goodnight, stranger

eleven

key

olly
ash
winnie
alayna

•••

To say that Olly was nervous would be a severe understatement.

He had been nervous to ask Ash to this wedding in the first place. He had been nervous about how he would introduce his "date" (he refused to call this a date) to his mom. He had been nervous about making a fool of himself all week. He had been nervous to tell Winnie about how he felt because he knew that she would tease him for it. He had been nervous to meet Winnie's girlfriend.

This feeling, however, was far worse than being nervous.

He hadn't even been this jumpy during finals, which is saying something; he had been fairly certain he would fail all of his tests and have to take his senior year again.

His grades turned out to be decent, so maybe that was a good sign for how the wedding ceremony would go.

Hopefully.

"Winnie, you really don't have to do this," Olly reasoned as Winnie fiddled around to put the rest of her jewelry on. "I can just ask for his address, and—"

"Olly." She looked bewildered. "It's fine. I'm not making you and your date walk to your own mother's wedding."

Olly felt his face heat up at the sound of the word "date", and he knew he needed to get that under control as soon as possible. He could see Winnie smirking as she turned away.

Yeah, definitely something to fix before the wedding.

"How close does he live to Alayna, anyways?" He huffed. "And why is no one allowed to tell me where he lives?"

"He lives fairly close," she said with a teasing lilt in her voice. "You'll see. It's a surprise."

"That sounds super shady and I'm so not okay with it. You're making me more nervous than I already was." Olly bit his lip nervously.

"You're going to be fine." Winnie turned back to him and set her hands on his shoulders. "I'm sure he's just as nervous to meet you as you are to meet him." God, Olly thought, no one should have to go through the stress I'm under right now. "I swear everything is going to turn out amazing. Just focus on the positives. You finally get to see this guy! In real life!" She grinned. "In all of his adorable glory!"

Olly could feel himself blushing again, but she was right. Ash had been sending plenty of adorable selfies since their first batch had been sent, and Olly was confident that he was going to be even more adorable in real life than he was in his photos.

If he hadn't been catfishing him this entire time.

Keep it together.

"Yeah, and he's got a cute personality, too." Olly raised an eyebrow. "So hands off."

She smirked and squeezed his shoulders. "Oh, I never said I wanted to see his adorable face."

Olly rolled his eyes and shook Winnie's hands off of him. "Aren't you reay to go yet? I'm gonna pace a hole into this floor if we don't leave soon."

"Give me a minute," she growled. "Some of us take longer than ten minutes to get ready."

Olly huffed impatiently and continued his nervous pacing as Winnie added a few finishing touches to her makeup. She finally, finally grabbed her car keys and led him outside to the car. Olly couldn't stop his leg from bouncing as she drove.

"Olly," she said after a few minutes, "if you don't stop fidgeting, I'm turning this car around."

"I can't help it," he snapped. "What if I'm not as cool as he thought I would be? What if—"