Page 80 of Secret Baby for My Brother's Best Friends

The next morning, I wake up bright and early for my date with her. I do everything, clean my house, make sure my clothes are ironed, and even go over the itinerary for the day. I’m a huge planner when I want to be, specifically with things that are this important.

Even worse than Adam.

Except for the moments when I’m drawn by my muse and burdened with the need to create, I like to plan my days down to their last decimal.

This time, it's difficult.

There's so much I want to do with her, so much I want to know about her, but I have to take it slowly. I don't want to scare her.

The sun shines a little brighter today as I head to her place. There are nervous butterflies in my belly, but I look forward to seeing her gain.

When I arrive and knock on the door with a big bouquet of pink and yellow flowers. Yellow for our friendship, but pink, hoping it turns into more.

When she opens the door, the glow in her face is all worth it.

"Flowers," she says. 'They're beautiful, thank you. And the colors are..." I see in her face that she understands the meaning behind them. "I don't think I've ever gotten flowers before."

"You haven't?" That ex of hers must be an even bigger tool than I thought.

"Wait, no, I have," she says. "James got me one for prom. He ended up being my date after my then date blew me off."

"Asshole."

"Yeah, he was." She cocks her head. "Did you ever go to your prom?"

I think about it and shake my head.

"Why not?"

"Believe it or not, there wasn't a line of women who wanted to go with me."

"Really? How come? You're so..." Her gaze traces down my body, and I'm suddenly so glad that I spent all that time bulking up in the gym, even though I was convinced at first that it was a total waste of time.

"I didn't always look like this. And my social skills were even worse. But I'll tell you all about it on our date."

"Okay," she beams. "Where are we going?"

"I was thinking of going to Pendergrass."

"Pendergrass–" she gapes. "You mean the most expensive restaurant in the city?"

"Yeah. Their food is surprisingly pretty good."

"It's not about the food being good. How did you get a reservation? And also, isn't that like a couple thousand a table or something?"

"Or something," I say, smiling. "Shall we?"

She finally gets over her shock enough to come with me as we drive over to Pendergrass. While there, her eyes glow as she takes in the gilded decor, especially when we're led to our private table by a private butler.

"Okay," she says. "This is different."

I'm happy to see her reaction. Truth is, I've eaten here before, but I probably would never have done it again if it wasn't for her, if I wasn't trying to impress her. I'm just glad that I'm close to succeeding.

"So," she says a few minutes after we get seated. "Tell me more about the prom thing."

I chuckle. "There really isn't much to tell. I was a strange child, didn't talk till I was seven years old. That stunted me socially pretty much."

Her eyes glow with curiosity and sympathy.