Getting to Third Date (6 page)

Once, long ago, my sixth-grade gym teacher, who had a gorilla-size chip on her shoulder, gave us girls two pieces of advice: The best defense is a good offense, and never let a guy tower over you in an argument—it gives him the psychological advantage. She was fired shortly after that, for tipping our principal, Mr. Mandis, into a Dumpster, so the advice really stuck in my mind.

I stood up, put my backpack on the table, and faced Tyler down. Maybe not such a good idea, since my knees, I discovered, were shaking. Where was a good shot of adrenaline when I needed it?

He laughed. “It's not a hard question, Katelyn.” Apparently, Tyler found my refusal to answer funny. “Yes. No. No big deal if you're the pickiest dater on the planet. It would explain a lot of this wacko Mother Hubbard advice you've been giving, to tell the truth.”

Turns out, anger is a good source of adrenaline. “You didn't know me in high school. You haven't known me very long. So what if I haven't rushed into a relationship? I have classes to study for and a career to plan. How dare you assume I've never been on a third date?” Another plus to anger is that the truth is easy to hide behind outrage. Like, I wasted four years in high school hanging out with a guy who wasn't ever going to like me like I liked him. There had been some guys who might have liked me. But I hadn't really given them a chance. Which didn't really mean my three-date rule was dumb. Just that I hadn't practiced it on enough guys. Yet.

He stepped back, as if he thought I might morph into vampire girl and bite his throat out. “True. I haven't known you very long. Maybe you were homecoming queen and planning to marry the homecoming king until he dumped you for your English teacher.”

He'd come a little too close to the truth. But I could see it was by accident. He had no clue who David Morse was—let alone that he was indeed homecoming king. The smile on his face had slid sideways and he looked a little sick. I realized he was sorry he'd insulted me, and my own anger started to slip away.

Too soon, it turned out, because he continued, “But I think I should be the one to pick the next two guys you go out on a third date with.”

“I've already got one picked out.” The perfect one to make my case to the campus. Slacker Dude. No way was Tyler taking him away from me. No one would expect me to go on a fourth date with a guy who had an imaginary friend who'd come to college with him to “make sure I study hard and make my parents proud.”

“Is he someone Sophia would date?”

“Who cares?”

“The readers care. So, is he someone Sophia would date?”

Never in a million years. “How would I know?” I asked that with a straight face because I was certain Tyler had no idea that when Slacker Dude had come to the room to pick me up for our coffee date, Sophia had actually faked a phone call on her cell and tried to convince my date that my mother was in the hospital awaiting surgery.

I'd told him she was a little bit crazy, which he understood—all too well, as I discovered throughout the evening. He hadn't even had a second date. But I didn't have to tell that to Tyler.

He shrugged. “Okay. I'll just ask her.”

“That's not fair.”

“Why? Because you picked a guy who was Most Likely to Fail as Third Date #1 and you don't want anyone to interfere with your agenda?”

“I…didn't.” Even I didn't believe me.

“Still.” He reached for my backpack, which I had foolishly left unprotected on the top of the table. “I think I'll pick from now on.”

I watched in horror as he once again took out my little pink book and began to thumb through. But all I could think of was that I couldn't let him randomly choose the next guy for me to have a third date with.

He opened the book and frowned. “Are there pages missing?”

“No,” I lied, looking straight into his eyes with a sincere frown of puzzlement that he would even ask.

“Good. Then explain this code of yours to me.”

I took a deep breath, as if to protest, and then I gave up. What can I say? I'm a good friend, even to high school homecoming kings who have the hots for their history (not English) teacher. How can I possibly be expected to change only halfway through my first semester in college?

“It's pretty simple. I pick a code name, just in case anyone—like you—ever gets their hands on my book. And then I rate them on ten simple points.”

“Ten points?” He checked over the book and slowly said,
“S, D, E, T, L, C, M, H, IQ, B.”
He looked up, a puzzled frown on his face. “What do those mean?”

