The One Valentine's Day Where Randy Had a Date
From childhood Randy had always had a secret love for Valentine's Day. In the beginning he kept it to himself, participating in the school's Valentine's activities and not bringing it up at home. His mother had always miserably hated the holiday, reminding Randy that it was just made up to make single people feel bad. Randy never felt bad though. He just made Valentine's for all of his friends.
Somehow in thirty years he always managed to dodge having a date on Valentine's Day. Either he and his date would break up before Valentine's Day or he'd be with someone who either didn't want to celebrate or he couldn't afford to. Then while he was at work a week before one of the other nurses, his best friend Diana, suggested he ask one of the boys from the kitchen out.
"I don't know." Randy had told her. He'd been so little of the kind of guy who dates. He'd been spending almost all of his time at home watching Game of Thrones with his dog, drinking beer and eating freezer meals by himself. He'd usually only go out with his closest friends and only for food and drinks and only if they'd asked him to. He wasn't sure why, he wasn't a shy person, but he'd just never gone out of his way to be with them.
"Randy." Diana told him sternly. "Scott likes you, you like him, and if you don't go out with him we both know you're gonna end out at home doing absolutely nothing except wishing you'd asked Scott out. Now go."
And so it happened Randy asked Scott out for a Valentines meal and drink at a pizza place in Lafayette. It was his first time ever having a date on Valentine's Day and he was ready to go all out. He drove up to Scott's house in his old Toyota Supra, went to his door carrying flowers. His hair was combed, his face shaved, he even found a pair of khaki's for the occasion. "What are you, a tenth grader?" Scott had asked him in an amazed voice.
"I've never done the cheesy Valentine's Day. I wanted to do them all in one." Randy told him with a red face. "Theres uh… a really big teddy bear… in my car."
Scott and him did it all, the corny gifts, the splitting a heart shaped pizza, a box of chocolates, a milkshake with two straws. They somehow ended out on Randy's couch, drinking beers and watching My Bloody Valentine, which when Diana found out she swore they were made for each other. Randy would blush and tell her he and Scott were just having fun.
Randy and him "just had fun" for quite a while before Scott one day asked Randy to move in with him months later, at which point Randy panicked and called off their relationship. He regretted it, he regretted it for a long time, he wasn't sure why he did it, but perhaps something his mom had always complained about Valentine's Day stuck with him. Perhaps it was better to spend appreciating his friends.
