Karma’s Second Date

Dana

Our first date lasted through Monday. Peyton didn’t leave my dorm until late Monday night, and I think he only left because he had to go to the gym first thing in the morning.

I’ve been pinching myself throughout the following week, trying to convince myself that this is real. I really went on a date with Peyton Brady. A date that lasted four days, a storm, and a whole lot of fucking.

Really, really good fucking.

I think he has a fairy-tale dick. Fairy tales don’t usually have dicks in them, but they should. In fact, I think Peyton is a fairy-tale prince.

Does that make me the damsel? I’m Cinderella or Snow White, right? Peyton is a football player, which means he’s inherently popular. He’s hot and has a lot of friends. A lot of attention.

I’m just a barista who waits on people every day and is always rushing with some weird, ingrained fear that I’m perpetually late.

Somehow, the gorgeous football player actually looked at me. He looked at me, saw me, and didn’t run. I think he might even like what he sees.

I suppose it makes sense that the fairy tale feels like it’s coming to an end in the weeks following our date. No matter how many times we attempt to get together, something is getting in our way. My work schedule, his football schedule, classes, or school functions. We send texts all the time, but at what point is that no longer enough?

He stops in at the café every single day, and at least now, he sees my flirting for what it is. And now, when he responds, he does so knowing I’m interested in him. Big time interested.

But it feels like the universe is against us.

Today is Saturday, two weeks since our date. My shift ends at the Queer Palace Café at nine and, exhausted, I leave through the front door. I’m so tired that I barely register the truck idling on the sidewalk until I’m facing Peyton.

My heart nearly jumps out of my chest when he smiles at me. I become a limp noodle when he pulls me against his chest by my hips and kisses me. Right there in front of everyone who’s lingering about.

I’m breathless.

“Peyton,” I murmur, his fingers moving gently through my hair.

“You have plans tonight?”

I shake my head.

“I hoped not. Get in.”

He backs away and opens the passenger side door for me. I can’t stop myself from staring at him dumbly for a minute. Maybe because I worked a long shift today. I’m tired.

“Where are we going?” I ask, finally able to propel myself forward.

“You’ll see.”

I climb in, and Peyton waits for me to settle before shutting the door. He jogs around the front of the truck and sits behind the wheel. “I think it’s time for that second date.”

My heart skips around so radically that I think I might have palpitations. “I like that.”

He nods. “Seeing each other has been a pain in the ass,” he says.

“It has,” I agree.

We’re quiet for a minute before Peyton asks about my classes. About work. About anything I want to talk about. I forgot how easy it is to talk to him. It feels as if he actually wants to know. As if he’s asking because he cares about my answers. In a world filled with fake niceties, this feels genuine.

The drive is forty minutes from campus along a rough gravel road that winds through dense trees and ends in a grassy clearing. We climb out, and I watch as Peyton loads up the bed of his truck with the blankets and pillows that he had stuffed into the cab of his truck. Somehow, I missed all that. I was so focused on Peyton himself.

When he’s finished, he helps me climb into the back, and together, we lie under the stars.

It’s super windy. The trees sway like they’re handheld fans. The whistle through the trees is almost a harmonic lullaby.

But the sky is strangely clear and we have an uninterrupted view of the sky.

“It’s a long drive to get here,” Peyton says quietly. “It takes a while to get away from all the light pollution enough to enjoy the sky. Was it worth the drive?”

How corny am I willing to be right now? Any drive is worth the time if it means I get to be in his arms again. My chest aches at how much I missed this.

One four-day weekend and I’m freaking hooked on Peyton.

“Yes.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Peyton says.

“Figure what out?” I ask, wondering if I missed the start of a conversation.

“How to see each other more. People with busy schedules make it work all the time. We just need to find what works for us.”

Once again, or maybe still, my heart races. He wants to keep seeing me.

As beautiful as the sky is, I turn my face into his neck so I can breathe him in. He smells like soap and fresh linen. Maybe a hint of deodorant.

Peyton’s arms tighten around me. “Are you discouraged, Dana?”

“A little,” I admit.

He nods. “If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth it in the end. Easy means there’s no excitement. Nothing in life is easy. The things we want most need to be worked for. The harder you work at something, the sweeter it becomes. The more meaningful. Because you fought to have it.”

“I guess so. I never gave it much thought.”

“I think people are getting lazy. Everyone wants what they believe they deserve, just handed to them. The world is filled with entitled people. If my very long obsession with a man who was never going to give me the time of day has taught me anything, it’s that I’m now able to see which people are the ones you’re supposed to fight for and which are meant to be let go.”

“I don’t think people should have to hurt to be together.”

