//------------------------------// // Chapter 15; The Date // Story: "Just Kiss Already!" And Other Rumbaloo Tales // by Candy-Sweets_12 //------------------------------// I stared directly towards the ground. I tried to adjust my appearance a bit, and fix my hair, but there wasn't a strand out of place. I've done and redone everything at least a thousand times, but I was still nervous to go. 'Okay Rumble," I tell myself. 'just be yourself." I take a few deep breaths and take one last look at the mirror. I put on my most winning smile and head out. "I'll see you later Mom," I call out, flying out pass her. "See you before ten." Before she could respond, I've already shut the door behind me and started to Scootaloo's house. I land on the steps a few minutes later, and knock on the door, 'Don't be nervous, don't be nervous,' I think. Eventually, someone opens the door, and unfortunately for me, it was her Dad. "Hey Rumble," he tells me. "need something?" he smiles as I try to swallow the lump in my throat. "Oh, well, I was supposed to take Scootaloo out for dinner. Is she ready?" I ask. "I'm here," she says, from behind, she starts trotting down the steps and comes up behind her dad. She looked almost the same as she always did, the only difference being her brushed mane, and the blue clip holding up part of it. She also carried a matching blue purse around her neck. "You kids have fun," he says, leaning on the door and throwing Scootaloo a side smile on his face. "We'll try." She responds. He bursts into laughter and shakes his head, going back inside as we turned away. "You look nice." "Only the best for you." I say. "That was really cheesy." she says. I couldn't help but smile at that. "I know." "So how's the wedding coming along with Thunderlane?" she asks. "So far, it's going great. They're always talking about flowers, and the theme, and such, glad to see that they're excited about it," I state. "Are you?" "I'm excited that Thunderlane's taking a big step forward in his life, and I'm happy to have Blossom Forth as my new Sister-in-Law." "She seems like she'd be a nice one." she agreed. "What about Soarin' and Rainbow Dash?" I ask. "Huh?" "Do you think that they could be next in line?" Scootaloo shrugged. "Maybe, as long as Rainbow Dash is happy, either way." she states. "Any new tricks you could be thinking up?" I ask. "Not at the moment, but I'm thinking of something at the moment," "What's that?" "I don't know what to call it, but I plan on having it deal with swoops and dives and such." We were approaching the restaurant, and we were close enough to see a few ponies were standing inside. We stepped inside and asked about a table, and the place was full of ponies, not every table was filled, but there was enough to get cranky waiters running around the place, some looked like they'd rather be on break. I received a pager, or whatever the hay they call the device. "It'll light up to let you know when a table is ready." The pony said, answering before we could even ask anything else. He looked like he was having a pretty rough day, and I guess that I'd be pretty upset too if I had to answer the same questions over and over again. I felt sorry for the guy. Scootaloo and I went back outside to wait, and sat on in the decorative benches that were outside. "I haven't been to this place in ages, but I never expected them to start giving out these pager things to customers." Scootaloo said, turning the small thing over and over as she examined it. "Same here, I never would've thought they'd do it either." I agree. We wait outside while other ponies who come before us go in, and other ones walk out. Scootaloo and I say nothing and both end up staring out at the sky. I find myself blushing as the silence grows, and dart my eyes to her every few seconds. Before she could notice, I always look away, before I blush even redder and switch my gaze back to her. I play this little game with her before she catches my eyes and blushes herself. I find a smile growing on both of our faces as she scoots herself a bit closer to me. And, right on cue, that stupid little pager went along and did its beeping. We both scoot away and look up, and I try to hide my disappointment as we walk inside. A waiter stands by and grabs the machine with his magic, he walks us to an area of vacant tables, where we get a booth to sit in while he gives us our menus. "I'll be a moment." he says. Scootaloo and I sit across from each other and smile. She sets her purse to the side of her while I look away and run my hoof over the wooden table designs. Scootaloo looks out through the window. "So..." I finally begin. "This is..." she states, before stopping. "New?" I suggest. She nods. "Yeah, I haven't