Our Best Date By Laura A.

Our Best Date By Laura A.

I was waiting in the living room of my parent’s house. Really, the only reason I was there in the first place was because my apartment had flooded, and my parents thought it would be cheaper and “helpful” if I stayed with them for a couple of days. I wanted to say over at my boyfriend’s house, but like my parents, he thought it would be a good idea to stay with them instead. Not that I mind, but my parents like to nag me a lot.

But as of late, he’s been acting really strange. He’s been cooking more food at home, which is good but he usually wants to eat out at one of his favorite restaurants. Another thing that’s been going on is my boyfriend, Jay, has been late to our last few dates. Not that that’s a problem, I can get more dolled up for him when he comes, sure, but he used to always be on time for a date. Always!  

Jay said he was going to pick me up around 10 a.m., but said he wanted to pick up a few things before our date.

As I waited, my mother walked into the living room. She sat right next to me and started talking about how I should start acting more like an adult. She started talking about how I should start cooking more food for myself, cleaning the house a little more, and how I should start saving up some money. I prayed to God that Jay would just come already.   

 Then my butt buzzed, it was a text from Jay saying he was outside. I got up, told my parents goodbye and went to his car. It was a nice, brown car that smelled nice all the time. 

“Hey, Jay,” said to him before I kissed him on the cheek. 

“Hey, babe,” he said, as he kissed my cheek. “How are you doing?” 

“I’m good,” I said, putting my bag down. “Can I ask what you were doing?”

“I was helping my family,” he said as we drove to Barnes and Noble.

“Ok.”

“I was thinking,” he said, “maybe we can get a book together and work on it together.” 

“What book?” I asked. 

 “Lets just look and see what book we think we need or what we think we need to work on. Is that ok?”

I nodded as he parked into a parking space. We walked into the bookstore and started looking at the self-help books. Some of them were on eating healthy, house cleaning and meditation. Jay picked up one book about saving money, and joked around about us moving into a house together. I saw a pregnancy book and just started laughing! I showed Jay the most ridiculous photo of this pregnant woman. 

After a few minutes of looking around, Jay and I sat down and bought some coffee and some little cake pops. 

“So,” Jay said, “what books did you like the most?” 

“The pregnancy one,” I said as I took a bite out of my cake pop.

Jay laughed. He joked about getting the book and starting a family. I then asked him what book he liked the most. He started talking about a book about saving money. 

“I wanted to know if you wanted to get that book,” Jay asked me. 

“What would we be saving up for?”

“An apartment,” Jay said bluntly. 

“An apartment,” I said nearly choking on my coffee. “Why would we need to save up for an apartment? We each have our own.”

“We have are own tiny apartments that we barely fit in, and your is all flooded” Jay put down his coffee and held my hands. “I was thinking, maybe we should move in together.” 

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He wanted to move in! With me! “What?!” is all I could get out at the moment.   

“I want us to move in together.”

“I would love to move into a new apartment with you,” I said with my eyes all wide and smile beaming. 

“But,” Jay said making everything I was feeling go down. “We will have to wait a little bit before we move in together.”

“Wait for what,” I asked. 

“To save up enough money.”

“Enough money?” at that moment I was so confused. If we bought an apartment together, we wouldn’t need to save up too much money. I could save up enough with at least three weeks of work. 

“Yes,” Jay said as he stood up and put his hand in one of his pockets. “We need to save up money to get an apartment,” he pulled a box out of his pocket, “and for a wedding.” Jay got down on one knee and showed me a ring. A beautiful, golden ring with a small diamond in the middle. “Molly,” Jay said like silk, “will you marry me?”

I couldn’t believe that he asked me this. This explained why he hasn’t been on time to dates. This explains why he’s been cooking more at home. He’s been saving money to buy this ring to propose to me! To me!

“YES!!” I squealed. Jay kissed me as the people around us started clapping. When we saw the people clapping, Jay put the ring on my ringer. 

“Does that mean we want the savings book,” Jay asked me with a smile.

“Just the savings book?” I questioned, “We’re going to need so many books! Were going to need savings, house cleaning, how to cook real food…” I went on with my list, walking to the self-help book section. Jay was just laughing as we walked. I picked up so many books to help us out that I ran out of hands. 

“Do you think we have enough books?” Jay asked me with a half smile while we walked to the car. 

“No,” I said looking a little frantic, “we may need even more books on all these things. Especially the cook books!”

Jay only laughed. “I can cook.”

“I know that, but I need to learn how to cook. You can’t be the only one that cooks.” 

“Whatever you say, babe.” He rubbed my checks before giving me another kiss, “Whatever you say.”

And with that, that was our best date.