Fate || Blake Griffin

|thirteen|

Blake's POV

"Are you seeing Simone again tonight?" DeAndre asked as I came down the stairs.

"Nah. I just thought I'd get dressed up and do some dishes," I replied, rolling the sleeves of my dress shirt part way up my arm. I wanted to look nice, but not like I was trying too hard.

"You look great," Marieka said, cuddling baby Isabella in her arms. "Perfect for dinner and a movie."

"Oh, where you taking her?" DeAndre asked.

I smiled. "To the backyard."

"Excuse me?" DJ raised his eyebrows and glanced between the two of us.

"Marieka came up with this romantic movie night idea."

"Well, actually I got the idea off Pinterest." Marieka interjected. "All my pinning is working out good for Blake."

"We rented a movie screen and projector and set up this nice little lounge area with cushions and pillows," I told him.

"And we added Christmas lights everywhere." Marieka's eyes were all lit up. "You have to go see it, DJ. It's so romantic."

DeAndre stared wryly at me. "Tell me now. Are you going to have sex in the backyard?"

"I can safely promise you there will be no sex happening tonight."

"You sound very sure of this. Everything okay?" DeAndre asked.

"Everything is great. She asked for things to go painfully slow, so painfully slow is what I'm giving her. And trust me when I say it is, indeed, painfully slow."

"Well, if you're suffering that bad, then I promise you she is, too," Marieka said, cradling Isabella's head as she stood. "I'm going to go put her down."

I glanced at my watch. "I need to go pick up dinner and you need to leave."

"I haven't even met her yet. What are we eating?"

"We? I ordered Chinese. You're gonna have to go somewhere else."

"Well, have fun. Carry some condoms, just in case."

Shaking my head, I laughed and hurried out to my car with DeAndre in tow. His comment stuck with me and gave me a sinking feeling. I hadn't used a condom last time. I didn't have one with me when it happened. Pretty much every girl I knew was on the pill, anyway. Surely Simone was, too? Unless she was thinking about her dead fiancé for three years and basically sentencing herself to celibacy. Then there would be no reason for the pill.

Damn. I needed to try to find a nice way to bring this up, tonight. If we were going to be together, we needed to take precautions and be safe.

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"You look amazing," I said, opening the back gate for her. She stepped inside, wearing a short black dress. Already my head was imagining all kinds of things it shouldn't be.

"So do you." She gave a quick laugh. "We match tonight."

Glancing down at my black shirt, pants, and shoes, I nodded. "True, but trust me when I say, no one is noticing what I'm wearing with you standing in the room."