exactly ever been on a date before." she admits. "You haven't?" I ask. "Well, I never took much of an interest in anypony. I always had other things to worry about, for instance, getting my cutiemark. And once I finally got it, I started thinking of ways to use my special talent." "I can't say I blame you." I reply. "There's more to life than romance, and I've been thinking about my future career possibilities ever since I even learned what a cutiemark is. So you can imagine that when I got it," she says, letting her sentence hang. "You started thinking how to use that talent for future careers." I finish, she nods and the waiter comes back. "Have you decided?" he asks. We shake our heads and he just nods in understanding. After a minute, he brings us bread sticks and walks off to some other table. Scootaloo takes one and breaks it apart into a few pieces, popping each part she tore off into her mouth. "Do you feel the same way?" she asks. "If I were to be honest, I never really thought that deeply about it. Sure I considered different career paths, but not that often." I admit. "Meh. My friends and I were always so obsessed with getting those things." "But you did." I remind her. "Yep. And I'm glad with how it turned out." she replied. She moves her hair from her eye and smiles at me. I take a bread stick myself and nibble on it until our waiter gets back. "Have you decided?" he repeats. Scootaloo gives him the menu and says what she wanted, and I did the same. "What else do you have in mind?" she asks. "I don't know, maybe you could tell me what you were going to say the other day?" I suggest. I look down and twiddle with my hooves while she blushes and looks at the table. "W-well." she stutters. I let her pause and take a deep breath. She looks up to me and continues blushing as she avoids my eyes. "I...kind of like you a bit," "As friends though," I say. "Maybe a little more than friends." she finishes. She turns to the side and rubs her arm. I say nothing and stare at her. "Y-you do?" I ask. "How many times do I have to repeat myself for you these days?" she teases, throwing me a winning smile, but her blush refusing to fade. "Anything else?" I ask. "Nope." she says. "But you said you'd-" "I didn't say I'd spill out my guts telling you everything. I just said to save some conversations for now." she mentioned. "Can't I get anything else out of you?" I ask. "Tell you what, I'll tell you something you want to know about me, as long as you tell me something I want to know about you," she suggests. "Does everything have to be a game with you?" "Take it or leave it, besides, you know I won't say anything that easily," she reminds me. She had a point. Scootaloo was a steel trap when it came to her own secrets. "I'll take it." I sigh. "Good, in that case, tell me this; what made you decide to ask me out here?" I freeze and start to sweat. I didn't expect her to ask that question tonight. She raises an eyebrow when I remain silent. "Well?" she asks. I look into her eyes and then think better of it once she throws me a question glance. "I always had a bit of a small crush on you." I squeak. "I know that, you kind of said that the first time we ate lunch together, remember?" she reminds me. "I mean what made you decide you should date me?" I felt as though my stomach filled up with feathers. "I wanted to be more than friends. I wanted to be a little closer with you, and have you be a little closer with me, you know? I felt that dating would be a good way to know each other better." "Well, I kind of feel the same way." she tells me. "I would like to be a little closer to you too. Not all lovey dovey and stuff like on TV," "No way," I agree. "But I just want to get to know you from more than a 'close friends point of view.'" she explains. "Have your friends found out about this yet?" "No, but I hated lying to them." "We don't have to keep this secret then." I assure her. She takes a long sip before continuing again. "No, I want to keep this between us. They have their own way of dealing with their relationships, while I have mine. I just want to deal with this...privately, of course they'll find out eventually, but I just don't want them to know yet." she says, blushing on the word 'date'. "I definitely don't want my friends to know. They're always going on about their girlfriends, and stuff. But I just want to keep what's between us, well, between us." "Yeah. I'm just not that kind of pony. They'll find out eventually, but for now, I won't worry about it." The waiter comes and asks us about what we wanted to drink. "Water is fine." I say. He looks to Scootaloo. "Same." he nods and returns with our drinks after a minute or so before rushing off again. "Speaking of