Page 130 of End Game

She blushes. “Barrett…”

“If you don’t want to, I won’t push you, but I’d like to make you come—preferably more than once. We can take this as slow as you want. We don’t have to rush.”

“I want to feel you inside of me,” she says. She takes a deep breath and then meets my eyes, lifting her chin. “I want you to hold me in your arms and love me. We can do rough, we can do dirty, but I want tonight to be about us and our feelings for one another.”

“I can do that. We can do that,” I tell her.

“Good,” she says, regaining some of her spark. “It’s a date, then.”

It’s my turn to grin. “Fuck yeah, it’s a date.”

We continue our walk through Athlete’s Village and through town until we get to the little French restaurant tucked away in a far corner of the main strip of town. It’s not a popular place for the college students, frequented more by professors and parents. Part of that is due to the menu, and part of that is due to the cost. I have the luxury of a functionally unlimited black American Express card.

The scene is perfect: dim lighting, candles, wine, checkered red tablecloths. When I give my name, the host whisks us away to a quiet table in the corner, away from everyone else.

I help Diana into her seat and then take mine across from her. She reaches across the table, and I take her hand in mine.

“I love you,” I tell her quietly, and she smiles.

“I know,” she says, and I laugh. “I care about you a lot.”

“I know,” I say, and it’s her turn to laugh.

“So what now?”

“So now we be ourselves,” I say. “Us being in a relationship doesn’t take anything away from our friendship. You’re still my best friend. But now we get to kiss and hold hands and…”

“And?” She raises her eyebrows suggestively.

“Yeah. And. It adds to our friendship, it doesn’t subtract anything.”

“I think… I was comparing every guy I met to you, and nobody ever measured up.” She blushes. “It was wrong to do that, when you and I were just friends, but…”

“The reason I never dated was because I knew you were the one I wanted, and even though I tried to convince myself it could work with someone else, in my heart I knew there was no comparison.”

“Barrett…” She squeezes my hand.

“I don’t regret it. It was the right course for me.”

Diana frowns. “You’ve hooked up before. You’ve called me when you’re leaving some girl’s place and you’re drunk and…”

It’s my turn to blush. “Yeah. I’ve… fooled around. But it never meant anything. You were on the opposite side of the country, and I had no reason to believe that would change anytime soon. There was nothing to indicate that this could ever happen. So I lived my life. My previous partners knew and accepted that it would never go beyond one or two nights.”

“That’s kind of how it was for me,” she says. “I never tried to make it anything more than what it was. I always knew it would never work out.”

There’s a lump in my throat. “I’m glad we’re trying now.”

“Me, too.”

Our quiet moment is interrupted by the waiter, who delivers the bottle of wine. He pours us each a glass. As much as I’m not a fan of wine, it feels appropriate for the moment, more so than ordering a beer. Romantic lighting, candles, soft violin music, fancy French food… it’s all part of the first date experience. We’re grown ups now, or as close to it as we can be at the moment, and she deserves a grown up date.

There will be other nights where we go to a frat party and stumble into the diner, drunk, in search of cheese fries. We’ll grab a burrito and curl up on the couch, watching movie musicals. We’ll go to dim sum and talk and laugh and eat until we’ve had our fill. We’ll live our lives.

Tonight, though… tonight is for us, to celebrate us.

We talk all through dinner, catching up on our day. Conversation flows freely. She tells me about her academic advisor appointment. She’s going to be able to graduate this spring, even if it involves taking a class over winter intersession. As much as I’m disappointed we won’t be able to spend winter break together, I’m more pleased that we can graduate together, that we can go through that process together.

Northeastern is still her top choice grad school—she submitted the application over Thanksgiving break—but she’s keeping her options open. If she has to move to Amherst or Lowell or New Hampshire, she wants us to try long distance for the two years of the program. I’m fine with that. My job after graduation won’t easily allow me to work from home, so I’m going to have to stay close to the city. I like that at worst she’ll be within easy driving distance, and at best she’ll be right next to me.