Peyton pulls back to look at me with a frown. His eyebrows knit together slightly. “Is this too much—”

“No,” I say before he can finish. “I don’t mean this. I mean, yes, it sucks and yes, I feel discouraged sometimes when it feels like the world is trying to keep us apart like I pissed off karma somehow—pining after a man for forever, and karma finally puts me in your path and gives us a shot, only to stack everything against us.”

I stop rambling when his smile climbs. Oh god. I said I was pining. I hope I can just sink through the bed of the truck and into the ground.

A blast of wind rocks the truck. The trees around us creak.

Peyton looks up at the trees. “Good news is I don’t think the truck can be hit should a tree decide to fall.”

“What’s the bad news?” I ask.

“The wind seems to be getting stronger.”

“Should we go?”

He shakes his head. “Call me naïve, but what are the chances that we’re going to be stormed in again? We’re not in the middle of a lake in a lightning storm, and I’m fairly confident that a fallen tree can’t land on us. I think we’re safe enough.”

Call me naïve, but I’m choosing to trust in his assessment, even if my nerves say we should probably leave now. But then again, with the wind picking up and having to drive through the trees, we have more of a chance of being crushed by a tree driving away than staying where we are.

Yep, I’m totally going to be dumb for now.

My anxious thoughts flutter around until Peyton cups the back of my head. He looks so… divine. The shape of him surrounded by the stars beyond. Like magic.

“To start with, tomorrow, we’ll compare schedules, and as lame as it sounds, we’ll schedule time together. Okay?”

I nod.

“I want to keep seeing you, Dana. I don’t care how many small moments we need to steal and how long it takes to find time together. I love the way you make me feel. I love the way you look at me. I love how you helped me open my eyes to see the incredible person right in front of me instead of continuing to obsess over someone who will never want me.”

“Something in that sounds like I’m the runner-up,” I say.

“No.” Peyton kisses me and while his words definitely had the vibe of ‘he doesn’t want me, so I’ll settle for you,’ his kiss says I’m the only fucking person in his world. “You can’t be the runner-up to a person who was never in the game. Don’t think that.”

I nod again. Maybe he needs to kiss away my doubt a little more. He doesn’t, though. He stares into my eyes instead. The longer he does without speaking, the more I feel like fidgeting under his gaze.

“I don’t have words to explain,” he says after a minute. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re a second choice. You’re not. That can’t be further from the truth. I’m not settling for someone else. I know you can’t feel what I do, but I need you to trust that you have all my attention, every single thought, all the time. I don’t want anyone else.”

“Not at all? Not even a little when you see him?”

“You know what I feel when I see Coach?” I shake my head. “How fucking ridiculous I was being. The first man who showed me kindness in a moment when I needed it turned into my pathetic obsession. I see a man who has actually made it quite clear for a very long time that he’s not interested. I see a person who literally had to teach me what the word ‘no’ means because I refused to accept it. I feel like an idiot. I feel like I wasted a lot of time because I adore Coach. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever met in my entire life. But Dana, he is the furthest thing from right for me as a person can get.”

“That sounds like a lot of confusing emotions.”

He laughs. “It’s not, if you can believe it. But I feel at peace in my mind now. I’ve nursed that stupid crush for so long, it feels like it became a part of my identity that I didn’t know how to shake. Between feeling like a royal jackass when Coach made me see how much of a dick I was being, and feeling horrified by my own actions, when I picked you up two weeks ago, all I wanted was to get lost in mindless conversation and enjoy nature. I wanted to somehow come back to campus and… erase what I’d been doing. It was bad. I was a bad person.”

I shake my head again. “No, you weren’t.”

“I was. We’re taught that we should keep fighting for something we want, regardless of what it is—be it a job or a person or whatever. Being told no is an obstacle. A challenge. In reality, no means no. That’s the lesson that should be taught.”

Our conversation comes to a stop when the truck rocks abruptly, hard enough that I grip Peyton’s arms tightly. When the truck comes back down on more sure footing, a loud, echoing CRAAAAACK and SNAPCRASH makes the ground shake as a tree comes down.

Peyton and I sit up as the truck continues to shiver in the wind. A tree has come down, and Peyton’s right: we weren’t close enough to be hit.

However, a massive tree is now blocking the one route out of here.

My heart pounds in my ears. Holy hell.

“I think you misunderstand karma,” Peyton muses. “Karma knows we’re struggling to find time to connect, so she’s using Mother Nature to assure us extra time together—that’s date two for two that she’s interfered with. We’re not going anywhere until someone gets out here with a chainsaw and cuts the tree.”

“I’m devastated,” I say, though my heart is still racing.

He grins. “I also came prepared. We have food, water, and condoms.”

My cheeks heat, but fuck yeah. I’m all here for this windstorm.

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