Teaching A Thing Or Two

Chapter 7 Lunch Date

Finley's POV

I hear a loud knocking, that's just banging on my front door taking me out of my deep thoughts which is exactly what I need right now so I really don't object too much to the abrupt interruption of my nervousness.

I stand up slowly from my couch, feeling even more nervous with those heavy footsteps getting heavier the closer I get to the door. My gut is telling me not to do this 'date', but I have to push my uncomfortable limits to discover something new that I might like.. So here I am ignoring my body that I normally listen to all the time, for something new and different that I don't ever do.. I take the door knob into my hand, gripping it tight but stopping.. I quickly turn the knob then hesitantly opening it up before I change my mind again.

This opening action exposes my date for the afternoon.. It's Joseph with his tall 6'4" self. He has his shoulder-length hair tied back into a man bun, keeping it out of his handsome face. He looks good with it, so don't get me wrong.. but I have never been a fan of the man bun look on any man, maybe that's just me, though.

He is wrapped up with a tight button-up, blue plaid, long sleeve shirt. Making him look almost lumberjack like with his tall stature. But the look is counter acted on, with the smooth as a babies-bottom face that he has.

Joey looks like a baby lumberjack in training, making me smile at just that thought alone.. I'm not trying to complain because I do want to give him an actual chance.. but I just like hair. He is a clean-shaven man, which looks nice on him for sure.. I just love me some hair on a man. I think hair is a manly feature, and I mean, I LOVE it.

I watch his big white smile appear for me once we make eye contact.. He clears his throat as he greets, "Hey Finley, looking amazing.. as usual for you.. Are you ready for some lunch?"

I smile, then nod while I quickly turn around, grabbing my things to head out for the afternoon with him. He holds the door open for me as I pass, but when I do pass, he lets go so I can shut the door, locking it behind us. We start walking down my sidewalk from my house to the street.

I look up seeing all the construction workers I pass, still working so hard on the new house, getting so much done in such a short span of time.. They really have been putting in so much great work by what I can see. I glance between the men around the property until I unexpectedly lock my gaze with the one man who has been there throughout the whole day yesterday..

Being there for me on multiple occasions. Seeing more of my life than I ever wanted anyone to see.. at least for right now. I normally get to choose who I want to see my personal life, but not in this case.. he got a glimpse into it whether he wanted to or not. Which is stressful to think of.. I bet he thinks I'm just some crazy emotional b***h after everything yesterday.

I send him a small smile as I wave across the lawn at him. He waves back at me as we stare for a moment.. I can't see his eyes or anything, but his head is moving in the direction of my body, showing he is watching me.. and I honestly don't hate that idea.

What I do hate is that with his helmet and hat on when I have seen him, I can't see his face well at all.. I'm just curious who is behind the covering.. I can't seem to get a good look at him at all.. He has helped me multiple times, and not once have I been able to talk with him properly, let alone see him.. but one thing I do know is he is genuinely nice to me at least.. and that means more to me than most will know.

I accidentally ran into Joey's butt abruptly because I wasn't paying attention to him but the other man across the way.. that's probably not a good start to a date.. whoops.

I shyly giggle to myself at my situation as I get into the car he has opened the door to. I slip into the passengers seat as he quickly gets around the car and into the driver's seat. Taking us to the cute little bistro that's a couple streets down from my place.. and It's even a place I haven't been able to go to yet, so this is kinda exciting for me.. As a teacher, I don't have a whole lot of funds to eat out often, so I just mostly cook for myself.. But I have really learned to love cooking over the years because of being forced to cook for myself.

I take a look around noticing all the little details, it's a cute little hole in the wall place that has fake plants all over, covering up most of the open white walls except for the spaces filled up with paintings of Italy. We get sat almost instantly as I nervously kept looking around the room just taking in the surroundings so I didn't hopefully overthink things.

"Thanks for agreeing to give me a shot." Joseph says to me, gaining all my attention. "No problem, but I'm not very good at all these sort of things," I try to explain as he gets a confused look on his face before replying. "What sort of things?"

"Dating in general.. The only reason I met my last boyfriend was because I almost dropped the groceries I had stacked into my arms, and he caught me along with my items. After that, he kept just sweet talking me asking for a chance, and I gave him it.. I just obviously wasn't enough to keep him around." I say sadly and probably too honestly for a first date.

