, but what if does start to matter? What happens when you realize that I don’t deserve you? What’s going to happen when you realize that you want to be with some guy who has blonde boy band hair and wears stupid green shirts!?”

I started laughing. Sean rolled over on his side to face the wall, he was fuming. I stopped laughing and looked at Sean quietly for a moment while I contemplated how to help his insecurities about being with me. I got up off the bed, unzipped my dress, and let it fall to the ground before I walked over to the side of the room Sean was facing. He looked at me standing in my underwear and then resolutely continued to stare at the wall angrily. I sat on the edge of the bed and made Sean scoot farther over so that I could lay down with him. I reached behind myself and found his arm, wrapped it around my waist, and snuggled into the pillow we were sharing.

“I would never want to dance with a guy who purposely makes other people feel bad. I don’t like it when men just send drinks over to me, it’s presumptuous and it makes me feel like they just want to get me drunk. I hate boy band hair, it reminds me of the nineties and I really don’t want to relive that. I prefer gray shirts and black blazers over day-glow colors.”

I turned so I was facing Sean; he was trying not to smile.

“But most of all, Sean, I love…being with you.” I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t bring myself to tell Sean the truth about what exactly I loved…but it seemed to be enough for him.

He pulled me closer to him and I kissed him.

“Are you still worried that some loser is going to steal me away from you?” I asked after awhile.

“No…you’re not an object to steal, Faith. I’m worried you’re going to realize I’m not good enough for you some day and I’m not prepared for that day to come.”

“I’m not looking for anyone else, Sean. I want you…you’re just going to have to accept that. The real question is how I got so lucky to have you as my boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry…as your what?” Sean was smiling at me and I started kissing him again.

“As my really hot-“

“Uh-huh.”

“Sexy-“

“Yeah?”

“Talented-“

“Oh, that was a good one.”

“Funny-“

“You’re really good at this.”

“Boyfriend.” I said by the time I reached his t-shirt collar. He scrambled to take off his shirt awkwardly, which made me laugh, and then he pulled my leg around his waist and shifted to be on top of me.

We made it a little farther than we had the last time we tried to have sex, but in the end it didn’t happen for the same reason as last time. He was a lot more upset about it this time, though, probably because of what had happened earlier in the night. I had to build up his confidence again before he finally fell asleep.