worrying, Blossom Forth is worrying about which colored flowers to get for the flower girls." I say with a roll of my eyes. "Who's going to be the flower girl?" "Her cousin's daughter." she raises a brow. "I know, its a stretch, but no one else is willing to do it. She's kind of the youngest on her side of the family." I explain. "Oh well, I hope she enjoys it." "Same here, I've only met her a few times before, but she's up to it according to Blossom." I say. The waiter just then comes in, balancing trays in his purple aura of magic. "Your meals." he says in a fancy tone. he sets our dinner on the table and refills our drinks. Scootaloo wastes no time digging into her dinner, and I start through mine. "This is actually pretty good." she says around carrot. "Yeah." I agree. It was worth the wait. "This is pretty fun." Scootaloo said, wiping off her mouth. "I'd like to hang out like this more often." "Can we finish this date before we go on to planning the next?" she chuckles. "Yeah. Oh! You've got to hear this, it's probably the funniest thing I've ever witnessed." I say. "Really? How would you rate it?" "Near-tears funny." I say, trying not to laugh at a memory. "Go on." she motions, adopting my smile. "So I was in gym class with the boys, and we were playing classic softball." I begin. "When did this happen?" "About a few weeks ago actually," I say. "Okay, continue." "There's this one guy in my class, who was a bit of a showoff, and he isn't exactly someone me and my friends would hang out with. He was talking about Lily behind her back, who just so happened to be rolling the ball for everyone to kick. He went up to the plate, and made a big commotion about getting ready to kick the ball and run." So she rolled the ball, and he kicked it." "Big whoop." Scootaloo said. "But the funny thing is, the ball bounced right off one of his buddies in the field; who landed face first in a mound of overgrown grass and mud, and the ball bounced back to him." "Really?" Scootaloo asked with a grin growing on her face. "He was supposed to dodge the ball, and though he tried to jump, it hit him in his leg, and threw him off, making him land face first into the dirt and mud." I burst out laughing while Scootaloo joined in. "And...and that's not the best part," I continue, wiping a tear from my eye. "Lily replied...'Who's the mud pony now?'" Scootaloo started laughing harder until tears were pricking at the edges of her eyes. "That explains why I saw dirt in Bronze's mane." Scootaloo said. We went through another series of laughter before she could go on to say something else. "The funniest thing happened in class the other day." she began. I waited for her to go on as she tried to stop herself from giggling. "You know how we had that one test in Algebra?" she asked. "How could I forget? That wasn't easy to pass. "One pony in my class, she had studied day and night for that test, and she got most of the answers right," she said. "But what happened?" I asked. "She got the first question wrong!" Scootaloo laughed. "You mean the first question? Where we basically had to write down the name of the lesson?" I asked in disbelief. Scootaloo nodded. "But the title's right above it!" I say before bursting into laughter. "When we got our test papers back, it was hilarious when she decided to show everyone how well she did. She didn't think that we would see which question had the big red 'X' on it." Scootaloo laughed. After another series of jokes, the waiter returned with the checkbook. "Enjoy your meals?" he asked. "Yes, it was delicious." Scootaloo said, sounding out every syllable. "I'll leave you two to pay." I reach for the check book he set on the table and find Scootaloo's hoof there first. "What're you-" "I'm paying, you brought me here, it's the least I could do." "But that's exactly why I should pay it. I asked you to come." "But I said I would didn't I, I've got money to spare." she said. "And I do too, I'm paying Scootaloo." "Nope. I am." "How about this," I suggest, "we'll each pay half." "That sounds exactly like something from a movie." she replied. "Do you really want to argue over this in the middle of the restaurant?" I reply. "Fine." she took her purse and slammed 20 bits on the table. I smile and take out my own. We eventually get up to leave, and walk down the street for several minutes, until we're in front of Scootaloo's home. "I had fun." She said, looking into my eyes. "I did too." I reply, smiling back at her. Before she turns away, she turns my head to the side and kisses my cheek. Causing my wings to pop up as we both blush deeply. "Bye Rumble." she says, smiling and pushing the door open. Once she's inside and the door is shut, I bring a hoof to my cheek. "Bye." I say.