“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was a baby shower,” Austin whispers beside me, making me laugh.
It’s letting out that laugh that makes me realize how wound up I’ve been. It’s not like I’m intimidated by anyone here or this date with Austin. Yet, the heaviness in my chest doesn’t seem to go away. Anxiety was what my doctor diagnosed me with. My parents made me go and see someone. As if I needed a professional to tell me what I already knew. I don’t know when exactly I developed it. As a teenager, I’d always been outgoing and fun, and then something changed. I began to worry more. About everything. My mother pinned it back to when I was a worry-wart of a child before she began to question if something traumatic happened to me in New York when I was gone for a year. That wasn’t the case though. In any event, I’d been given medicine to help and developed an intolerance to them before being introduced to medicinal marijuana. I’m trying not to rely on it all the time unless I need it, not because I feel I’m getting addicted or anything, but because I hate relying on anything, or anyone.
“So, I think that’s a seating chart.” Austin points at poster board a few steps from where we are and we walk over there. Sure enough, it’s a seating chart. I find my name with a plus one beside it and tell Austin, who smiles. “Plus one, huh? Is that because you weren’t sure who you were bringing as your date?”
“If we didn’t have a date planned, I wouldn’t have brought anyone at all.”
“In that case, I don’t mind being a plus one.” Austin smiles.
We head over to table nine, where I see Valerie sitting with a man dressed in a black suit. When we reach the table, she smiles up at me and introduces me to her husband, Rick. I introduce them to Austin as we sit down beside them, quickly making small talk. While Rick and Austin are talking about Austin’s side hustle of collecting and selling Pokémon cards, Valerie goes into her purse and hands me a single key on a key ring.
“I’ll email you the information right now, so you have it,” she says. “The address and all that fun stuff.” She smiles. “I think it’ll be fun, I mean, who doesn’t want to be in close quarters with some fun baseball players?”
“Right.” I can’t imagine why that would be fun, but I give a little laugh as I put away the key in my own purse and Valerie begins typing out the email with specifics right beside me.
As I’m reading over what she just sent, I see people approach our table from the corner of my eye. When I look up, I see Mitchell, Rodney, and Dylan sit down across from us. I met Rodney the other day at the Cruz Media office. Dylan looks between myself and Austin a couple of times before shaking his head as if he can’t believe I’d bring a date here. As if he has any right to think that at all, being that we only went on a handful of dates and didn’t hook up. Not all the way hooked up anyway. Mitchell is stone faced and looks upset and I don’t even bother to try to decipher that emotion coming from him. It seems that more often than not, he’s upset when he’s around me these days. It doesn’t really make a difference to me. Rodney introduces himself to Austin and Valerie’s husband and the other two follow suit.
“I just gave Misty the key to her new apartment,” Valerie says.
“You’re moving?” Austin asks.
“Only temporarily.” I smile.
“But you’re still going to work, right?”
“I’m actually moving closer to the coffee shop, so yeah.”
“You may want to reconsider the coffee shop gig,” Mitchell says. When I look up at him, he winks. “I’m going to keep you pretty busy the next two weeks.”
Even as I narrow my eyes on him, I feel my face go hot.
“So you think she should give up her paying job to focus only on one that doesn’t pay her at all?” Austin asks, jumping in before I can.
“I think the internship will provide a lot of good paying opportunities for her, so yes,” Mitchell responds.
“If you think something that’s going to pay her in a year or two will be enough to satisfy her, then you don’t know Misty at all.” Austin shrugs a shoulder. “Besides, she’s capable of doing both jobs and doing them well.”
I’ve never been into the knight-in-shining-armor thing, but in this moment, I could kiss Austin for this. So I do. I smile as I look over at him, lean in, and kiss him on the lips. It’s a chaste kiss, but I hope he feels the gratitude in it.
“You should’ve brought me to this a month ago.” He chuckles when I pull away. I’m still smiling when I glance over at Mitchell and Dylan, who are both scowling, and I realize that I truly don’t care what either of them have to say about my life. Austin is right, they don’t know me. Mitchell may have been able to use that line and even his knowledge years ago, but not anymore. The Misty I am now is very different from the Misty I was when I was seventeen and it’s that thought that gives me the confidence I need to know that my new living arrangement will be perfectly okay.
Chapter Six
My eyes pop open, but my alarm hasn’t even gone off. I look over at the time and see it’s five thirty. What the hell woke me up? A sound. A ringing sound. I look at my clock once again, then at my phone. It wasn’t either of my alarms. Then, the doorbell rings. I sigh, letting my head hit my pillow again before I force myself to get out of bed. The apartment isn’t huge, it’s a one bedroom, though, which means I have to walk out of the room, past the living room slash dining room and kitchen on my way to the door. It’s weird waking up in a new, fully furnished place, that I had nothing to do with decorating, but I like it. It’s cute and chic. I rub my eyes before looking through the peephole and find Mitchell standing on the other side. I pull the door open.
“What are you doing here? Did something happen?”
“It’s five thirty.” He raises an eyebrow as he takes me in fully, his gaze slowly falling on every inch of me. It might affect me if I wasn’t so tired.
“I set my alarm for six thirty. That’s what Valerie said.”
“Clearly, Valerie doesn’t know about my morning run.”
“Why exactly do I have to know about your morning run this early in the morning?” I blink and start closing the door. “Come back when you’re done with that.”
“Come with me.” He places the tip of his sneaker on the bottom of the door, so I can’t continue closing it.
“On your run?” I nearly shout, then lower my voice to a whisper when I remember normal people are sleeping at this time. “Are you insane?”
“You’re supposed to be writing an article on college athletes, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“So why not experience a day in the life the unfiltered way?”
I take a step back, lips pursing as I consider this invitation. He has a point. I do want to do the best job I can and this would ensure that it happens. Besides, when else would I get a completely unfiltered view of the ins and outs of this? It’s not like I ever cared to before. My sister played volleyball for UNC and besides going to some games here and there, I didn’t show much interest in behind the scenes. I mean, it wasn’t until she got kicked off the team that I realized someone could even be kicked off the team for something other than poor grades or cheating. I turn my eyes to Mitchell again, who’s still staring at me, waiting, and nod once.