Despite the fact that we all live in the same vicinity and we're going to the same place, Harry insists he only drive the two of us to the bowling alley instead of the four of us carpooling. I thought it was a futile suggestion at first, but he apparently wants for this to feel like somewhat of a real first date instead of just a normal hang out with friends, and he says he wouldn't be able to be a proper gentleman if Astrid and Blake went along with us.

Astrid only let out a few 'awwws' when I told her of his plans, adding to her excitement about us finally admitting our feelings for each other. She felt bad that our first date was including her and Blake and wouldn't stop apologizing profusely, which I thought was unnecessary. As happy as I am that everything is finally out on the table and we are going on this date, it seems like Astrid is ten times more excited than I am about it.

I decided against telling Astrid about what Nova had told me about Harry and Ruby. I wasn't sure what she would think, and the last thing I wanted was to get a reaction out of her, on a night that I wanted things to go perfectly. I feel like I have accepted the thought of him being with Ruby, even though it was showing a side of him that I didn't want to believe is who he is. But despite the fact that I've known since the day we met, that he was a man of one night stands, I know somehow, that he sees me differently than just a girl he would sleep with and throw away the next day. So, when it comes to Astrid, for now I don't think she needs to know.

Harry said he was going to pick me up in my room. And while I wait, I nervously pace the room with my headphones blaring Hedley into my ears as Nova watches me walk from one end of the room to the other with wide eyes from the head of her bed. I dislike that she is still here, but she said she had to see for herself that we were in fact, going on a date---together. It is apparently a moment she has been anticipating since before Harry and I even met and she isn't going to miss it.

When I see Nova frantically waving her arms around to get my attention from her spot on the bed, I realize she's trying to tell me that there's someone at the door, and we both know that it's Harry. I made her promise me that she wouldn't answer the door or even open her mouth when he got here, because truth be told, this is my date coming to call, and no one is going to ruin this first moment.

I whipped my headphones around my neck, running a shaky hand through my hair, my heart starting to pick up it's pace at the realization that I'm going on a date and he's now here to get me. I look over at Nova who's smiling encouragingly at me as I slowly walk over to the door.

There stands Harry in the doorway, with his arms behind his back. He has his usual green bandana wrapped around his head and a black button down graces his chest nicely. He instantly smiles when I open the door. "You look lovely," he tells me, looking me up and down, before his eyes meet mine again.

I look down to see what exactly he's complimenting, but seeing nothing special. "I'm wearing what I usually wear, Harry."

"Well, then clearly you always look lovely," he winks. "For you." He brings his arms forward, revealing a single yellow rose and handing it to me with a shy smile.

I take the rose from him, bringing it to my nose. I know there's no way I can hide the smile on my face. I'm surprised that he really put some effort into this, even though I was the one who asked him to go on this date with me. I like that he is taking this seriously. "Wow, thank you Harry. This is very sweet of you!"

"The lady at the flower shop says a yellow rose symbolizes the promise of a new beginning," he explains, keeping his eyes locked with mine. "She also says it means 'remember me,' which is exactly what I want for you to do."

"Remember you?" I ask.

His eyes slightly widen before smiling at me again. "Oh---um--I want you to always remember me. Or I guess--I mean this night--I want you to remember this night. That's all." He looks to the ground.

I explain I have nothing to put the rose in and it will more than likely die, not being prepared for something like this, but Nova practically takes that as her cue to jump from the bed, running to us with a half empty bottle of water. Obviously happy she gets to interrupt the beginning of our date.

"You guys are so cute!" she says, giddily.

"I thought I told you no talking!" I scold her with a smile, taking the flower now sitting in a bottle of water and place it on the night stand by my bed. Proof that college students make-do with what they have!

"I know you said no talking, but come on Paisley!" she blurts. "I want to get just one picture!"

