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She and Jade had agreed to meet at the restaurant, and Frannyhadn’t had it in her to sit around her house fully dressed and jittery with anticipation, so she’d decided to just show up early and sit anxiously in her car in the parking lot instead. It seemed ridiculous that she would be so nervous about this date. It was their first, sure, but in name only. They’d spent plenty of time alone together, they’d eaten together and laughed together, they’d even already had sex. But there was something about stamping the worddateon this encounter that made it feel different.

The surprise she had felt when Jade texted her had stopped Franny in her tracks. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted her to reach out, because she had. So fucking bad. She’d damn near wished on a star about it. She just hadn’t expected it. Especially not so soon. Even still, sitting in her car, wasting gas and with the air conditioner blasting, Franny wasn’t completely sure that she would sit across from Jade during their fancy dinner and hear anything even close to what she wanted to hear from the other woman.

Hoping against hope was a scary, dangerous thing, and Franny didn’t know when the hell she’d gotten so brave.

Three consecutive taps at her window just then had her jumping out of her skin. It was Jade, standing there bathed in the orange light of dusk. Franny took a few moments to look at her through the glass, to get her bearings and prepare herself for whatever might come next, before she opened the door and stepped out to greet her.

“You look beautiful,” she told Jade, unable and uninterested in keeping the reverence out of her voice.

Jade wore a little black dress with a just-short-of-scandalous thigh-high split and a pair of strappy pumps. Her legs were on full display—thick and long and juicy—and they made Franny’s mouth water.

“Thank you.” Jade smiled at her softer than she ever had. Then she reached out to play with one of the buttons on Franny’s shirt. “You look really good too. Very dapper.”

Franny grinned, her belly immediately fluttering at that particular compliment.

One of Jade’s arms rested behind her back, and when she removed it, Franny expected to receive a hug, only to be met with a bouquet of flowers. Wrapped perfectly in light brown paper, with a ribbon around the stems, the bunch of wildflowers came in all kinds of colors. Vibrant yellows and oranges, deep blues and lush reds. Franny couldn’t put a name to a single one, but she loved them.

“Are these for me?”

“Of course.”

Franny took the flowers gently, pressing her nose into the bunch and breathing them in, feeling the various textured petals against her face. “No one’s ever given me flowers before.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Jade said. “But I can’t say I’m not at least a little bit happy to be the first.”

Franny pressed a kiss to Jade’s jaw, letting her lips linger on the soft, warm skin there, then smiling against it when she felt a small shiver run through the other woman’s body. “Thank you,” Franny whispered in her ear.

“It’s—” Jade had to stop and clear her throat. “You’re welcome.”

“Should we go ahead in?”

“Yeah, I made us a reservation; our table should be ready by now.”

Not five minutes later, the two were sitting next to each other at a little table tucked away in one corner of the dining room. They’d been given one with a booth on one side and a chair on the other. Luckily for them, the booth was big enough to accommodate them both, so they’d done the annoying thing and decided to sit next to each other. It felt cozy, intimate. The lighting in the room was low and romantic, just bright enough that they could see each other clearly and read the menu. And the little candle on their table only added to the ambience.

They shared a menu, their heads bent close, reading the listings on a big piece of fine card stock. But the words didn’t mean a whole lot to Franny. She was too distracted by the woman next to her.

“Have you ever been here before?” she asked Jade.

“No, never. I just figured… it was nice, and I wanted to take you someplace nice. Not just like… Red Lobster or Minnie’s.”

Franny leaned back to get a good look at Jade. Grinning at her until her face collapsed into adorable exasperation. “Look at you being all thoughtful.”

“What? I can’t do something nice for you?”

“I’m not complaining,” Franny said with a small smirk. “This is really thoughtful of you, even if I have no idea what half the things on the menu are.”

Jade laughed, her soft brown cheeks pinking up a bit as the corners of her eyes wrinkled. “Yeah, I definitely feel like I need to be googling some of these words on here.”

“My brother is a literal chef, and I’m still stumped.”

“Everybody in here is just as backwoods as we are; they’re just pretending they aren’t.”

“I take offense to that. I am not backwoods. Houston is, like, the fourth-biggest city in the country.”

“I love how you had that fact just immediately ready to go.” Jade snickered.

“I have to keep it on deck to remind y’all that I’m actually city-folk every time somebody here tries to get me to eat boiled peanuts or go in the woods or something.”