Schmidt

Schmidt (January 2019, Round 1, Day 2)

“Shit!” She popped her fingers in her mouth, sucking to calm the burn. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered as she looked at the lipstick marks around her knuckles and wondered how ‘regular’ women managed all of this. 

He would be there, if he was on time, within the next five minutes and she was painfully aware of how not ready she, the meal, and her apartment were for his arrival. In a fitful attempt at multitasking, she flipped on the exhaust fan with one hand and turned on the water with the other. She was just drying her hands when the doorbell chimed.

“Shit!” Flipping off the fan on her way out of the kitchen she was still working out how to keep him out of the kitchen as she pressed the buzzer to let him in with one hand and dabbed at her mussed lipstick with the other. “Keep it together, Schmidt,” she muttered before taking a deep breath, plastering a smile on her face, and opening the door. 

“Oh!” He had his hand raised, poised to knock on the door that she’d opened. “Hi.” 

She liked that his face flushed so quickly. “Hi. Come on in.”

The two of them fumbled through the awkwardness of coats and umbrellas and shoes getting where they belong when someone unfamiliar to a space enteres for the first time and she was thankful for the distraction both the weather and her threshold provided. By the time they got into the living room she felt like she just might be able to pull off the evening without issue.

“So, um, welcome. Do you want something to drink?”

“Right. Yes.”

He flushed again and she felt something stir at the base of her belly. “I have a lot to choose from-”

“Can you give me categories?”

“Categories?”

“Yes, that will help me answer your question.”

“Um, ok? Categories. Hot or cold?”

His smile lit him up completely and she felt the stir again. “Hot.”

“Alcoholic or virgin?”

He turned an even deeper shade of red as he answered, “virgin.”

“Tea or coffee?” 

“Tea would be lovely. Can I help you get it?”

“No!” She took a breath and continued, “no, I’ll just be a moment. Wait here and I’ll bring out some options for you.”

She forced herself to walk calmly back into the kitchen. Once she was safely behind the door she put her hands on her cheeks and just stood for a moment. He was here, in her home, and kept blushing. He had been in her home for 5 minutes and she hadn’t done anything completly stupid yet. With a quick glance at the clock above the stove she smiled at herself. “Only one hour, fifty five minutes left, Schmidt. You can do this.”

Careful to block the view to the chaos in the kitchen as she went, she returned to the living room with a tea kettle and a small bowl of bagged teas. “You can choose from these while I go grab us mugs.”