I said quickly, “Sense of humor. Where we go. Who pays. Whether he talks. Whether he listens. If he wears clean clothes. If he has an interesting major. What his favorite hobby is. If he's smart. The usual.”

Tyler had been paying attention, even though I'd rattled off my list rather quickly. “That's only nine. What's the tenth point—” he checked the book. “
B.
What's
B
stand for?”

Buzz factor. Like when a cute guy is around and you feel the temperature rise and the buzz in your ears gets so loud that it shuts out everything but your hot guy radar. But I wasn't going to admit that to him. “Whether he has an interesting blog,” I lied rather lamely.

Fortunately, Tyler didn't notice the lapse in logic. “Okay.” He started to read with a furrowed brow. It's hard to tell much from this,” he finally said. I mean, you like Mellow Man's hobby, because you gave it a nine, but it could be grave robbing for all I can tell.”

I glanced at the entry. “He paints. I like a guy with an artistic flair.”

“Do you?” For a moment he was looking at me. Me me, not Katelyn the best friend and chump, but Katelyn the girl who liked things he didn't know about. “What other hobbies do you rate highly?”

I froze. There's this thing about guys who generate a buzz factor off the scale. For example, Tyler. You want them to notice you. But then, when they do, you worry that you'll blow it by saying something stupid. I tried an evasive maneuver. I shrugged. “I like lots of things.”

“What's your top favorite hobby for a guy?”

Reluctantly, I told him the truth. “Working on his car.”

“Really? Why?” He seemed surprised. Maybe a little disappointed? I remembered too late that he didn't even have a car. He went everywhere on his bicycle. Which was why he had such a nice firm butt. Not that I'd noticed or anything.

I tried to fix my mistake. “Guys who love their cars, and take care of them well. You can tell they'll treat a girl right. But the same holds true for guys who love their bikes.” Yeah. Lame. I know. But that's hope springing eternal for you.

“That's Katelyn logic for you.” I couldn't tell if he meant it in a good way or a bad way, because his smile was a little forced. “What's your least favorite?”

Oh, great. Another minefield and I wasn't even sure yet I hadn't just gotten blown up in the last one. “Bodybuilding.”

“You don't like guys who go to the gym?”

Tyler went to the gym every morning. That's his serious side coming out—when he believes in something, he puts it on a to-do list and does it. Who couldn't love a guy like that?

I plunged on, despite the warning in my brain that I should quit now. “Of course I believe in going to the gym and being healthy. I'm talking about those guys who spend four hours there and then have to talk about the size of their biceps all the time.” I crossed my fingers. I'd never heard Tyler once ask anyone to feel his bicep.

Bingo. He nodded. “Oh. Them. I hate them too. What a waste of testosterone.”

Yay! Score one for Katelyn. “Exactly.”

“Okay. I won't pick a guy who has any hobbies that might include bodybuilding.” He glanced up. “Do you care about the IQ rating? It is college, after all. Aren't we all smart?”

I shrugged. “Some smart people can be awfully dumb. The smartest guy in school could decide to take me on a date to toilet paper a professor's house.”

“No way.”

“Way. At least, it happened to a friend of mine in high school.”

He bent back to the book, mumbling to himself, “S, D, E, T, L, C, M, H, IQ, B…”

I thought I was glad he had believed me about the last little rating point. Until his finger stopped on a guy who had a really good buzz factor rating. “You liked this Hands-On Guy's blog a lot; you gave him a ten. And he has a five in the IQ category, which means he doesn't expect to go toilet papering with a cute girl. Let's give him a third chance.”

Tyler was smiling at me. And he was still talking. But the buzzing in my ears was very loud and I was busy trying to digest that he'd just picked Hands-On Guy—otherwise known as Blaine—out for my next third date.

Blaine.

With buzz factor out the wazoo. I mean, the guy had the hottie quotient of a movie star. Which meant he was constantly hooking up—and well schooled in the art. I tried to think of a worse choice for a third date I'd not only have to survive, but have to write about for the entire student population.