"Okay, Mom," I say sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

As we're posing for her apparently much needed proof of our date, her mouth is going as usual. "I feel like I played a part in you guys getting together, and I'm so happy this is finally happening! I didn't think it would after--" She pauses and I feel the air lift from the room. The three of us suddenly quiet for a moment. Harry doesn't know I know about Ruby, and as we stand with our arms around each other for this picture that still hasn't been taken, I can feel his hand around my waist tense up as he holds onto me tighter. "Okay, smile!" Nova laughs nervously, pointing her cell phone at us.

As soon as the flash goes off, Harry is headed to the door and opening it, seeming to want to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"Have fun!" Nova says, as I follow Harry out the door. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Harry grabs the door knob to close the door, and I catch the glare he gives her before shutting it behind him as soon as we're in the hallway. He instantly relaxes when he looks at me, letting a deep breath out and smiles. "Ready?" he asks, putting his hand out for me to take.

We walk to his car, hand in hand, which I find that I like immensely. The feeling of our fingers intertwined together is nice, and although his hands are much bigger than mine, they seem to fit perfectly together; Like a complicated puzzle, but once figured out, you realize just how easy it was to put together.

He opens the passenger side door for me once we reach his black Audi, and waits for me to get in before closing it again. I watch as he walks to the other side of the car and he smiles at me when he sits down next to me in the driver's seat. "Chivalry isn't dead, I see," I say, quite pleased with his gentlemanly behavior. We have gotten in cars many times together, but never once has he opened a car door for me.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I can be quite a gentleman when I want to be. I was brought up proper you know," he informs me, as he starts the car. He turns to me, leaning his arm on the console between us and looks at me. "Before we go anywhere, I have a few things I want to say." He has a serious look on his face, but I can't help but grin at him. He has been so surprising tonight with his sweet gestures, the happiness is erupting in the pit on my stomach and it's written all over my face. "I know you think I'm a man with all the wrong intentions. And I'll be honest, for a long time I've been just that, and sometimes it's hard to change when you're used to doing things a certain way. But I want you to know that all I've ever done with you--is try. And I will continue to try to be a better man. I want you to know that I have all the right intentions when it comes to you."

I stay silent listening to his words, his eyes gazing into mine the whole time, not even blinking. He reaches his hand out to hold mine and I look down at our fingers laced together before looking back at him.

"You hold such significance to me," he continues. "One day I'm sure you'll realize why. But for today, I want you to know that since the day I met you, it's always been you, Paisley. Only you."

His eyes are flicking back and forth between mine and I can feel the intensity in them, wanting to make sure that I believe every word he's saying to me. I tighten my hold on his hand to silently tell him that I believe his words to be true. Never in my life has anyone spoken more amazing words to me and I want to hold onto them for dear life.

As much as I want to kiss him right now and know that I should, because it's the only way I feel is right to respond to such beautiful words, I don't want to give him the satisfaction of a kiss on our first date until the very end of it.

"You trust me, right?" he asks.

"With everything I am, Harry."

He finally smiles. The kind of smile that meets his eyes and dimples indent his cheeks. My favorite smile, that automatically makes the butterflies in my stomach flutter even more than they already are. I now understand why he didn't want Astrid and Blake to drive to the bowling alley with us, and I'm overjoyed with his reasoning now that I've gotten to see this most incredible side to him.

"We should go," he says, turning away from me to put his seat belt on and putting the car into gear. "I have some serious ass kicking to do! And don't think for a second I'm going to let you win just because that's what guys are supposed to do! Because it's not happening!"

I let out a laugh. "You couldn't even try to not beat me anyways," I tell him. "It's been a long time since I've been bowling."

It isn't long before we reach our destination, where Astrid and Blake are already inside waiting for us, sitting at a table at the end of a lane in the corner. The music is loud and it's dark. The black lighting making my white shirt glow a bright purple and I instantly wish I was wearing something darker so I wouldn't glow in the dark and stand out so much.

