Published on Mar 7, 2014

Byron paced outside the door. It was unfortunately alike to when he'd paced inside his own door. And then again outside it. And then again before leaving the shop.

Okay, so he was a little nervous. But he shouldn't have been. He had no reason to be, right? But he was, and when Tia had come in from her shift, beaming and beautiful as she always was, and took one look at his attire before asking him excitedly and with all too much gushing if he was going on a date, it hadn't helped his nerves. When she'd pinched his cheeks and told him how great his butt looked in those jeans, it'd only made it worse.

Part of the reason behind his pacing was to avoid being early. He'd started getting ready much too soon, obviously, but he hadn't been able to stop himself and he was decidedly and silently declaring that it was not because of over-enthusiasm but because he'd figured it would take him hours to simply find something to wear.

Who had he been kidding, agreeing to go to a bar? Not only was he underage and therefor had no experience in such things, but he also had the social capability of a paper weight so he had zero experience in such things. The more he'd thought about it, the more he'd panicked, until eventually he just decided on the first freaking outfit he'd tried on just to fend off the fit of hyperventilation.

But seriously, what did people wear to bars, anyway? He was ashamed to admit that he'd even tried googling it but all he'd gotten were pictures of girls who were half dressed, and that had been both unhelpful and distracting. He'd finally settled with a checkered button down of blues that 'brought out his eyes' as Tia always told him, and a pair of dark jeans that he never wore because he thought they were a bit too tight. But Tia told him that that was how the 'hipsters' wore them and they'd go great with the black Vans she'd given to him after nabbing them from her ex boyfriend out of spite. Byron wasn't sure he knew what any of that meant, hell, he wasn't even sure what a 'hipster' was supposed to be, but Tia had a lot of friends so he decided to take her word for it, considering he couldn't properly trust any of his own.

After all of that, he'd still wound up outside of the side entrance of Crash about five minutes early. Which he supposed wasn't so bad, except for the fact that he didn't have a cell phone so he couldn't message Zach to tell him he was there. So instead, he paced as he waited for his new friend to come out and meet him, just as he'd promised, and Byron couldn't decide if he was grateful for the extra few minutes because it gave him time to mentally prep himself, or if he regretted it, because it gave him time to psyche himself out.

Either way, when that heavy metal door opened, revealing the slick and polished looking Zach, Byron was incredibly relieved and it showed in the wide smile that graced his lips, along with the delicate blush that broke his cheeks.