//------------------------------// // One's // Story: The Best Laid Out Plans 0: An April Fools Prequel // by Bysen //------------------------------// Night Light arrived at the restaurant. It felt a bit odd walking in by himself for once. Normally they’d arrive together, one of them having driven from their apartment but he’d had to swing by Jet’s place first. Honestly, he kinda regretted it after his talk with his friend. And borrowing his lynx bottle just made him feel kinda sleazy. All of this made him feel far more anxious than he should be. And knowing that made him even more anxious... Night Light had reserved a table for them here a few weeks ago. Considering this wasn’t a high class restaurant and just a walk in off the street kind of place it was a little redundant. Especially since if they had been turned down at the door they’d probably have just gone to one of the other places on the same street. Hell, just two doors over was a crappy noodle place they both loved and feared food poisoning from every time they went. And doubly especially since it was a thursday. As he walked in he spoke with the matradee and asked “I’ve got a reserva-” and at that point he saw Velvet sitting at a table looking right at him. “-tion.” “And who is it under, Sir?” the server asked in return. A pointless question now but it would be rude to just walk past her. “Um, either Night Light or Twilight Velvet.” “Uh… yes. Oh! Miss Velvet has already been seated. This way to your table.” and the now waitress grabbed a laminated menu that had seen much much used and began towards the table he could already see his girlfriend sitting at, smiling widely all the way over. Velvet smiled and suppressed a small laugh at him being escorted over to her. He sat, pulling, moving the stuff in his pockets around as he did so as to not stab his leg. Their host stood patiently while Night Light took his seat before handing him a menu. Velvet raised a hand to it. “I already ordered, thanks.” and waved her away. She only noticed it had probably come off as rude after she’d done it. Too late now. Speaking of late. “You’re a bit late.” “How long have you been waiting?” he asked in response. “Easily over half an hour.” she answered. “Really? Because the parking slip in your card said ‘begins 7:13’.” and he looked at the clock on the wall reading about 7:22. He turned back to her and raised an eyebrow. “Ok, I’ve been here ten minutes. But I have ordered. Meat and potatoes right?” inquiring to his usual go to. “Well some mushroom sauce on the side would be nice too. But I’ll take whatever you can afford.” he half joked. It wasn’t uncommon, well at least it wasn’t when the already uncommon occurrence of them not arriving together already happened, one of them to order for the other before they arrived. It cut down on the dead time of waiting for the food to arrive. Most couples would use that time to talk. Not these two. They say that taking someone to the movies is a horrible idea for a date because you spend the entire time in the dark, not able to see or talk to one another the entire time. For Velvet and Night Light though it would be a perfect date. Not that they didn’t like to talk, but they were one of those rare few couples that actually, you know, liked being around each other. Weird concept right? Just leaning on each other’s shoulders doing their own thing. Reading a book while the other watches the game. Writing a book while the other studies. Falling asleep while the other masturbates… yes, that happened once. I’ll let you decide which one was doing what. Of course that isn’t all to say they didn’t talk. Their little back and forth banter as he sat was usual. That their… let’s call it ‘dry wit’ and not ‘being arsehats’, was compatible with one another was the main reason they got along so well. They only waited about twenty minutes until their food arrived. In that time Velvet had asked a few questions spurred on by her friend’s terrible advice that she was for some reason taking mind of. Questions like what are you going to do after you get your degree, what do you think we’ll be doing this time next year and other subtle questions he see if he thought about the future of their relationship. When their food arrived, it was clear she was paying for the meal. Clear because her’s cost easily twice as much as his. Of course he’d gotten a thick steak and ‘seasoned wedges, boiled in balsamic oil’ more commonly known as chips [fries for you americans, or potatacrispyduds for you brits, or chups for you kiwis]. Velvet on the other hand had gotten a lobster. The two of them also had a bottle of wine to share between them. Neither of them actually liked wine but Night Light ignored that as a social drinker and Velvet thought a glass or two should be fine for her to drive home afterwards. Of course if they had mixed up her favourite drink like she’d requested but was denied that would be a different story. She called it a ‘Hey, take a sip of this’ which was made from 50% vodka, 50% lemon juice and boy did it live up to its name. At least until all of her friends got wise to it. Night Light’s friends on the other hoof were still free game whenever she got one. Velvet finished her lobster tail and had only stolen three of his chips. There were only eight to begin with seeing as how thick cut they were, basically a whole potato cut once like a pizza. Counterpoint: she was paying so it was her food anyway. Which is where Night Light finally came back in. He made a few large gestures to a waiter off behind Velvet. Much faster than she’d expected a new waiter came up to their table. “Excuse me, could we get a dessert menu please?” “I’m a little full Night Light.” Velvet stopped him. The waiter had already handed him a menu however. “I’ll pay.” he offered, which got exactly the response he expected. “I’ll have a banana sunday float, extra caramel drizzling and a side of whipped cream.” Night Light chuckled and then reached into his pocket, pulled out a few things along with his wallet to check how much he had in it, making a show of letting Velvet see. “Haha… still cheaper than the steak.” she replied cheekily. He handed the menu back to the waiter and said. “We’ll have one of those jointly.” and handed the menu over half closed. The waiter took it and was off. Velvet, wanting to cleanse her pallet of shellfish before the sweet sweet sugary goodness got here, finished off her second glass of wine. She looked at the glass for a moment and said “I probably shouldn’t’ve had those…” “Two glasses is fine. Besides we’re not heading home straight away are we?” he offered in return, thinking she was talking about driving. He was a bit further along than her, only half way through his seconds glass. The difference being he filled the whole glass and drank it half a mug worth at a time. It tended to help with nerves to just throw down the horrible tasting swill in one big swig. “That’s… not what I meant. Night Light…” she said while thinking ‘This is a horrible idea, desert arrive now and stop me!’ “I really need to know where you see the two of us in the future.” “Oh? Don’t worry about that. What’s important is right now.” he said, trying to be romantic. “I’m serious. We’ve been together for three years now and I just want to make sure that we’re still going somewhere. Not staying here.” ‘Ok, he still thinks this is just a relationship talk. No need to say the stupid thing… even if seeing how he reacts is a good indicator of how he’d react if it was true. God, a third glass of wine now would be great. Would blow the act though…’ “I think we should stay right here. Just wait a little longer. And we’ll both know-” “I’m pregnant.” ‘There. You did it… dumbass. Shut up me. And just watch what he does.’ Night Light was silent for a moment. ‘Pretty standard start.’ “No…” he muttered. ‘Could’ve been a better first word but still not exactly bad.’ “I didn’t… not like this…” ‘Ok, that’s definitely a bad response.’ “I planned… without a kid… without…” he was looking all around the place as he muttered just above being under his breathe. To her, the table, the waiter, back at her, back at the kitchen, the floor, the table again, once more to the floor, then the clock, the roof, the kitchen and the table once more. ‘Stop it… stop it… stop it.’ “Stop it!” she half-shouted. “‘You didn’t’, ‘you planned’, ‘without a kid’. What did you plan without a kid? Our life? YOUR life? Well. even if ‘you didn’t’ you now do. So. What are you going to do now?” her voice was raised but not loud enough that the whole restaurant could hear her. Just the nearby tables. But her yelling made them quiet down letting further tables begin to hear the end of her last words. “What? No. I, What I mean is I planned for our future. Of course I did. It’s just that a kid ruined it!” “Well what do you think was going to happen!?” she yelled. She was getting more into this than she really should but that’s because all of her thoughts of how this would go down were him being stunned at first then excited. Maybe a bit worried. But not using words like ruined and… and… ok maybe he only used one word that specifically was negative, but his other neutral words combined made negative sentences. Sentence. He’d only said one thing. The rational part of her brain started to kick back in. It was still fighting with a part of her brain that didn’t want to call ‘baby crazy’ but kinda was being that. She’d let him speak. “I didn’t want to get married just because I had to.’ ‘He’s stupid, you know that… he’ll catch himself soon.’ “In some shotgun wedding forced upon me.” ‘He’ll catch himself soon…’ “I don’t want to get married like that! Just because you have a kid. I don’t think that’s the reason we should be forced to get married. The kid doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t mean anything.” ‘SOON!!!’ “You should just get rid of th-” ‘This is how he feels…’ she thought, drowning out the rest of his words as her eyes began to water. ‘He never… I should’ve never… why did I say it? Why? What is wrong with m-no! This is why I said it. To get this response when it didn’t matter. So that when it did it doesn’t ruin my life with… some buster! I… I… ‘m leaving.’ and she stood up, knocking her seat over backwards as she did. “Wait!” he called and grabbed her arm. “-er. Cheque please.” her brain said on autopilot. An awful plan on words… he didn’t even groan though. She did, but not at the joke. Saying nearly silently under her breathe “He’ll catch himself soon… he better!” she turned to him, face crying to simultaneously soften her anger and harden her sadness. “Can we just stay here. Where we are right now. The two of us?” she pulled her arm from him violently and stormed out of the restaurant well aware everyone was pretending not to look. She both wished, to give them all a show and that she had thought of it sooner at the table for herself, to have thrown a glass of wine at his face. Not in his face. The glass itself. At his face. “He didn’t say that.” Twilight said with incredulity. “No… those were my exact words. Honestly, I’m surprised you remember them so well.” and Night Light got an angry stare from Twilight in return. Velvet put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Well, they hurt a lot at the time.” “How could you say something like that to her?” Shining asked. “What if that had been me? Obviously I'm here so…” he said and trailed off, not quite sure how this all ended all of a sudden. “Did you not mean it or change your mind?” “Oh, I meant every word of it.” he said with no shame at all. “You’re just looking at it from the view of someone who wanted to be angry. ‘I didn’t want to get married just because I had to. In some shotgun wedding forced upon me. I don’t want to get married like that! Just because you have a kid. I don’t think that’s the reason we should be forced to get married. The kid doesn’t matter at all. It doesn’t mean anything. You should just get rid of…’ are you ready for the part she somehow missed? …’the idea that we’d be together for any reason than why we already are. Ar-are you listening?’.” “Doubt.” Cadence chimed in. “That seems too covenant that she zoned out right there and missed the part that changed the whole context of what you were saying.” “I’d say inconvenient.” Night Light grumbled. “My guess, and believe me I thought back on this hundreds of times the days after, is she heard ‘get rid of’ and assumed I meant an abortion. Which then made my next ‘Can we just stay here. Where we are right now. The two of us?’ seem way worse. It was a literal statement…” “Maybe she’ll come back and see…” the waiter said as he arrived and placed the banana sunday float, extra caramel drizzling, a side of whipped cream and something extra Velvet hadn’t ordered but Night Light secret had: an engagement ring. Making sure Velvet saw him looking at his wallet had been a cover to pull the ring box out and fold it into the menu. He had organised it with the restaurant when he’d booked the reservation and was pretty sure there was a note by his listing given the hostess’ initial reaction. But just to be safe he also had a note saying ‘ENGAGEMENT SURPRISE do not let her see this!’ on the box. He’d stopped by Jet’s place to pick it up since he couldn’t risk keeping that at their place. And had to hand the menu to the waiter in a way that he could see the box and note but not let Velvet see it yet making the hand off quite awkward. “I don’t mean to make this any worse but…” the waiter said holding a reciet. “It sounded like she was the one paying for the meals.”