Astrid can barely contain her excitement at the sight of Harry and I holding hands as we walk towards them. The smile on her face brightening by the second. We exchange hellos, Astrid overwhelming me in a bouncy hug, before getting our bowling shoes and a beverage.

I watch the simple sweetness of Blake's body language towards Astrid as the night starts to flow. How when he gives her a high five when she gets a strike, his hand lingers in hers and his eyes light up every time she smiles.

Harry's ego has not surprisingly made an appearance, doing a victory dance every time he's rolled his ball down the lane getting all the pins down with either a strike or a spare each time it's his turn and trying to be polite as to not laugh at me every time my ball goes in the gutter.

"Is there anything you're not good at?" I ask, once Harry is finished with his last victory dance of our first game, seeing he clearly beat all of our scores by more than what should be possible.

"Knitting," he says right away. "I leave that to my Gran. I can't knit for the life of me! It takes a certain talent that I just can't seem to get down." He grins at me as I shake my head at him stifling a laugh.

His phone is heard from where it sits on the table in front of the lanes, indicating he has a new text message, taking his attention away from me as he picks it up to look at it. The grin on his face disappears the second his eyes see whatever it is that's on the screen.

"Is everything okay?" I ask, completely aware of his dislike for whatever he just read.

He reverts his attention back to me, forcing a smile on his face and putting his phone back on the table. "Everything's fine," he lies, scratching the back of his neck. "Should we start the next game?" He looks at Astrid and Blake who seem to be sucked into their own conversation, completely unaware of their surroundings.

I decide that I'm going to ignore what just happened, because this night so far has been so ridiculously perfect that my cheeks hurt from smiling the whole time, and I don't want anything to ruin it, even if he did just very obviously lie to me. I'm hoping that whoever the text was from or what it said can easily be forgotten about and we can go back to having a good time.

But the sound of incoming texts makes it difficult for anyone to pay attention to anything other than Harry's phone. Astrid keeps giving me worried looks and Harry's clearly annoyed state just seems to be getting worse every time he sees his phone light up, making his lucky streak of strikes die down.

"Why don't you just answer?" I finally ask, after listening to what feels like the hundredth text come through. "Whoever it is, apparently really wants to get a hold of you."

He doesn't say anything as he grabs his phone and heads in the direction of the bathrooms without looking back.

"What was that about?" Astrid asks. She looks as disappointed as I feel. "What's going on?"

I shrug before taking my turn, surprising myself with actually getting a strike. I blame it on the slight exasperated feeling I have in my gut, but I'm pleased nonetheless, for actually getting all the pins down for the first time. I'm trying to reject the pang of discomfort from whatever it is that's happening, but I'm curious as to who could text someone that many times in a row and not in the slightest realize how irritating they are. I have my thoughts set on a certain somebody that my hatred towards keeps digging deeper, because past events remind me that Ruby was always adept to ruining everything even if she wasn't trying.

As I take a seat on the bench, I sigh in defeat, finally allowing myself to feel what I should have felt this morning. The pain of him being with someone else; That someone being Ruby, of all people. No, I'm still not mad at what he did. I haven't changed my thought process about his decision making. But it hurts thinking back to his words in the car. All I've ever done with you--is try. How is sleeping with someone else, trying?

As Astrid sits next to me, I get up to walk to the bathroom to collect myself. I need to get rid of this sinking feeling. I can't allow Harry to think our evening is wrecked in the slightest because of whatever just happened and I need to remind myself that there's no point in being hurt over something I can't change.

I stare at myself in the mirror, taking deep breaths and telling myself that what he did is okay. It doesn't hurt. I can't stress to myself more times that everything that happened in the past is in the past, even if it was just over the last few weeks. But I won't let the knowledge of him being with someone else get to me, unless it happens after this particular moment.

When I leave the bathroom, Harry is leaning against the wall across from the ladies room, arms crossed and one leg crossed over the other, apparently waiting for me. "Everything alright?" he asks, as soon as our eyes meet.

