Chapter 2

Chapter 2
A few minutes later, they followed Sidney’s SUV into a small parking lot across the street from a café. “We come here a lot after practice.” Marc-Andre explained as they headed inside.
The hostess smiled and greeted the two men personally as they entered, and signaled for all of them to follow her to a corner booth in the back of the room. As they sat down, Sidney made sure he was seated next to Lauren.
“So where are you from?” he asked her, looking intently into her piercing green eyes.
“We all live in Cranberry (AN: A suburb about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh). I was born in Ohio, but I’ve lived near Pittsburgh since I was three. I go to school in Erie (AN: 2 hours north of Pittsburgh, on the southern border of Lake Erie) and Maria goes to Clarion and Liz goes to Point Park but we’ve stayed best friends. We’re all home on Spring Break this week.” She responded.
“I love living in Pittsburgh. The people here are awesome.” He responded. “They’ve certainly made me feel at home, being so far away from my family and the place where I grew up.”
“I love it here. There’s definitely a sense of family and community among the people in Pittsburgh. They definitely look after their own.” Lauren said.
“What’s your major?” he asked her.
“Special Education. But I really want to work in student development at the college level, so I’m going back to school for my master’s in the fall.”
“Oh that’s cool. So that makes you what, 22 years old?” he asked.
“I’ll be 22 on May 6.” She replied.
“Oooooo an older woman.” Marc-Andre teased. Sidney blushed and shot Marc-Andre a dirty look, but smiled.
“Only by like a year and a couple months.” Maria said.
“Where are you going to get your master’s at?” Sidney asked her.
“Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland.” She responded.
“A Pittsburgh girl, going to Cleveland? I’ve been in this city long enough to know that’s going to cause some interesting conflicts when football season rolls around.” Sidney remarked.
Lauren laughed, “Yeah, I know. But don’t worry, I’m not looking to trade in the black and gold any time soon.” He laughed.
Lauren and Sidney continued their conversation throughout lunch, and pretty soon the check arrived and it was time to part ways.
They were walking towards the parking lot when Sidney spoke up. “Hey, I had a really good time today. Would you want to maybe hang out again sometime?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yeah, that’d be great. I had a lot of fun today too. Well, except for the vomit part.”
He laughed. “Yeah, let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again.” They exchanged phone numbers. “I’ll call you sometime soon.” He said, and everyone got in their respective cars to go home.
Once the three girls were alone in the car, Liz and Maria started squealing. “Oh my god! Did you see the way he was going gaga over you? He’s totally into you!” Maria exclaimed.
“You guys! Calm down, it was just lunch. And besides, he said he would call ‘sometime soon’. That could mean next week or next year or next century or never…”
“Trust me, I saw the way he was looking at you. He definitely wants to see you again. He’ll call.” Liz said.
A few hours later, Lauren was sitting at home catching up on a few of her favorite blogs when her phone rang. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the caller ID display said “Sidney”. She took a deep breath to compose herself and picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said.
“Hey, Lauren, it’s Sidney. Listen, I know I said I would call ‘soon’, and I’m sure you weren’t thinking it would be this soon, but I just wanted to tell you again how much fun I had today.”
“Yeah me too. I loved that restaurant we ate at.”
“Me too, so we’ll definitely have to go there again sometime. Anyways, the other reason I was calling was to see if you wanted to come to my game tomorrow afternoon. I can get tickets for you and your friends.”
“Sure! That’d be great! And I’m sure the girls will be thrilled!”
“Well, and then I was thinking that maybe you and I could go out for dinner or something…like, um, just the two of us” he sort of stuttered.
She smiled. “You mean, like a date?” she asked.
“Well, yeah. I mean, only if that’s okay with you. I just really want to spend some more time with you.”
“I think that sounds great. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ll leave your tickets at will-call, and then I’ll send someone up to get you guys after the game is over.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow! Bye Sidney.”
“Bye Lauren. Thanks again for today. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”