I couldn't think of one.

Not even Tyler himself.

Oh, goody.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that I was so into Blaine. I wasn't. He was out of my league, and even my inner buzzometer knew that the first time I saw him.

What can I say about him that his name doesn't already reflect? Born in pretension, raised in pretension, life was good for this guy. And he wanted to share that goodness with every female on campus.

The problem with Blaine was that he was not just a 24 carat jerk, he was also a very sexy 24 carat jerk.

Why do human beings lose their common sense when a cute date prospect shows the slightest interest? Or even more critical to me, why do I have to fight my better instincts when a guy with top buzz factor and absolutely no scruples wants to put his hand on my knee?

Someone had asked Professor Golding this question. I don't know if she saw all the girls lean forward a little breathlessly for the secret, but she only used the moment for a joke. “Because otherwise our species is doomed.” At least, I hope it was a joke. She got a laugh from the class, although it was a little bit nervous and not that loud.

And don't think that just because the perennial best-friend girl doesn't throw her bra and phone number at the hot guy, that doesn't mean she's not just as affected as those girls who do. No way. Nuh-uh. We just hide it better. I suppose guys have the same problem, but I'm much more intimately aware of the female side of the attraction equation.

Blaine had a radar for girls who had interest. And, oddly enough for his type, he didn't stick only with the beautiful people. He was willing to take a chance on girls who hadn't been cheerleaders or homecoming queens. Girls like me, in other words.

I'd noticed him in calculus on that first day when we were all still recovering from the shock of an expensive dictionary-size book full of numbers, letters, and Greek symbols like pi and beta.

Blaine sat a row ahead of me and just to the left, so that I found myself paying less attention to the professor and more attention to the appealing nature of Blaine's profile. I wanted to know what color his eyes were. I thought I'd caught a flash of green, an unusual color, and I was unable to concentrate on calculus until I had an answer to the most burning question in my mind that morning.

When someone behind us came in late, Blaine turned to look and caught my rather blatant stare.

My first thought was
Yep, green, just like I thought.
My second was
Uh-oh.

But he smiled, and then he smiled a little more widely while I recovered from the blush that covered me from forehead to neckline. So I smiled back.

After class he asked me to have lunch with him. I accepted, even though technically it was a no-fault date, since we both had dining hall tickets and our parents had paid for them.

He did scoop the biggest brownie onto my plate and filled my glass with his special mixture of Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, and a smidge of Dr Pepper. He called it Blaine's Brew.

Something in the back of my mind warned me that such a cute guy coming on so strong was worth putting up the caution flags. But all my attempts to deflect his charm with my best-friend moves were ineffective.

He just wouldn't treat me like a sidekick and insisted on treating me like a date. Not even like the cheap date my dining hall meal plan made me.

I think, if things had gone just a little differently on the second date, I might actually have gone for the third date with Blaine. But luck was with me the second time he asked me out—to a frat party.

Blaine, a sophomore, belonged already and was past the ugly pledge stage. I didn't have to picture him rushing if I didn't want to, which was a relief because I find the whole fraternity/sorority rushing scene a little junior high.

Call me shallow, but I just didn't think I could date a guy if I knew he was going through hell week and all that entailed. It has something to do with the gross activities they make the pledges do. The admin types were always coming down on the fraternities for some sketchy behavior.

Like keggers. Which they certainly had, but more discreetly, as I discovered when Blaine brought me to the Sigma Alpha Gamma house.

“Sounds like our calculus textbook,” I joked when I saw the five-foot-high sign in front of the driveway. I'd been feeling a little light-headed from all the attention. He'd picked me up at the dorm, and in the process charming Sophia into taking me aside and whispering, “This one, he is adorable, but be careful, sweetie.”

He'd draped his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close as we walked, and I couldn't help but notice that we got some jealous stares from a few people hurrying along dateless to the library. So I thought my joking would be appropriate. Really, I did.