Blind Dates - 3. Putting the Plan into Action

Chapter 3 - Putting the Plan into Action

The thought about calling his cousin and backing out of the deal they had made just a few hours earlier had certainly crossed Stephen’s mind as he was sitting on his morning bus ride to work the next morning. However, he knew that, after the firm approval he gave the last night, Meghan would never forgive him if he were to cancel out.

The plan was simple enough – they would all get together, go see a movie, and after it, they’d head back to his place to hang out for the rest of the evening.

Stephen already knew who he’d be asking, but, having already decided to have the double date on Saturday night, the very next day, he didn’t have much time to have the idea grow in his friend. He would have to be direct and hope for the best.

When it was time for him to take his first break, he decided to go outside hoping that Matt would also be outside for his break too. Fat chance that he wasn’t there, and given the fact it was kinda cold, Stephen rapidly got back inside and simply got himself a hot chocolate at the Second Cup next door.

Back at his desk, he simply decided to go a safer route. In between answering two emails, he texted Matt, asking him at what time would be his next break and if he would have some time to see him.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Stephen received a text from his friend telling him that he could join him a quarter to one at the food court downstairs.

At 12:30, knowing that he was no longer productive, he decided not to wait longer and to go right away to eat. The food court of the building was kinda small, just a couple of stands combined with a seating area of maybe a hundred people. Today, he immediately decided he would go at the Subway restaurant.

Matt came from behind on Stephen, who was sitting eating his lunch some time later. “You were looking for me?”

As he looked behind him, Stephen saw Matt coming at his table with his food tray and sitting in front of him. "Hey! How are you?"

"Not too bad! What's up with you, not too busy these days?"

"In my team, we are almost always busy, there's always something to do, but I survive! How about you, any big plans for the weekend?"

"Nah, nothing planned, I'm just gonna relax. Although, are we still on for Sunday?"

Stephen immediately answered, "Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. For Sunday, as long as you still want, yes we are still on. I was wondering, have you anything planned for Saturday night?" He tried not to sound too desperate.

Knowing that there was a real reason for the question coming from Stephen, Matt replied, "I don’t have anything planned, what do you have in mind?”

“What would you say about going to the movies with a cute looking lady?” Stephen didn’t realize that what he had just said could have been misinterpreted.

For a moment, Matt didn’t know how to answer to that. “No offense, but I don’t really find you cute, and the last time I’ve checked, you’re not a lady. I sure don't want to see you in a dress either!” he said with a smirk.

Stephen realized he misspoke. “Oh of course I didn’t mean me!” he first said, sticking his tongue out at Matt before correcting himself. “What I meant is, what would you say to going out for a movie with a girl that I know? I would also be there...with, hopefully, another cute guy.”

“As in a double date?”

“Basically, except that you don’t really get to choose who will be your date for the night, other than to trust me that she’s not crazy or anything.”

“Are you actually being serious on this?” Matt said laughingly, but after seeing that Stephen had kept a straight face, he regained his composure. “Putting aside the fact that I actually can get my own date, why would I do that and what would be in it for you?”

Stephen tried to convince Matt as well as he could. “Oh, cute as you are, I really don’t doubt that you have no problem getting your own date, but from knowing you for a couple of years now and from being your friend for that long, I know that you haven’t had a second date with any of the girls that you’ve picked up by yourself. So, meeting a girl that I know could be a good match with you, can’t be that bad.”

“Alright, say I buy it, what’s in it for you?”

Stephen answered him, “Nothing per se, but she’s setting me up on a date with her roommate, so the least that I can do is to get a nice guy, like you, for her.” He thought that a little bit a brown-nosing couldn’t hurt in this situation.

“So, who is that lady, and can I at least see a picture of her?”

Having already prepared himself to that possibility, Stephen took out his iPhone, where he had stored a few particularly good pictures of his cousin, and showed them to Matt. “She’s actually my cousin Meghan” he said.

For a moment, Matt had to think about where the line was traced between telling his friend how he felt that the girl was actually very hot-looking, at least from the pictures, and what he could actually say to the cousin of that said very good looking girl. “She’s very nice looking...” he said, “... But are you sure about it? I mean we talk about a lot of stuff. If things go well, there are things are bound to come up, and you might not want to hear about them, given the family link.”

Stephen reassured him, “Don’t worry, I will survive, if you don’t tell it, she will most likely tell me all about those kinds of things anyway!”

“Alright, I will do it!” Despite having already accepted, Matt wanted to know one more thing. “Is he worth it at least?”

