forum "You DO like me!" "I don't think 'like' is the right word." "You tolerate me." "Maybe." one on one

Started January 29, 2021 by @cryptic-glitch

tune

"Oh for heaven's sakes." Orion shook her head and said in a syrupy voice to the man, "Hello there."

"Orion!" Lin flushed a bit and tried to keep close to her, obviously seeming nervous. The man looked up when Orion spoke to him, smiling softly. "Hey. You need something?" He asked.

"Someone to talk to, perhaps?" She looked at him over her glasses. "If that's alright with you."

"Yeah, sure. I've got nowhere to be." He shrugged a bit and set down his glass. "What are you wanting to talk about?"

"Well. My friend here, Lin, would love to have a friendly conversation with you." She ducked down and whispered to Lin, "Text me if you need me," and disappeared into the crowd.

Lin seemed very nervous when Orion left him, fidgeting uneasily for a few seconds before reluctantly sitting down. "Um… hi…" He said softly. The guy smiled at him, noticing how nervous he was. "I take it you're not going to be drinking here, hmm?" He asked. Lin shook his head. "No, I'm only eighteen… I'm just the uh… designated driver, I guess. My friend wanted to come." The guy nodded a bit. "Well, my name is Adrian. What's yours?" He asked. "I'm Lin. It's nice to meet you, sir." Lin dipped his head politely. Adrian waved him off a bit. "No need for formalities, I'm not much older than you, anyway. And it's nice to meet you too."

Orion kept her eye on Lin, watching from the crowd. Not much for dancing, she kept near the wall, watching him closely.

Lin seemed to relax a bit after a while, finally able to have a fairly normal, casual conversation with Adrian. He laughed softly a few times, still fidgeting a bit, but seeming calmer.

She struck up a conversation with a pretty girl, trying not to get distracted by her too much. Every few minutes, she looked back at Lin.

Lin was still doing alright, keeping up the conversation as well as he could. Thankfully, Adrian was patient with him and didn't seem to have any ill intentions. Lin was still nervous, but he was doing better than he expected to.

The girl, her name was Edith, dipped her head to kiss Orion, but she gently pushed her away, then thought again, and pulled her back down.

After a while, Adrian slipped a piece of paper into Lin's hand and waved, leaving the bar. Lin looked down at the paper with a light flush on his cheeks, quietly watching Adrian leave.

She pulled away and wrote her number on Edith's hand and said, "I have to go. Um. . . Bye," then made her way to Lin. "Doing alright?"

Lin nodded a bit and smiled, showing the piece of paper to Orion. "He gave me his number! He said he had to go since he had work, though."

"See! You did just fine. Are you ready to leave? Or do you want to stay a little longer?"

"Either is fine, but we're not allowed to drink anything." Lin shrugged a bit, getting to his feet.

"I'm ready to go." She motioned to the door. "After you."

Lin headed out of the bar and sighed softly, glad to have the fresh air. "Well… that was an experience."

"A good experience or. . .?" Orion opened the car door and flopped into her seat.

"Yeah, I think so. I mean, I didn't get raped or anything, so I guess that's good." Lin got into the passenger side and sighed softly.

"Yes." She leaned back in the seat and let out a long breath. "I'm exhausted."

"We should probably find somewhere safe to park and then go to bed, yeah? Not sure I want to sleep outside a bar."

"Right, right." She sat forward and turned on the car, and drove down the street, parking in the abandoned lot with the warehouse they explored earlier. "Is here good?"

"Yeah, probably. I doubt anybody will bother us here." Lin yawned and stretched a bit. "Did you have fun?"

"I don't know." She turned away from Lin. "I don't know. I had something. There was a feeling. I just don't know what kind of feeling it was." Well, that was a lie. She knew what it was and she most definitely wasn't going to tell Lin.

"Maybe you were happy?" Lin shrugged a bit. "I wasn't watching you too closely, but did you… um… get to do what you wanted to do?"

"No. I didn't hook up with Edith. And I certainly wasn't happy." She pulled off her jacket and laid it over herself like a blanket.

"Oh… did she do something mean?" Lin asked, pulling a blanket out of his bag and huddling up under it.

"No. She was nice and all. I gave her my number, actually. Which I'm now regretting. Anyway. Whatever."

"Why are you regretting it if she was nice?" Lin asked, obviously bewildered. "Did something happen?"