"Oh really? I just figured with how sweet, beautiful, and comfortable you are talking with people that you had dated a lot." He says to me as I vigorously shake my head as he humms in response.

"Sooo beautiful... how was the rest of your Valentine's Day?? Did you end up doing anything fun last night?" He curiously asks me as his eyes go wide in realization. "Shit.. I'm so sorry, Finley. I wasn't thinking before I asked that stupid question!" He adds in a panic, shaking his head, looking embarrassed.

"It's ok, Joey, don't beat yourself up for that obvious mistake. I really don't care that you asked that, so just relax.. But I actually had an interesting night.. Earlier yesterday, Kim and Kacee made me a dating profile for a website to help distract me from all this chaos in my life.. and I got a response back pretty quickly, surprisingly enough.. this guy said so many sweet things, wanting to take me out, and the girls replied yes for me." I say as I watch Joey's face turn to a sad one almost instantly.. "I bet you had a great time, huh?"

I laugh at that question as I shake my head, gaining his confused attention. So I just continue to explain before he asks.

"So when my date showed up to my house, it was actually my student Curtis! He was pretending to be older on the dating website, just in hopes that I would give him a chance.. He tried to tell me that he loved me and tried to convince me to give him a chance but of course I told him no, explaining what could go wrong with all that but he didn't want to take the reprocussions as an answer.. So I sweetly let him down... but he just insisted that he will be back when he turns 18!" I laugh again at my explanation just reminiscing of last night as I watch Joey shrug his shoulders with not much of a reaction at all suprisingly enough.

"Who could blame him really? If I had a teacher who looked and acted like you, then I would have been in class all year long but probably failing the whole class from being distracted by your beauty. As a teenage boy, I would have wanted to hit on you nonstop. But I was just shy as a kid, so him having that type of confidence at his age is something to be proud of. That takes balls to do what he did." He exclaims, making me laugh more shaking my head.

"Well, I will try to remember to tell Curtis that when I see him next on Monday.. But it's probably good then, I guess, that I was never your teacher in school to distract you.. or you never would have become the great teacher you are today." I say sweetly to him as he instantly replies. "Yea, you're probably right. You're distracting enough just from across the hallway from me."

"I don't know why you would say that." I reply curiously.. "Come on, Finn, don't be so modest.. You're just so sweet and stunning that I have been distracted by you since the first day I saw you years ago." He replies nicely to me, making my face heat up from blushing.

"Well, I would hate to ever be a bother." I say softly as he quickly responds without hesitation, "Oh it has never been a bother, beautiful." I smile and nod at him in response, not really knowing what else to say. I don't know how to react to being the center of attention, and believe me, I'm not the biggest fan of it at all. Teaching has slightly helped with that, but not as much as I would have hoped.

We spend the rest of our lunch just talking and eating.. then eating and talking.. He is a better guy than I thought honestly, as bad as that may sound.. I just always thought of him as a player by how he acts around the female teachers.. But I had a great time and I'm so happy I agreed to do this. I don't know why my body was telling me not to go.

Surprisingly, there was no pressure to this date at all. He didn't ask one personal things about me.. Maybe he didn't want to know any of that personal stuff, or maybe he just didn't want to put any pressure on me for this casual date.. I don't know the reasoning behind his actions.. it was just strange to me that he didn't ask anything and just complimented my beauty the entire time.

This date has been a confidence booster for sure, but I like to have deeper connections with anyone who I want a relationship with, and man, we had nothing in common that I could find out.. and he didn't even want to talk about anything but my beauty.. so here we are just having fun talking about nothing really.. I do think this was the distraction that I needed, though. I was just getting away from my life, even if it was just for a little bit.. After a lot of smiles, laughing, compliments, and even more compliments than needed.. I feel like a queen by the end of this date.

We get back to my place pretty quickly. He gets out of his car as do I with his help.. We have to end up waiting for the construction workers to pass by in their vehicles leaving.. for the day or their lunches.. who knows, just leaving.

Once their vehicles are out of the way, we walk up my sidewalk to my front door. I stop turning around on the balls of my feet.. until I smile up at him sweetly.

"Thanks for this distracting time.. I had fun, and this is exactly what I needed.. you really know how to show a girl a good time. Thank you." I say to him as he responds. "No problem, anytime beautiful."