After You--Paily
Paige McCullers had never been more nervous in her life. For a girl who usually didn’t give much thought to what she wore, she’d changed her outfit an embarrassingly high number of times. She didn’t even know why she was so nervous. It wasn’t like it was her first date with Emily. She and the other girl had even been intimate, but it had been an unexpected surprise, nothing planned. This was different. This was Emily’s first date since Maya had died, and Paige wanted everything to be perfect.
She’d arranged to pick up Emily at six o’clock on the dot. They’d go out to eat at Emily’s favorite Italian restaurant, and then they were going to go see a movie. She’d told Emily she wanted to surprise her, so the other girl didn’t know what they were seeing. After perusing the show times, Paige decided to take Emily to see Ouija, despite her own personal dislike of horror movies. They were Emily’s favorite, and besides, scary movies were practically an invitation to cuddle, which was something Paige could get behind.
At exactly six, Paige was on Emily’s doorstep, knocking at the door. She almost forgot how to breathe when Emily opened the door. She was dressed in a relatively simple blue dress that would have looked so-so on the rack, but looked incredible on Emily. It was tight around her chest, and showed off a lot of skin.
“Like what you see?” Emily asked with a smirk. Paige realized she’d been staring and she cleared her throat.
“You look great,” she said. Emily smiled.
“Well let’s get going. You promised me an evening I wouldn’t forget, remember?” she asked. Paige nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.
“After you,” she said, gesturing for Emily to go in front of her. Instead, Emily grabbed her hand. To Paige’s surprise, she didn’t let go the entire way to the restaurant.
“What are you going to get?” Emily asked, perusing the menu. Paige shrugged. She hadn’t really thought about it, but now it felt like the most important decision she’d ever make in her life. It was silly, she knew.
“I think I’m going to get the Chicken Alfredo,” Emily mused. Paige nodded absent mindedly, realizing her mistake too late. Why, why, why had she chosen an Italian restaurant? Practically everything had garlic in it, and Paige wasn’t quite so oblivious to the rules of dating to not see the problem. Finally she decided on spaghetti and meatballs and hoped that there wasn’t too much garlic in it. And she certainly wasn’t eating any of the garlic bread sticks.
“That was delicious,” Emily said later as they were leaving the restaurant. Paige nodded in agreement. She supposed it had been good, but she’d hardly tasted it, she was so nervous.
“Gum?” Emily offered, holding out a stick.
“Sure,” Paige accepted, wishing now that she’d gone ahead with the bread sticks.
“So are you ever going to tell me what movie we’re seeing?” Emily asked curiously. Paige cleared her throat.
“Um, Ouija,” she said. Emily’s face lit up.
“Seriously? No way!” she exclaimed happily. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. She knew Paige hated horror movies, and she honestly thought Paige had a worse taste in movies than Spencer.
“I thought you might like it,” Paige said, proud of herself for doing something right. Emily beamed.
“I’ve been dying to see it, but nobody would go with me!” she explained. Paige smiled slyly. She had actually asked Hanna if Emily had seen the movie yet, and the blonde had practically begged her to go with Emily, claiming that if she had to see one more horror movie with her friend, she was going to die. Paige thought she was being a bit dramatic, but an hour into the movie she understood what Hanna meant.
While Emily claimed to love horror movies, she turned into a massive chicken when watching them. She spent the entire moving clinging to Paige’s arm. Which wasn’t something Paige would usually complain about, except for the fact that Emily’s nails were digging into her skin so much that she was sure they’d leave marks. It wasn’t exactly the type of cuddling she’d been hoping for, that was for sure.
After the movie ended, Emily was practically shaking with fear and excitement.
“Oh my god, that was terrifying!” she exclaimed as they left the theater.
“I thought you were going to pee your pants at one point,” Paige said, wanting to kick herself the second the words left her mouth. Luckily, Emily just laughed.
“When that thing popped out? Oh my gosh, it’s a good thing I peed before the movie or I probably would have!” she exclaimed. Paige marveled that they could talk about bodily fluids without the romantic feelings being ruined.
They drove back to Emily’s house in near silence, neither of them ready for the evening to be over.
“You know… My mom’s out of town. If you wanted to come in for a while. We could have coffee or something,” Emily offered shyly. Paige felt her palms getting sweaty. Calm down. You’ve been alone with Emily before. For god’s sake, you’ve had sex with her!
“I’d love to,” Paige said. Emily offered her a small smile and led her into the house. For the first time that night, Paige wasn’t in charge and Emily was looking forward to it. Once they were inside, Emily turned and attacked Paige with her mouth. Paige was startled but reciprocated immediately.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since you picked me up,” Emily said breathlessly, kissing up and down Paige’s neck. Paige shuddered.
“You’ve wanted to do this? How do you think I felt, seeing you in that dress?” Paige asked. Emily laughed and the sound set a shiver down Paige’s spine.
“I guess Hanna picked well,” she said. Paige rolled her eyes. It was just like Hanna to be playing both sides, helping them both make the night amazing.
“Clearly we should have skipped dinner and the movie,” Paige joked.
“There’s still time for dessert,” Emily said huskily, moving toward the stairs. Paige followed eagerly.
She’d done pretty well tonight, if she did say so herself.