The last drop of wine slides down her throat and she hums in satisfaction. She picked out a new brand to try this time around and was not disappointed with the results. The fruit flavors were incredibly fresh and crisp with the perfect mix of sweet and dry. If there’s one thing she can’t stand is an overly dry glass of wine and anything too sweet makes her sick to stomach before she can even finish her first glass. She drops the glass off in the kitchen and pads her way down to her bedroom. She starts getting undressed for the evening when her phone dings with a new text message alert.

Surprisingly her day passed by incredibly fast. After her texting conversation with Mystery Date this morning, she kept it up and continued chatting with him on her lunch and afternoon break. He was super-fast to reply both times and she couldn’t hide her giddiness. She has no idea what he does for work, but obviously, his work place is more flexible when it comes to using his phone. Now that she thinks about it, they haven’t really discussed what either one of them do for work. Not that she’s too eager to share the fact that she’s spent most of her twenties working at a call center and she hasn’t progressed at all in her career.

The phone slips from her fingers and clatters on the floor below. A second date? She knew it was coming eventually, but it feels soon—too soon. What if she gets to wherever they decide to go and he realizes how much of a mistake he made? That the girl standing in front of him is not what he had in mind at all?

The winking face at the end of his text indicates that he meant it as a joke, but in reality, this is what she’s afraid of—not that he will be ugly, but that he won’t be okay with the way she looks. It’s not like she’s going to be winning any beauty pageants any time soon.

She does secretly hope he is as attractive on the outside as he is on the inside.

She glances up at the mirror in front of her. She’s never referred to herself as ugly before, but gorgeous is definitely not the word to describe her either. She’s been called plain Jane, average, and up until this point in her life, she’s been accustomed to it. That’s just who she is and she’s okay with it, but now Mystery Date has her questioning everything. What if she’s not good enough for him because she’s just average? He says physical appearances don’t matter, but everyone says that. That’s the nice thing to say until the true colors come out, and they always do.

Big House Bookstore? She’s never even heard of that place before. She sends off a quick reply that she’ll be there and does an internet search to find the address. If anything, Friday will bring new adventures, and potentially more than that. She hasn’t been this excited in a long time, and now she’s counting down the minutes until the big night.

* * *

The aroma of lavender and chamomile surrounds Tinley as she sinks deeper and deeper into her bathtub. She decided to light every calming candle she owns and fill her bathtub with lavender bubble bath. Either she’ll be incredibly calm or she’ll fall asleep. Not that the latter would be the worst-case scenario at this point. She definitely needs to chill the fuck out.

She can’t afford to go on vacations, so every once in a while, she’ll use her vacation time to take a Friday off and give herself a three-day weekend. It just so happens that she had already requested today off from work, and she hasn’t been able to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sure, she was able to sleep in, but since waking up, her nerves have gotten the better of her, hence the supposedly soothing bathtub. No matter what she does to try to calm herself down, she can’t help but go into freak-out mode thinking about her date tonight. She keeps running all the what-ifs through her mind, and they’re making her anxiety skyrocket.

She thought about doing a little drinking, but she definitely doesn’t want to show up completely smashed, and even her normal therapy of baking cupcakes isn’t working. At least a dozen times, she’s picked up her phone to send a text canceling the date, but every time, she talks herself out of it. Even though the thought of putting herself out there like this is terrifying, she’d always wonder what if, and that is the biggest what-if of them all.

She doesn’t want to have regrets about this life and the things she could have done. She wants to look back and know with absolute certainty that she did everything she was supposed to and then some. Sitting on the sidelines watching her own life pass her by isn’t something she wants to keep doing. That’s really what this whole thing was about in the first place. Tara and Dakota weren’t pushing her to do this so she would have a man in her life, although that was a plus; it was to get her to finally do something outside her comfort zone, to finally force her to live a little, and she has no desire to let either one of them—or herself—down.

She slides her fingers down her leg, loving the feeling of them being freshly shaved. She has no idea how tonight is going to go, but she figured to err on the side of optimism and be prepared just in case. Before starting her bath, she took a shower and shaved. Everything. It took a good forty-five minutes, but it was definitely worth it and if tonight goes well she’ll be happy that she prepared. It’s been a long time since the last time she had sex, so she’s a little nervous just thinking about the mechanics of it all, but if their chemistry stays the same once they’re face to face, they don’t have anything to worry about. At least that’s what she hopes.