"Nat wanted me to tell you that... that Beckett can't play in the game on Friday," Will said, scrambling to come up with an explanation.

Where did that come from? And why would I care about that?

I fought the very strong urge to roll my eyes at Will, but instead, I stared at Ty's neat half of the room. Will's side could really use some Marie-Kondo-ing.

Will continued on, digging himself a deeper hole. "I wasn't going to tell you, I didn't want you to worry, but Beckett texted me that he has a concussion." He waved a hand at me. "Nat thought I should tell you."

Liar, liar, dress pants that you have to wear after your game on fire.

Ty stepped into the room, frowning.

"I know. Beckett texted me too." Ty grabbed his phone off his dresser. "He texted the team group chat. We all know. Doc said he'd be out for the next two weeks, minimum..."

Ty ran a hand through his hair. "I was also there when Beckett got hit at the game?"

"Right, right. Duh." Will forced a laugh.

"Right," Ty said, but even I knew he wasn't buying the crap Will was selling. His gaze swung to me. "Nat?"

I wouldn't confirm or deny anything.

With the attention on me, Will grabbed his phone and slipped out of the room, still wearing his suit from the game.

Through the wall, the muffled slam of drawers being opened and shut in a frantic search for something rang out.

My stomach churned. I pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger and swallowed a little excessively.

"Date!" I blurted out. "Tonight's our date, I mean."

Ty nodded and pulled on his worn baseball cap. "Yeah, I was gonna come to get you."

"You know me, impatient, nosy, nervous– waiting isn't really my forté." I twisted the gold ring on my middle finger.

He tilted his head to the side. "You okay?"

I knew it! I knew he'd see right through me!

My mouth decided to run with everything I was freaking out about instead.

"No, I'm not okay 'cause you're here, and you're hot, a great kisser, this is our first date, and I'm so nervous I couldn't focus on anything, let alone my history paper worth 25%, so hopefully my TA is in a good mood while he marks it, but knowing his Scrooge curmudgeon-iness, he'll–"

I stopped to suck in air.

Ty pinned me with his gaze.

I stared back at him, but I don't think my brown, blinking gaze had the same effect. Would the floor open and swallow me whole Jaws-style? Would Ty decide, nope, didn't sign up for this brand of crazy, bye?

The questions racing through my brain were answered when I was, in fact, not swallowed by the floor. Then, my second one was answered when Ty tugged me into his frame.

A flush of adrenaline rushed through my body, all my thoughts going fuzzy.

Naturally, I stumbled and smooshed into him in an uncoordinated jumble of limbs. But it all worked out in the end, since my head reflexively tilted up at him and, bam, he lowered his lips to mine.

Then, he deepened the kiss, parting my lips.

By the time he lifted his head back, I'd wound my arms around his neck, tangled my hands in his hair, and plastered myself to his body, so much so that I couldn't bring myself to care about Will or my nerves or my history paper.

Floating in happy Ty la la land, I locked every moment of that into my memory and filed it under the #1 pre-date kiss in Nat history.

The deliciously perfect burn of stubble against my skin.

The honeyed taste of his lips.

The rush of pure sensations.

Tyler Sawyer knew how to kiss, that's for sure.

His eyes skimmed the planes of my face.

"Still nervous?" he asked, voice quiet but not soft. No matter the volume, it always held that steady timbre I'd come to associate with Ty.

"Nope," I shook my head, my tone soft and a little breathy, but who wouldn't be a little breathy after kisses like that?

"Great." He nodded and gave me the hint of a dimple. "Now get your jacket on, and let's go."

I could still feel my pulse in my throat, and my heartbeat hadn't gotten the memo to slow down.

"Uh-huh," I said with a head bob but didn't move a muscle.

"Sunshine, gotta let me go to get the jacket on." His hint of a dimple turned into that full-blown grin that turned my insides into mush.

My gaze fell to the grin.

Gosh, I loved that grin. I mean, I liked that grin a lot.

"Nat," Ty murmured.

My face heated. My eyes flashed back up to Ty, and I unwound my arms from their very comfy spot around his neck. "Right, jacket, purse, date."

His fingers brushed my hip as he let me go, and I turned from him, biting my well-kissed bottom lip.

I shrugged on my jacket, and Ty grabbed his from the hook on the back of the door.

