The Science of Growing Apart

33- Dinner

"In my original plans, we would have a picnic lunch on the National Mall," Casey told me after we finished ordering dessert at the bar and grill restaurant we landed at after the Shakespeare Library. "But since it's almost November and eight pm, I figured this would probably be a safer bet."

"That was probably a wise choice. A picnic sounds so cute though, I bet it would have been so nice."

"Oh, it would have been. I had the whole menu picked out," he admitted with a shy laugh.

I'd been thinking about kissing him all night and it was starting to freak me out. All we'd done so far is hold hands as we walked through the library, sometimes he would put his arm around my shoulders, but there were no kisses. I'd been imagining that first kiss since I was a teenager and I was starting to worry that maybe I put it on a pedestal.

What if I got my hopes up so high for this huge, magical explosion of passion and love and it isn't all that I've dreamed it to be? Not only that, but what about going further than a kiss? I'd been having increasingly wild and hot sex dreams about Casey and what if, when it actually happens, it doesn't live up to the expectations I've built up in my head based solely on dreams?

I was starting to get really nervous about the whole thing, worrying that my expectations for all of this had been building for ten years and were now too impossibly high to meet. Our first kiss would probably be awkward, leaving both of us disappointed.

"I bet that menu included a lot of cheese, didn't it?" I wondered with a little laugh. I've always had a strong affection for cheese and Casey knew that, so I was sure he would have used it to his advantage in a picnic basket.

"Five different types," he confirmed.

"I'm going to plan a Casey Gordon date," I informed him, trying not to look directly at his mouth because it was starting to make me feel so anxious that I was getting an upset stomach. "It's going to blow your socks off, so be ready."

"Okay," he said with an amused smile forming little dimples on his cheeks. "I'm pretty sure I already know what you would plan, but I'll act surprised anyway."

"I'm not going to make it obvious," I promised him. I was totally planning to take him to the botanical garden, but I knew that was what he was talking about when he said it would be obvious, so I would have to think of something else. "There will be no acting surprised."

The waitress returned with our dessert, one shared piece of lemon meringue pie, because we both agreed that we were too full to finish a slice on our own. We sat the pie in the center of the table, both of us leaning closer together to reach it.

"What does Eleanor think about this?" I asked Casey after scooping my first bite of pie into my mouth.

"Shockingly excited," he answered me. "Micah was very smug about it, because he apparently thought we'd end up together since that trip to Six Flags."

"Makes sense," I said with a nod. "I was already fully in love with you by then."

"No you were not," Casey laughed, shaking his head at me.

"Okay, maybe not fully," I conceded. I did remember the Six Flags trip and I did have a crush on Casey at the time, so I was clinging onto him like a life raft in the middle of an ocean storm, but I wasn't in love with him yet. "But I was getting there."

"Should have just kissed me on the drop tower."

I laughed, scooping up another bite of pie. "A missed opportunity."

"I think I would have shit myself."

Again, I laughed but this time, it was a lot louder and I almost spit out my pie. "Well, then maybe it's a good thing I didn't. That would not be a romantic story to tell the grandchildren."