Five.

5

We arrived at around eight o'clock and quickly seated ourselves. Victor had taken me to a restaurant that was also an arcade. We ordered identical meals and while we were waiting for our food, he grabbed both of my hands, stared deep into my eyes and said,

    "You look freaking adorable, you know that? I could use another adjective, but I don't want to creep you out." I blushed and looked down. I responded with,

    "Why are you always asking me if I "know that"? You know my answer will always be no. You sir are the most handsome guy I think I've ever seen. You're always looking so cute in your dressy outfits. Do you even own a t-shirt?" I asked sarcastically. He smiled at me and playfully adjusted his bow tie.

    "A man should dress like one, shouldn't he?" He asked smoothly. I rolled my eyes and smiled.

    After we'd eaten, we headed to the arcade.

    "Skeeball!" I shouted happily, quickly approaching one of the dozen identical machines that were lined up against the edge of the wall.

    "Oh no, sounds like someone thinks they're good at skeeball." Victor teased, placing two tokens into the machine and starting it up.

    "Oh, please," I scoffed, "You're about to go down, Evans. Down, down, down!" I replied giddily, rolling the first ball into the four hundred slot.

    "Not bad, not bad. But try and top this!" Victor replied, rolling the ball with all of his strength, only to have it bounce off of the highest slot and land in the one hundred slot. I giggled at him and took another turn, this time scoring another five hundred points. I jumped up and down proudly, and Victor wrapped his arms around me from behind. I let out a little yelp and he silenced me by placing his hand over my mouth. He released me from his arms and placed his hands on my hips, pulling me close.

    "Just so you know, I let you win. It's our first date and I'm trying to be cute." He said, eyes flashing from the blinking lights in the arcade.

    "Sure you let me win, whatever helps you sleep at night, Vic." I replied, rolling my eyes and smiling. We gathered the tickets we won from the machine and walked around the arcade.

    "Aha! Virtual cars! I love these things, and I haven't lost a race yet." Victor bragged, gesturing for me to sit on the car seat next to his. We both shoved a token into the machine and the race was on.

    "Final lap, Luce. Who's gonna win the titleee?" Vic asked, dragging out the last word as we both fought to reach the finish line first. "Yes!! Vic-tory is served!" Vic said happily as he stepped out of the machine.

    "Just so you know, I let you win. I'm trying to be cute." I mocked, pecking his cheek after he offered me his hand to help me out of the seat. He smiled and we continued to challenge and tease each other. Minutes felt like hours and this night felt like it would never end. And I never wanted it to.

    We cashed in our tickets at the end of the night and it'd come out to almost a thousand. He wandered off into the prize shop and told me to wait outside. I waited anxiously with the biggest smile on my face that had showed no signs of leaving all night long. He emerged from the shop about five minutes later holding the biggest stuffed hippo I'd ever seen. I brought out lips together and the angels sang once more.

    "You know, you didn't have to waste all our tickets on me. You should've got yourself something too." I said.

    "I did get myself something, I gave this prize to you so I could get mine." He replied.

    "Oh? Where's the prize?" I asked. He pointed to my ever present smile and kissed my forehead.

    "Seeing that smile is worth more than any amount of arcade tickets. Come on, lets go to the photo booth." He suggested. I nodded and he took my hand, guiding me to the machine. Victor used the last of his tokens to make the machine work and we stepped into the booth, closing the curtain behind us.

    "Ready?" He asked. I checked myself in the camera lens and fixed my hair.

    "Ready!" I smiled at him. He pressed start and the camera started counting down from five. Immediately Victor kissed me and I felt butterflies throughout my entire body. He pulled me closer and I wrapped my hands around his neck. I'd almost forgotten where we were, until the flash of the camera reminded me. Victor hit the button again and it counted down once more. He put his arm around me and looked into the camera. Just as the countdown hit one, I smashed my lips against his cheek and his smile grew. I pushed it again and this time he kissed my cheek and I smiled. the final picture we made faces into the camera. We both stuck out our tongues at each other. We stepped out of the booth and he took the roll of pictures from the slot. He looked at them, smiled and handed them to me and said,

    "You keep it." His shy smile showed off his perfect thin lips. I scoffed,

    "I'm not taking all of these! You need to remember this night too." I carefully ripped off two out of the four and handed them to him.

    "Here, you have those and I have these. Now it's fair." I said with a smile. He took his two and put them in his pocket. It was 11:30 by the time we left.

    "Ready to go back to Leo's?" He asked, smiling and putting his arm around me as we walked back to his car.

    "Cant wait." I replied, flashing him a smile. This had been without a doubt the most magical, perfect night of my life. Little did I know, it was only about to get better.

    

We got back to Leo's around midnight. We opened the door and announced our presence. Owen greeted us, already a few beers deep.

    "Ah, the lovers have returned to us. How was your date?" He asked. Victor looked at me, smiled and responded,

    "Perfect." Owen walked away and Victor whispered in my ear, "Just like you." I felt my face turn pink and playfully slapped his arm. Leo then said,

    "Lucy, if Victor starts giving you the sex eyes, just know he has a bedroom upstairs."

    "Are there flavored condoms?" Jay asked, even more intoxicated than Owen. Leo rolled his eyes, laughed and responded,

    "No Jay, no flavored condoms. I doubt Vic wants his dick smelling like strawberries anyway."

    Victor laughed and sat down on a chair and placed me in his lap. I smiled at him and examined his face. I hadn't really gotten a good look at it since last night. He noticed me studying him and asked playfully,

    "What?" with a smile. I answered,

    "Nothing. I'm just trying to figure out how it's scientifically possible for there to be so much handsome on one guy." He flushed and said.

    "You are so adorable." I shook my head.

    We sat in the chair together, talking sweet to each other until I said, "Hey, it looks like everyone's asleep." He nodded and said,

    "Yeah, we should go upstairs so we don't wake them up." I nodded and he scooped me into his arms and carried me up the stairs.