“I’m not sure, I never actually seen pictures of him, but, from everything she told me about him, he sounds really nice, so ya, to answer your question, he is worth it.”

"Good!"

Since they were both done with their lunch, they got up, emptied out their trays, and started to make their way back to work.

"You will owe me one 'tho," Matt said as they were walking toward the elevators.

"We'll see at the end of the night who will owe who!"

"By the way, you haven't told me what we'd be doing tomorrow night," Matt reminded Stephen.

"We'll meet at the movies for the 7pm showing, then you guys will be free to finish the night at my place."

"Sounds good to me," Matt simply said, approving the choice that was made.

****

Stephen spent most of Saturday afternoon cleaning up his small two bedroom house. He wasn't really a clean freak, however he certainly could leave stuff laying around during the week, and the previous week wasn't an exception. Also, with the strong possibility that he'd have friends over, including a possible boyfriend material, he needed to make it extra clean.

After his house was clean enough for his taste, and most of his laundry was done, Stephen went to do the groceries and to get some alcohol for the evening.

When everything was said and done, it was already time for him to take a shower and get ready for his double date. He took some time figuring out what to wear; it was out of the question for him to simply put on any pair of jeans and t-shirt, just as much as he didn't want to be dressed up to the nines.

It was almost six when the doorbell rang at Stephen’s; having barely finished his dinner, he went to open the door in underwear. Matt was standing there, looking frozen in the unusually cold day.

“Well, you certainly go all out for a date – you forgot something, your clothes! I don’t mind, but it might not make a strong first impression and they will certainly, at least, frown upon it at the movies,” Matt cleverly said.

He smiled at the remark. “Shut up, just get in, will you? I was having dinner, didn’t want to stain myself.”

Once he was inside, Matt said, “You might want to hurry up, we need to be there in half an hour!”

“Well, I might just need to find something to wear then!” Stephen stated, going to his bedroom followed by his friend.

“‘Cause you don’t even know what you will wear! Well, in this case, you might want to change undies too.”

“What? What’s wrong with them?” Stephen asked.

“Let’s just say that you wouldn’t impress a guy in them and I’m sure you already know that!”

Realizing that he indeed had some old washed off boxer brief, Stephen said, “Well, you’re right, I will change them. However, it’s not like anyone, other than you, will see them tonight.”

“Don’t jinx it!”

Stephen took off his undies, exposing his full glory to his friend, and put on instead some much nicer red boxer briefs with white trim from a drawer.

“You never know, you could always hit a home run,” Matt said, ignoring the fact that his friend was fully naked in front of him for a moment. "Now, that is much nicer on you; it makes your butt look good on you!"

"You know, that's the kind of remarks that makes you sound gay!"

Matt laughed at the insinuation about his sexuality. "Oh you would like that, wouldn't you? But, no, I'm just comfortable enough with my sexuality to tease you and to know what looks good and what not."

Stephen certainly knew that with his friend, no sexual matter was out of reach. He also realized with time that as much as he wasn't shy to hang out naked around him, even getting hard from time to time. The most he ever managed to do was to jerk off in front of each other and he knew that it would be extremely unlikely that Matt ever be interested in doing more. For Matt, the most important thing was that Stephen understood it and was fine with it.

"They're coming here, or joining us directly at the movies?" Matt asked, referring to their respective dates.

"Yes, they're meeting us there for 6:30." Stephen confirmed. With the help of Matt, he decided on what to wear, got dressed, and finished preparing himself right on time for them to leave for the movies.

There were a lot of people at the theater; they were barely able to walk around freely. There was, however, no sign of Meghan and her roommate. Both Stephen and Matt took that opportunity to make their way to the side where there were a couple of ATM machines to take out some cash. Once that done, they stayed on the side, out of the lines, remaining visible.

A couple of minutes later, Stephen turned his eyes to the door, and for a moment, he thought that he'd recognized someone, but seconds later he put it aside as he saw his cousin walking toward him. "They're here!" he warned Matt, pulling his arm for him to turn around.

"Hey Stephen, how are you? Have you been waiting long?" she said while kissing him on the cheeks.

"Not too bad, we barely arrived a few minutes ago," he answered. As Matt cleared his throat, making his presence known, Stephen presented him. "Oh, Meghan, this is my friend Matt. Matt, as you can guess, this is my cousin!"

"Hey! How are you?" Matt awkwardly said, staring at the red haired girl.

“I’m good, thanks! It was a long week.”

Noting that she was all by herself, but not worrying yet, Stephen commented, “You’re here by yourself?”

