The Art of Being a Gentleman

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

DAVID FELT LIKE a stranger in his own body.

"So with the color scheme and theme you gave me, I thought it'd be best to go with an arrangement of these three flowers," he explained, laying them out on the table.

If you had told him a year ago that he'd be in a hipster café, sipping the most expensive coffee he'd ever paid for, while talking about flower arrangements with the Alyssa Harvard... he'd probably have walked away laughing.

He'd only ever daydreamed about this very situation. Except... in his dreams it was an actual date with her and not planning a dance. And they wouldn't be talking about flowers, they'd be talking about baseball, or the places they wanted to travel to, or how handsome David was or something. Maybe even a little bit of not talking.

"Ooh!" she beamed, eyes wide. "David, these are beautiful."

Relieved and pleased with her reaction, he tried to keep his expression nonchalant. "Yeah, I thought they were nice." He pointed to the first flower and subtly peeked at the notes he had scribbled on his hand from the things the florist had explained to him the day before. "So this is an anemone flower, and it has a couple different meanings, but there's a pretty nice one that has to do with..." he squinted at his messy penmanship, "Afro-diet-ee. She's like the love doctor basically. So that's cool."

Alyssa smiled and leaned her chin on one of her hands, watching him, "That's one way to put it."

He moved onto the next flower. "Carnations represent love and frustration. Wait, what? Oh, I mean fascination..." He chuckled nervously, shoving his inked hand onto his lap. "And these are spray roses. So they're a little smaller than your regular ones."

"I love the shades of purple with the white," she gushed, picking up the three flowers and looking at them together. "If we had some greenery I think they'll pop even more."

"Uh yeah, right. I was definitely also thinking about adding green-er stuff..."

Alyssa giggled like he had actually said something funny, before putting them back down and sending him a grateful smile across the table. "Really though," her voice sweet and sincere. "I'm impressed. These are perfect. Very classy."

"Well," he half-shrugged with a tiny smile, "the dance would be a total disaster without it, and I couldn't let that happen."

"You're right, the flowers are the most important part," she rolled her eyes playfully.

David nodded seriously, "Critical, really. The dance would be ruined if people had to dance with a bunch of stupid ponies around."

"Peonies?"

"...that's what I said."

Her head tilted back in laughter, "Anyway. I owe you, David."

David perked up and felt a little nudge in his gut. The way she had worded it had given him the perfect opportunity. This was his chance. He could totally do this. He still... he still wanted to do this, right?

What was he thinking? Of course he did. It was Alyssa Harvard. The girl he'd been thinking about since junior year. The sole reason he had worn a button up shirt to school every day. The reason he had done all that weird stuff with Ricky. He was so doing this... but he had to do it perfectly.