"Beckett needed his Jeep, so we're gonna havta take the bus that'll be here in..." He pulled out his phone to check the time. "Two minutes."

"We better run then," I laughed and grabbed his hand to pull him along.

Ty paused to pull his door shut. Oh crap, I totally just grabbed his hand. Would it be weird that I'm basically like holding his hand now?

I tried to lowkey take my hand back, but he tightened his grip and shot me a look that said, I've got you, and I'm holding on.

Settlers of Caffeine. Yay or nay?

Yes, a retro board game café named after Settlers of Catan is the perfect date spot.

Yes, I learned that no matter the game, we're both very, very competitive.

And yes, I've been smiling like a goof this whole time.

So, yay.

We played Pandemic while we waited for our food to come, and he won. After my crushing defeat, we shared a flatbread pizza– the Mediterranean one with tomato and green pepper and feta and black olives, but I, of course, picked the black olives off of my pieces. When I was six, Mia told me they looked like eyeballs, and I still couldn't bring myself to eat them.

With a bowl of All Dressed Ruffles, we continued with our second game, Scrabble.

"SQUEEZE," I said as I placed the letters on the board. "That's 75 points! Now, this is my game," I chuckled as I added my points to my running tally.

Ty smirked. "We'll see about that."

"You're a Scrabble expert?" I raised a single brow and felt really cool doing it, 'cause single brow raises are just badass, you know?

He leaned in close. "I was the reigning Scrabble champion at family game nights."

Welp, I was just relying on my knowledge of random-ass words.

"You had family game nights?" I asked while grabbing more tiles.

"Yup," he said, but he was focused on picking his next word.

"That's adorable," I laughed, both at the concept of Ty sitting down for a family game night and the adorable look of concentration on his face to pick his next word.

Ty put down his next word, FLAPJACK. Damn, 76 points!

I rearranged my tiles, looking for my next word— too many constants, not enough vowels. I did use three e's in my last word, oops.

He leaned back in his chair. We sat at one of the tables in the middle of the café 'cause the booths nestled against smudged windows with a view of the street were full.

"Mom started them every Wednesday night, no matter what. She's big on us doing stuff together since everyone's schedules are so crazy. Me and Ellis are the oldest, and I have two younger siblings, Theo and Marie. Gramps used to come over for game night too."

Gramps? At my quizzical look, he elaborated.

"My dad's dad."

"Sounds nice. The last thing my Mom organized was probably my seventh birthday party." Where nobody showed up because she forgot to send out the invitations.

I drank the last of my strawberry milkshake.

Ty stuck with a boring water but totally ended up drinking my strawberry milkshake from the extra metal cup thing they bring. As Pinterest aesthetic worthy the whole cutesy sharing a milkshake with one straw thing was, we didn't share because A) I wanted my whole milkshake and B) I wanted my whole milkshake.

As weird as it sounded to mix a creamy milkshake with alcohol, 100% when I turned nineteen, I'd be coming back here for one of their boozy milkshakes– the salted caramel and spiced rum one the table over ordered looked so yummy. I did have Mia's ID, but I wasn't feeling ballsy enough to use it tonight.

I cleared my throat. "You sound like you're close with your family. There's your Mom, your brother..." I trailed off.

My face, neck, and ears went impossibly hot. I pulled a brown paper napkin from its overstuffed holder and ripped it.

Oof, Ellis. The twin brother who slept with Ty's girlfriend back in high school.

I couldn't meet his gaze, so I stared over his shoulder at the jukebox in the corner and fidgeted with my napkin. "I mean, Ellis, uh, I don't know how– I mean, things are probably awkward, I, uh–"

"I hate him," Ty said, as blunt as ever.

My grip tightened on the paper napkin. A girl a couple tables over slurped her drink through a straw.

"You hate him? That's, well, that's an emotion," I mumbled.

He popped one of my black olives into his mouth. "Yup."

"I shouldn't have brought it up, sorry." I grabbed some Ruffles and shoved them in my mouth to focus on something other than my reddening cheeks. Back over Ty's shoulder, the receipt machine spit out paper, the sound mechanical and spluttery.

"We getting to know each other right now?" he said matter-of-factly in a doesn't-actually-need-a-response-but-I-nodded-anyways type of way.

I swallowed the clump of Ruffles in my mouth.