“No, Nate should be around, he just went to see something,” she said looking around. “Oh, there he is! Steph, I present you my roommate Nathan.”

As Meghan moved a little to give her roommate some space, Stephen froze at the sight of Nathan. Fortunately for him, Nathan broke the silence first. “Hi, how are you?”

Still a little unsure, Stephen replied, “I’m good!”

“Not to be the rain on your parade, we might want to get in line right away if we want to eventually see a movie!” Matt declared.

They all went in line, Matt and Meghan in front, Nathan and Stephen a little behind them. “So what you guys wanna see, Skyfall?” Meghan asked.

They all agreed. At the cashier, they used the four tickets that Stephen had already bought online at discount.

“I was wondering if I'd ever see you again after the other night. I'm happy it turned out this way,” Nathan told Stephen as soon as the two others were out of earshot.

"It's true that the last time we left after a ... good impression."

"So, you're Meg's cute cousin that she keeps talking me about!"

"And you're her awesome roommate, the one that doesn't get onto her nerve that she talks about!"

"So, we've established that Meghan says a lot of nice things about us," Nathan said with a big smile. That smile was enough to calm and reassure Stephen that having already met in those special circumstances didn't kill his chance with the young blond guy.

"I didn't see you swim on Thursday." Nathan commented, faking a pout.

Stephen laughed. "I was tricked into going to some karaoke bar on Thursday! You can thank your roommate for that!"

"What should I be thanked for?" Meghan asked. She and Matt had just come back with some snacks.

Nathan explained, "He was telling me about the karaoke bar and how you tricked him into going out with him last Thursday."

"I did not! It's not my fault if you were hoping that I'd forget that you agreed to it Monday!"

"Same difference!" Stephen teased his cousin. For some reason Stephen was thankful that Nathan had kept quiet about the fact that they had already met earlier that week, especially from his cousin. He knew that even without mentioning the sex part, he would likely be blushing and giving away the rest. “Did you know that she could sing really well?”

“Not when she’s in the shower!” Nathan laughingly said. It earned him a jab in the ribs by Meghan.

"We might want to get in the line if we want to have good places," Matt advised, knowing that being on a first come, first serve basis for the seats selection. All of them agreed to the request and made their way to toward the screen. They were all surprised to see that there already was a good amount of people waiting to see the movie even if it wasn’t exactly new release.

"I can't remember if Meghan ever told me, but what are you studying, Nathan?" Stephen asked.

"I’m studying finance at McGill. Meg was telling me that you work in the telecom?”

“Ya, I’m coordinator at the operational support. My team takes care of technical support for the call center. For my part, I’m dispatching the requests for testing or ticket escalation to other guys in my team, although I do some of those too.”

“How about you, Matt, you work with Steph?” Meghan asked.

“Well, I work for the same provider, but, I’m one of the team leaders directly in the call center.”

“So, if we want good deals on our plans, we should ask you guys to hook us up?” Nathan jokingly asked.

“I can’t give you the good deal for you; however, I can sure tell you what to say so that you can get it!”

"Sorry, I'll be right back." Stephen excused himself, before heading to the restroom.

Not long after, Matt followed him into the restroom. Trying to be as private as they can be in a busy restroom, he said, “What was it with Nathan earlier?”

Looking around, making sure that no one was overhearing, and knowing that it was safe with Matt, Stephen came clean to his friend. “Well, I met Nathan earlier this week when I was swimming.” Matt kept quiet with an ‘and...’ plastered on his face. “...We talked a little in the sauna, and it so happens that I walked on him naked.”

Matt knew full well that there were some details he wasn’t privy to just yet, but he didn’t push it, figuring he would eventually find out. “So, you’re happy with your pick, right?”

“Yes, I’d be happy if we can make this thing work. From the look that you have been making since they arrived, it seems you’re not disappointed you came either.”

Matt answered by simply elbowing his friend on his side as they were going out of the restroom to meet back with their respective dates.

They rejoined them right on time, as the staff had just finished cleaning up from the previous presentation and were about to let them in.

The four of them ended up enjoying the presentation quite well. From time to time, Stephen’s hand would wander on Nathan’s thigh, who was sitting next to him, caressing him softly. At other times, the two of them would simply be holding hands and glancing at each other occasionally.

Next to them, Meghan and Matt were enjoying themselves just as much, as by the end of the movie she had installed herself comfortably, with her head resting on Matt’s shoulder.

At the end of the presentation, as they were heading out, Stephen asked, “You guys still want to get back to my place?”

They unanimously agreed and walked toward the car.