The Safety Pin Affair

t h i r t y - it was enough to keep me interested

see i've been dreamcatchin'
i caught that this is
e v e r l a s t i n g . . .

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The most unromantic place I can think of is Fry It Up. It's more of a late-night-greasy-cravings, beers-over-football, drunk-taxi-ride-to-the-nearest-fried-food kind of place. Hence why I'm usually only there for the half-priced appetizers on weekends.

Now it's a clean place, don't get me wrong. It isn't some dumpy, crusty sports bar with terrible lighting and a weird smell coming from the back. It's clean, friendly, and the food is always good.

Personally, I don't really see it as the kind of restaurant for a first double date. Blair thinks otherwise.

"But you said we could go there!" She pointed at me accusingly.

"I was just agreeing with your plan, I never specified on where we'd go," I corrected her from my spot on my bed.

She scoffed, turning away from me and back to curling her hair in the mirror.

"What's the big deal anyway? It's just supposed to be a fun place to go and get cheap food," she retorted.

"I don't know," I finally sat up, setting my phone aside. "But after last night, I feel like I have to be on my game all the time when I'm with Josh."

"I'm sure he doesn't care, he's a fun guy!" She justified for me, and I rolled my eyes as I flopped back onto my pillow.

"Yeah, but his family would care," I said under my breath. Blair still heard it and sent me a glare.

It's Saturday, and we're getting ready for our double date tonight with Matt and Josh – the one we planned earlier this week. Of course, I'm having second doubts about it, but Blair is going to force me to go anyway.

Last night was my dinner with the Hunt family and overall, it was fine. Blair came over extra early today so I could tell her all about it, and I tried my best to describe the family, the mansion and the food. She was in awe, to say the least. I experienced it all first-hand and I still can't believe they live a life like that.

The only thing I managed to keep out of my story was the part about college. How Mrs. Hunt brought up Josh getting a scholarship to University of Iowa. A school in the middle of the country, far away from Ridgeway. Far away from all of this.

I didn't tell her because I didn't want to have to talk about it. All it did was get me riled up and anxious and more importantly, confused. I'm not sure why it's having this kind of effect on me because it's not like I'm his long-time girlfriend or anything, but it still hurts that he overlooked telling me a minor detail like that. And I mean minor as in huge.

I decided that I wanted to talk about it with Josh first before I get a second opinion from my very-opinionated best friend.

"Blair, I don't know about all this," I found myself muttering as I rubbed my hands over my makeup-free face.

"What?" She asked curiously.

"That family is literally from another planet. I'm not cut out for that life," I explained. "It was so... intimidating. Everything was perfect."

"So? You know that what you see isn't quite what you get though. They have more issues than Vogue, apparently from what you told me," she shrugged, and I chuckled at her quote.

I sighed, staring blankly up at my ceiling as a million thoughts ran through my mind. "That's true," I breathed. "This is all just so new to me that I don't know how to act."