"I'm close with my family. Always have been. Dad's a lawyer, Gramps is a lawyer, they own a firm together. Want me in it someday. They're busy, but they've always been there for me. Same with Mom. She's a stay-at-home mom, always been there– every hockey practice, every game, even all the PTA crap. Theo's a little thorny, but he's got a big heart. Love Marie. She's quiet, but when you get her going, she never stops. Now, Ellis." Ty sighed.

I knew Ty was a straightforward, don't beat around the bush type of guy, but experiencing his honesty was... whoa.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Ellis has been stirring up shit since we learned the word 'shit.' He's my brother, so I put up with it, saved his ass so many times I lost count. But with everything that happened last year, sleeping with Micah behind my back just pushed me over the edge. I needed a clean break."

I sat back and took that in for a second. "And that's that."

"That's that." He let out a long breath. "What about yours?"

"My what?" I knew what and would tell him about what, but I couldn't help my natural stall tactics.

"Your family."

"Ah, right." I shifted, chair squeaking. "My family."

We're getting to know each other. Family's part of that equation. Spit it out, Nat.

"So, there's me." I looked up at the speckled ceiling. "Obviously. And Mia, my older sister– I told you that she just transferred here. We had a bit of a tough time for a bit, but we're better now. Getting better. My parents, they're a whole can of beans." I let out a bark of rough laughter, but Ty's gaze remained steady, constant and serious.

Chest tightening, I ripped up the paper napkin. "I had a normal childhood, I'd say— a good one. Mom's always been a little scatterbrained, but she loves us. Don't really know what my parents' issues are, but Mom cheated on Dad back in middle school, they split, me and Mia stayed with Mom, and I haven't talked with Dad since. Mom's remarried a couple times since. But she never stays with the nice ones. The nice ones, she treats like nasty bubblegum she scraped off the bottom of some Jimmy Choos."

"That's a vivid description," he said with a half-smile, no pity, no trying to randomly relate like some people tried to.

"I like to watch a lot of shows and read a ton, so my imagination works double time." I stared down at the table and our half-finished, now abandoned Scrabble game.

"No." He brushed a strand of my hair behind my ear, and I swear to god, every nerve ending he barely touched with his fingertips tingled. "You're Nat, so you're cute."

I glanced up and matched his half-smile with one of my own. "That's also true."

His gaze searched mine. "But honestly, that's shitty of your Dad to do that."

"People are shitty." I shrugged.

The server stopped by our table. "Feel free to stay as long as you want. Just wanted to drop off the bill."

"Thank you," I reached for it, but Ty snagged it first.

Ty pulled out his wallet. "Call me old-fashioned, but Gramps taught me three things– always open the door first and pay for your girl."

I could 100% appreciate some chivalry. So I didn't argue and instead asked, "what's the third thing?"

He opened his wallet and put some cash down (probably being the last human under 20 I know that still carries cash). "When you find something good, don't let go."

There Ty went, saying something like that and melting my shrivelled up little heart.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

Ty pulled me over to the corner of the café.

"What are you doing?" I asked as I let him pull me along.

He stopped in front of the jukebox. "We're dancing."

I blinked at him. "No, we're not."

"Why not?" He pressed a couple buttons on the jukebox. "You can't say there's no music," he added as the jukebox came to life.

"Really?" My lips twitched to smile. "With Or Without You?"

He leaned against the jukebox. "It's a classic."

The opening lines of U2's iconic oldie played.

Then, he was saying something to me.

Or rather, a firm but gentle, very Ty-like order. "Dance with me, Sunshine."

He broke out the Sunshine.

What could I say to that, except for "Okay."

And that's what I said.

So that's what I did.

I wrapped my arms around him and rested my head on his chest, and we swayed along to whatever the heck the song said.

I did it, knowing that I was a mess of epic proportions, a mess that wasn't ready for anything remotely serious.

But I also did it knowing that I was falling for Tyler Sawyer, and all he had to do was give me that dimpled grin, kiss me, hold me, and call me Sunshine.

First date vibessss

What'd you think of the first half of the chapter with Will? The second half with Nat & Ty?

General thoughts about book 2 so far? Is anything confusing? Thoughts on any character? Pacing? Chapter length? Lemme know alllll the feedback so I can improve 🥰

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With that, I bid you adieu ✌️