"I could ask you the same thing." I raise my eyebrows at him. "Did you talk to whoever was trying to get a hold of you?"

"No," he answers quickly. "I turned my phone off."

I start to walk back to our lane, so we can continue on with our game, but Harry stops me. He grabs my hand and whirls me back around to face him, pulling me close to him so that our bodies are touching. With one arm wrapped around my lower back, he tightens his grip pushing me in close to him as he brings his free hand to touch my face. "I'm sorry--about before."

He's looking at me so intently, I can't help but forget the reason for his apology. Nothing else seems to matter, except for the way he is looking at me and how even though we can't get any closer, he still feels too far away. When he notices my eyes look down to his lips, he licks them slowly before inching closer to me.

"There you are!" Astrid interrupts, as she comes from around the corner.

I back away quickly from Harry to see the intruder. Her eyes widen at the realization she has just interrupted what could have been our first kiss, and she smacks herself in the forehead. "Shit! I'm so sorry! Umm---Pretend this didn't just happen!"

We watch her disappear around the corner and I look at Harry who's smiling and shaking his head.

"Come on, we have a game to finish!" I say, grabbing his hand and pulling him across the floor.

He tries to apologize once more and I smack him in the arm. "It's forgotten, Harry. No need for apologies."

He gives me an understanding smile before we reach our lane.

"Oh my God, did you get a strike?" He asks, looking up to the score board. "Or did someone else bowl for you?"

"That was all me baby!" I joke. This time it's my turn for a victory dance, which Harry doesn't seem to mind as he watches me make a fool of myself. Seeing him laugh will always be my most favorite thing, and in this moment, nothing seems to matter except for the fact that his smile has returned, and it feels like the awkward moment with his obnoxious text messages never happened.

**

"I think I want a do-over of our first date," Harry tells me as we're driving back to the dorms. "That was fun and all, but I want to take you on a proper date."

"And what do people do on proper dates?" I ask, curious as to what his rendition of this could be.

"I'd like to take you somewhere nice," he says, keeping his eyes on the road. "Where we dress up nice and go to a nice restaurant and then we end up on the beach carrying our shoes in the moonlight."

"I think you've seen one too many romantic movies, Harry!" I laugh.

He looks at me for a few moments with a smile on his face, before reverting his eyes back to the road. "Well, I think it sounds nice, don't you? It's been a long time since I've done that. Haven't you ever done that before?"

"Can't say I have," I sigh.

"Well, then all the more reason for us to do just that!"

We pull into the parking lot of the dorms and walk slowly towards our building once we park. "Are you going to the pub? It's still pretty early," I ask. I know I don't want him to go anywhere, but it is the weekend and him going to the pub is pretty inevitable.

"And here I thought you might've had at least a decent time on our date, but you're trying to get rid of me!" he jokes, as he opens the door.

"I had a really great time."

We continue walking down the hall, and while he looks at me, clearly happy with my words, he grasps onto my hand, lacing our fingers together. "Was it the best date date that wasn't a friends date you've ever had?"

I laugh until we round the corner to our dorms. Someone sitting in front of Harry's door takes our attention away from each other. I can feel my heart in my throat and my assumptions of who was ruining our date was deemed true, because there she was, sitting there, waiting for him. I couldn't think of a much worse scenario right now and I instantly want to turn the other way. Because there sat the last girl I wanted to see right now.

Ruby.

A/N: So sorry this took longer than I wanted it to. This week has been kind of a crazy one! I hope it was well worth the wait though!!

Once again, thanks so much for all the love you've been sending me! Karma now has over 1.4K reads and I'm ecstatic! Don't forget to press the star and comment your thoughts!!

Also, I know that yellow roses symbolize friendship, but the site I landed upon while writing this chapter, told me it also meant the other 2 things written in this chapter. So, there's no need to point this out to me :)

xo