✍🏻See You Again

11 🫐 The Third Date

Javi might always be late but at least the taxi he sent for me is on time and I'm surprised to see he indeed lives on the opposite side from TCC than I do. He was supposed to pick me up but texted me last minute that he was sending a taxi instead, getting held back by the cooking.

I sit in the backseat with anticipation but also much calmer than I expected to be. As Yuzu said, there's no reason why tonight should have been The Night and the more I thought about it the more stupid I felt. Of course, he wouldn't try to push for something just after three dates especially when those were in such a fast succession, barely letting us get to know each other.

He seems to be living in an apartment complex similar to mine and I automatically smile when I see his name on the doorbell. He buzzes me up right away and a short elevator ride later, I'm standing in the middle of his flat.

"You can put your things wherever," he says over his shoulder and disappears back into the kitchen before quickly returning and giving me a brief kiss. "Sorry, just a bit in a hurry. I don't want it to burn. Have a look around." Then he rushes back into the kitchen and given the smell that's coming out of there, I worry it might be too late to save it from burning.

I put my coat and bag on the hanger at the door before moving back to the living room and hesitantly standing there, looking around. There is a door to the bathroom and one more to his bedroom but I feel like I would pry if I actually went to have a look there. So I pick the bathroom and check my reflection in the mirror, making sure there's nothing between my teeth even though I brushed them three times before I left. Then I fix my hair and with a brief encouraging exhale I head to the kitchen.

"It's actually looking good," he says all excited, dumping something suspicious from a fryer onto a pile of equally suspicious....things. The grease from the top ones is dripping to the ones below and I gulp, wondering how I'm gonna eat it without offending him.

"Smells good," I smile, glad he has his back turned to me and can't see me scrunching my nose.

"It's croquetas," he says, pronouncing the word with his sexy Spanish and at that moment I forget all about the grease and smell of burning oil. As if he could sense I'm looking at him all dreamy again, he turns and smirks, placing a quick kiss on my cheek. "You can go and sit, I'll bring it in a second." I nod and turn, instantly jumping up when he playfully slaps my ass and I can't hold back a stupid, little giggle.

When the table is all set, I'm happy to see there's a large bowl of salad and I put almost half of it on my plate, topping it with two of those fried croquette things.

"The croquetas are the main dish," he says with his mouth full, already eating and pointing with his fork on my plate. "The salad is just the side dish."

"Can you say something more in Spanish?" I ask, diverting the conversation so he doesn't focus on how many of those fried things I eat. He laughs, moving his chair closer to the end of the table so our knees are now touching under the corner. His hand slides under and in a second it's on my knee as he starts to quietly speak in Spanish, sending goosebumps throughout my body. He keeps looking into my eyes as he speaks and when I feel my face is so hot it probably can't get any redder he laughs and returns back to his food, a small smirk playing on his lips.

"W-What did it mean?"

"Learn Spanish and you'll know."

I pout and for the rest of the dinner, we go to our usual chat over various mundane things while I marvel at how effortlessly sexy he can be. Luckily Javi seems to like the dish enough to eat most of it, not noticing I didn't eat much more. They actually tasted pretty good but I still pat my stomach in worry about what all the grease will do to me as we sit down on his sofa.