Page 37 of Last First Date
Then when I tried to talk him down and explain it wasn’t actually a big deal, he’d made me feel as low and dirty as I've ever felt in my life. He made it sound like I was some kind of slutty gold digger, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Well, he can go fuck himself. I'm going to this stupid gala with Hesse Kotner tonight and I'm going to look like a million dollars in a fancy party dress. And if Thomas Abernathy doesn't like it, then he can go choke.
"What time is Hesse coming to pick you up?" My mother's voice is smooth and pretty, just like the champagne-colored gown she's wearing. Millicent von Albrecht is always this way—put together and assembled in exactly the right way to make the other people around her feel just the right amount of inferior.
"Oh, I told him I'd just meet up with him at the event." Her eyebrows arch at me, the closest she's willing to get to outright disapproval.
Disapproval isn't ladylike, after all. And if you scrunch up your eyebrows like that, you'll only get wrinkles. I've heard variations of that speech a thousand times, probably because I’m constantly battling my own disapproval of the various things around me.
I wave off her concerns. "It was my choice, mother. I didn't want him to bring me back home later tonight and get the wrong idea."
Her nostrils flare. "I'm sure he's not that kind of boy, darling." But she lets it go.
Because the only thing worse than outright expressions of disapproval are any direct references to me having sex. I'm sure she prefers to think that the stork brought me, or at least she prefers to think that I still believe that the stork brought me.
"Besides, if he came over here with some sort of wrist corsage or whatever then you'd be posing us for an entire set of photographs, and it would basically be my prom night all over again." I wave my hand, clearing the air of the heavy weight of that very thought.
"I can't help it that I like to have pictures of you. Especially when you look so lovely for once." She fusses a little with the front of her gown, where absolutely nothing is askew.
I grit out a smile. "Do you want to come with me or are you waiting for daddy?"
She smiles again, the happiness on her face spreading slow and sweet. "You go right ahead, darling. I won't be ready to go until your father is, and you know he's always running late."
The Uber takes me right to the door of the event, and I awkwardly fumble my way out of the car, trying not to wad up my dress in the process.
Then a hand reaches for mine, easing me from the vehicle as if we've had plenty of practice, instead of like I was about five minutes from losing a fight with my own clothing.
"Thank you," I murmur, still pulling at my dress to get it back into pretty party mode instead of very nearly falling out of a car mode.
Hesse Kotner murmurs, "You're welcome, Miss Albrecht. I'm glad you're here." He flashes me a giant toothy smile. Then he holds out a stupid wrist corsage.
I absolutely hate those things. The elastic part makes me itchy just looking at it. But he keeps waggling the box at me, despite my apparent lack of enthusiasm. "Here. I got this for you."
"Oh, well thanks." I wrestle with the plastic casing around it, but I can't seem to open the little box it’s sitting in. Why do so many plastic containers seem like they're locked down like Fort Knox? Nobody is stealing a stupid wrist corsage, okay?
I swallow the sigh that’s building inside me. Thomas Abernathy would have died before he brought me an itchy wrist corsage. Instead, he would have insisted on picking me up at home and then brought flowers for my mother. Because he’s that kind of man, the kind who quietly does exactly the right thing all the time, not an overgrown prom date.
"I'll get it for you." He snags the plastic box from me and starts his own battle with it, giving up when he ends up cutting his fingertip along one edge of the casing. "Shit, I'm sorry."
And now he's bleeding on me. I manage to avoid rolling my eyes, but just barely. The last thing I need is some “help” from a man who ends up hurting himself during his bungling of the situation that I already had well under control.
Everything about this date is already all wrong and we haven’t even gone inside the front door yet. I force out a smile, but I knew before I'd ever asked him that this was going to be the most awkward night out ever. We simply don’t fit well together. I’ve never felt like I had to try this hard to simply pretend to enjoy myself around another person ever.
"Let's see if we can find you a bandage or something." I reach for the arm that's not connected to the bleeding hand and pull him toward the entryway.
"What about inside your purse?" He points toward the miniature sparkly little clutch I'm holding.
I snort. "I'm pretty sure this thing is too small to count as a purse. A purse has to hold at least two pens, a wallet, and three things you think you lost but are just hiding in your purse."
Hesse flashes a quick smile at me, seeming to forget about the bleeding he's doing. "Well what's inside your little sparkly pouch then?"
"My driver's license. Some cash. My house keys." I waggle it at him. "See, this can't be a real purse because it's too small to put a tiny dog inside. Everyone knows that rich girls put tiny dogs inside their purses."
He laughs, and the sound is warm and pleasant, doing a lot to make me feel less nervous and crappy about the night ahead of us. "It's only a purse if your dog fits in there? What if you have a Great Dane or a St. Bernard?"
"Then you have to buy the extra-large size purse. I think technically it's called a tote by that point." I grin at him. I've had so many misgivings about this whole night, but at least he's willing to pretend like he thinks I'm funny. That helps.
We head through the entryway and I find someone in a uniform to ask about a bandage. Then I take Hesse's bleeding hand in mind and gently blow on it while I'm waiting for the first aid supplies.
