ax_main | Dana and Lil

Lil is nervous about her upcoming dates. Thank goodness Dana is there to calm her down.

Lil had gone to bed much too late and didn't wake up until close to noon. Back home it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary, but she'd gotten into a different pattern here and after a month of reasonable bedtimes it was harder to drag herself out of bed and down the hall into the shower.

And then there was everything that had happened last night.

When Lil got back to the room, she gave Dana the good morning wave that she'd neglected to give her on the way out, then dropped to her to stare at the ceiling. She had a date. She had no idea what the fuck to do on a date. And the date was not with one of the two people she'd like it to be with. Not the Nolan wasn't cute...

"Dana?" Maybe she wasn't the right one to talk to, but who else was there? Certainly not Tamara, who'd dressed her up and then left her alone at the frigging party. So Dana it was, who'd been a good roommate, and could maybe be a friend? At least for a bit.

Dana glanced over, placing a bookmark in the novel she'd been reading. "Yeah?" She turned to face her roommate. "What's up?

"Have you like, done the date thing?" Not that Lil was even sure that it was a date exactly. Just coffee, right?

The redhead felt herself blushing, which probably answered that question for her. "Not really," she admitted, cursing her fair skin. Her eyes widened with interest, though, at the question's implication. "Why? Who asked you out?"

"That obvious, is it?" Lil groaned and covered her face with her hands. "Nolan. Though I'm not sure if he asked me or it was the other way around. It's sort of a blur."

Dana crossed her legs and made herself comfortable. "So, wait, what happened exactly?"

"I don't know! Well, yeah, I do. That fucking halter top happened, that and me being a little too friendly I guess, but guys never thought I was doing anything more than just shooting shit before!" Lil stopped to take a breath. " I guess I flirted with him? And he was okay with it? Then coffee happened." She rolled over on to her side to give Dana a sad look. " I've never been on a date. I've never even kissed a guy."

"Do you not want to go on this coffee date?" Dana asked. Since, honestly, that was the first thing to figure out and it was kind of hard to tell from what Lil had said so far.

"I do. I mean, I'm not sure what I feel about him yet, but he's cute and nice... I just don't know anything about the whole 'how' of it. Like, who pays? " But of course there was one more hitch. "And then next Saturday night I'm meeting up with someone else, and I really do like that guy. Honest to god, this is completely unknown territory for me."

Dana blinked once, twice, as she gave herself a beat or two to process all of that. "I've never been in this exact situation," she said. She wanted Lil to have the truth, after all. "But if it were me? I would go in planing to pay for my half." Though she suspected Nolan Ross had the money to pay for coffee for the whole school, so she had no idea if he would want Lil to pay anything at all. She also had no idea if Lil wanted to pay for her own no matter what, but since Lil had seemed more at a loss than anything else, Dana doubted her roommate had firm opinion on it.

"And they are just dates. There is nothing wrong with casually going on dates with more than one person."

"Yeah? 'Cause it feels a little weird." But Dana's words were reassuring, and gave Lil A little room to breath. "I just never had anyone who was interested in me like that, like really interested, not just thinkin' I'd be desperate or something. And I never bothered to think I might like anyone 'cause... Well, I just had a pile of shit heads to choose from."

"Well, this will be good, then, right? These guys aren't shitheads?" Dana asked.

"Not as far as I know." Nick certainly was not. Lil looked over at Dana and smiled. " And you've never done the date thing? You sure have some good advice."

Dana smiled back slightly, and shrugged. "My older sister dated, and we moved often enough she had her share of first dates."

Maybe having a sibling would have been nice after all if it meant a little second-hand experience on matters like this. "And did she get nervous about them?"

"The first few times," Dana said, nodding. It was the slightest of fibs - Missy had a kind of self-assured confidence that Dana herself had not yet mastered - but it was definitely true that even Missy had gotten better with practice. "It seems to get better with practice."

That wasn't quite as helpful since Lil wasn't going to get any practice in before Saturday, but she nodded anyway. "Thanks. And I guess it's no loss if the thing with Nolan doesn't go anywhere. I mean, I didn't even know the guy was here a day ago."

Dana smiled encouragingly. "Worst case scenario, you get to go out for coffee and get to know someone new. Best case, maybe it will work out the way you're both hoping," she said.

"I don't even know what I'm hoping for." Lil shrugged and pulled open the drawer in the nightstand that held her stash of cookies. She had no idea if she was allowed to liberate snacks from the kitchen, but she didn't really care if she wasn't either, so it all evened out. She opened it, took out a few and leaned over to offer the box to Dana. "What about you? Got any hopes about anyone around here?"

Dana shrugged. "I don't really know anyone here that well yet, you know?"

Lil shook the box of cookies to see if Dana wanted one, "Maybe you need to hang out with me more. I seem to find all the good ones apparently."

"Guess so," Dana agreed, sounding a bit amused. She reached out a hand for a cookie. "And sure, thanks."

"I mean, if you even want to find a guy. Or a girl." Lil added the last because at this school, that seemed to be an important qualifier. Even if it did make her uncomfortable saying it out loud.

Dana hadn't really thought about it. They had moved so much before that she'd never really seen the point of getting close to almost anyone, beyond just being friendly. Nothing romantic, for sure. But, now that Lil mentioned it, it occurred to Dana that she might actually be at a school long enough for dating to be an actual...thing. "Guy," she said absentmindedly in answer to Lil's unasked question. "And I hadn't really thought about it."

"I never did either, 'till I got here. But then most people here are nice, and everyone is so goddamn pretty..." Which was something Lil herself had been a little slow to notice, but the blinders seemed to be coming off lately.

"Have to give you that," Dana admitted, chuckling

"There, that's a start." Lil grinned as she took back the cookies. "I mean, not that you have to start slobbering over someone, but it's sort of fun to look."

"Nothing wrong with window shopping," Dana said, grinning back. It as a phrase she'd heard Missy say once, and it definitely seemed to fit here. "Doesn't mean you have to buy. Figuratively."

Lil narrowed her eyes in challenge. "Okay then, say you're walking through the halls, doin' some window shopping... who's worth looking at?"

Dana blinked. "I hadn't really thought about it." Sure, there were a lot of really good looking guys there, but she didn't know many of them very well.

"You sound like me a couple of weeks ago," Lil grumbled. "What do you think about?"

"School? My hobbies? Current events? Just...regular stuff, I guess," Dana said, shrugging.

"Important stuff. Probably better to stick with that then start getting all worked up about boys," Lil explained. She almost laughed at herself. It hadn't even been 24 hours and she was talking like she had some great wealth of experience.

Dana laughed softly. "I will bear that in mind. And you'll have to tell me how the dates go. You've piqued my curiosity."

"I think I can tell you now: Nolan and I will have an okay time but decide that's it, no more, and the other guy and I will have a great time, but he won't clue in to the fact that I like him." Lil shrugged. "but then I'll have two dates under my belt, and i guess that's worth something."