The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,60

a formality before we got to the making-out part at the end.

As we drove along in silence, I realized that things were always so much simpler once you entered the post-make-out stage of a relationship. After you’d kissed someone, it became all inside jokes and cute references, and everything else was overridden by the need to kiss the person again. This haze softened everything and made it all easier. But it really didn’t seem like that was going to be in the cards for tonight. I was hoping we could get out of this with minimum awkwardness, so we could pretend we’d gone out tonight as friends—friends who, it turned out, didn’t have all that much to say to each other.

But it was too bad, I realized, as I looked at his profile, lit up by his dashboard light. He was really, really cute. And he seemed nice. But apparently, somehow, that wasn’t always enough. (I made a mental note to be sure to tell Toby, since this seemed to run counterintuitive to everything her Rom-Coms had told her.)

Clark slowed, signaled, and pulled into my driveway, and I felt myself let out a small sigh of relief. This strange date was almost over. It was still early—I could regroup, then find out where my friends were and meet up with them. I could still salvage the night, after all.

He pulled to a stop and put the car in park but didn’t turn off the engine or make any move to walk me to my door—which I was glad about. This didn’t need to get any more uncomfortable than it currently was. “So, thanks for dinner,” I said with a big smile, gathering up my purse, hand already hovering near the door handle. “I had a really nice time.”

Across the car, Clark looked at me for a moment. “You did?” he asked, sounding baffled.

Oh god. I could feel myself getting frustrated. That was just something you said, not something you actually meant. Most people understood that. I didn’t like going to Tom’s sketch comedy shows or my dad’s fund-raisers. But that didn’t mean I told either of them that. “Sure,” I said, keeping my smile in place.

Clark looked at me for a second longer, and by the dashboard light, I could see confusion knitting his brow. “I just . . . ,” he said slowly, then shook his head. “I mean, it was like you didn’t want to talk to me.”

I drew back slightly in my seat. Why were we recapping this? We’d clearly both had a bad time, so why weren’t we moving on? I had tried to talk to him, all night. He was the one who hadn’t wanted to talk about any of the subjects I brought up.

“We talked,” I said. I was fine with having a bad date. I was less fine with discussing it forever, not to mention incorrectly.

“No,” he said simply, shaking his head. “Not about anything real.”

I had opened my mouth to reply to this, but stopped with my argument half-formed. Because it was true. I hadn’t asked him anything real, because I hadn’t really wanted to know anything real. I wanted the date I always had—fun and easy and simple. I had no idea how to explain this. But I knew I needed to get out of his car. The way he was looking at me—the way he was talking about this—was making me feel retroactively embarrassed, like I’d spent the whole night doing and saying the wrong things, even though I’d been doing what I always did.

“See you around,” I muttered as I opened the door and stepped down to the ground. I was trying not to think about the fact I was supposed to see him tomorrow to walk the dog. But he might be calling Maya as soon as he drove away, requesting a different dog walker.

I shut his door, maybe a little harder than I needed to, and walked toward my house even though I had no intention of going inside. I was going to get in my car, find my friends, and start the process of telling them about this, so it could turn into something we could all laugh about. I walked toward my front door, pulling out my phone and waiting for Clark to drive off. I watched as his car pulled into our turnaround, backed out, and turned around so he was now facing the end of the driveway. But the car just sat there,