notes and warnings: in honor of valentine’s day here’s whatever this is,, this is very vaguely inspired by the song ‘honey honey’ by abba,, i don’t think there’s any warnings (maybe alcohol use and getting a little tipsy/drunk)!!
synopsis: in which you and audrey pretend to be partners to get the restaurant’s valentine’s day discount — yet after dinner you find out who she is, a television star with no need for any sort of discount.
HONEY, HONEY:
The lights glistened above, the presence of light known to you, yet everywhere you looked was shrouded in darkness.
The quiet chatter of every table in the restaurant had accumulated into one insurmountable roar, seemingly collective, questioning your presence alone in such a place of solidarity. Yet though you felt a thousand eyes on your back, every head was turned away from you. Every conversation excluded you entirely.
You weren't sure anymore why you'd thought this would be such a great idea — going out to dinner on Valentine's Day, you assumed it would be a sort of escape from the whole holiday. It had always angered you, even when you had a partner, the whole prospect of corporations using their influence to create such a horrid holiday for their own gain. Going out to dinner had seemed, in the ease of planning, to be a much better option than drinking away your loneliness and irritation in your house and seeing where a night such as that would take you. Nowhere good, as you knew.
Control was inflicted upon you in public on such a horrid day. You knew you had to be sober enough, alert enough, content enough to get home at the end of the night, by which time you would want nothing more than your pillow and a long rest, and when you went to work the next day it would all be over and gone.
Yet now, with all of this jollification surrounding you and your loneliness filling what meager space you still had left to yourself in the crowded restaurant, you couldn’t believe how utterly stupid you had been.
Your eyes began to scan the room, a silent search for your waiter, for you wished to claim the check.
“Ah, there you are darling, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
You looked up, confusion filling you as you watched the woman before you sink into the seat at the opposite end of the table. The woman held a mischievous spark in her eyes – everything she glanced at seemed to glow as if being touched by the sun for the very first time.
She winked, glancing around before continuing to speak. Her voice had quieted as if the two of you were sharing a secret. “There’s a couple’s discount for Valentine’s Day. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind having dinner with me, we could split the check. 50% off, can you believe it?”
“Wait, wait, who are you? Do I know you?” You asked, though you knew quite well that you would remember such a divine woman if you had met her before. “Sorry, maybe it’s the drink, but I’m a bit confused…”
The blonde before you looked around again, and you couldn’t tell if it was excitement or disappointment that had a larger hold on her features. Finally, her eyes settled on you. “You don’t know who I am?”
“Should I?”
She paused for a moment before deciding. “No, I suppose not…”
“What’s your name?”
“Audrey Tindall,” she grinned at the sound of her own name.
“I’m Y/N.”
She smiled, a smile that felt dangerous, as if you were somehow deliberately breaking some unsaid rule. Maybe it was the fake-couple nonsense she had proposed to get the discount, but something about her felt spontaneous and lively and gravitational. “So then, Y/N, will you be my partner? Just for dinner?”
You hesitated – you saw in this a double-edged sword. A fear of being too spontaneous, too forward, jumping into something that had happened upon you in an instant. The way she kept glancing around the restaurant every few moments as if she had something to hide didn’t help either.
So it was very surprising, very riveting and uncharacteristic when you felt yourself agreeing to her unstated terms. The “Sure, why not?” that had escaped your lips did not sound like your own voice, did not feel like your own words. It felt as if an outside force were controlling you completely – a character in a movie, a doll, completely helpless when it came to your own mind.
“Good evening,” the waiter had approached, a young, lanky man with hair pulled back into a small bun at the back of his head and a beard that reached the start of his black apron. “What can I get started for the two of you?”
You waited for her to order first, watching her well-postured mannerisms and the way she continued to illuminate the room with a light so stifling that you were sure the restaurant would be blown to pieces in the force of her sanctity. She glowed so immensely, so effortlessly, her whole being composed of a vivacity unmatched by that of anyone you’d ever met.
“Y/N? Did you hear me?”
At her voice you jumped, meeting her eyes once more. “Sorry?”
“I asked if you would split a cabernet with me,” she laughed, fidgeting briefly with a piece of her short blonde hair.
“Of course,” you could feel your face going red, embarrassed that you had let yourself drift off into such a trance over someone you had met only ten minutes ago.
She grabbed your hand as the waiter nodded and asked if you required anything else. A trick to sell the act, you knew, yet her hand over yours, the spark still in her eyes, the way everything became louder and brighter was so real that your newness to one another seemed like a lie.
The waiter was gone. You wished to make conversation with her, and you could tell from her expression that she wished the same, yet neither of you quite knew where to start or what to say.
“What do you do? For work?” She asked, and you saw the slightest bit of insecurity bleed through the facade she had kept up until now.
“This and that,” you answered. You loathed your job, an assistant for the most detestable woman at Kineros Robotics. You wished to escape from even thinking of the place on this night, such a night that had taken a most surprising turn. It was like the briefest mention of Kineros Robotics would send this fantasy world that had happened upon you crumbling to the ground. “What about you? What do you do?”
Audrey had regained her confidence, echoing you. “This and that.”
You grinned. In a strange way, you were grateful for the anonymity the two of you shared and the way it had quickly blossomed into a night so wonderful.
The waiter returned with your wine, pouring you each a glass before taking his leave.
“To us,” she raised her glass.
“Yes, here’s to our seventh anniversary,” you joked, and her laugh was so light, so endearing, so effervescent.
So quickly had the night changed.
So quickly had the light shone in the darkness, how quickly had the day broken through an eternal night.
–
You blundered out of the restaurant, your arms locked. Laughter bubbled up in your chest, spilling out of you as the two of you attempted to make your way along the sidewalk. Night had fallen completely, and two bottles of wine had been emptied between the two of you, the night beginning to drift into a sort of hazy, slow-motion state.
She leaned into you, laughing at something you couldn’t remember being so hilarious. You slipped a hand around her waist. It felt natural, how quickly the two of you had connected – the restaurant kept getting further behind, and the act was free to be over, and yet somehow the two of you were still together.
Your phone dinged from your pocket. You clumsily retrieved it, opening the message you’d been sent by one of your friends: a trailer for some show they’d been watching.
You had not meant to open the link, but your share of the two bottles had gone into full effect and soon the trailer filled your screen.
Audrey paused. She slowly looked over your shoulder, and had she been any more tipsy she would have snatched the phone right out of your hands.
Speechless, you put your phone away.
For there she had been. Right on the screen, there she had been.
“You could’ve mentioned being a fucking TV star,” you said quietly, beginning to walk on and distancing yourself from her.
“No, no, wait!” she shouted, racing to catch up with you. “I didn’t really lie about anything, you know, I just didn’t want–”
“Why did you do this? Why are we doing this? You didn’t need a fucking discount, Audrey!”
She did not respond for a moment, chewing her bottom lip, looking from here to there to behind her and back again.
You were about to keep walking when she stopped you, capturing your lips with hers for the briefest of moments. Yet time seemed to pause – you were overcome by an electric thrill at her touch, an irrepressible jubilation.
A quiet moment passed after the kiss, in which she looked into your eyes, attempting to read your mind before continuing. “That’s why.”
You nodded, attempting to hold a serious expression. But your smile won, it conquered the brief irritation, and you were right back to the glee you’d been feeling all night.
“Do you want to try this all again sometime, but go back seven years?” She laughed as she referenced your earlier joke of a seven-year anniversary.
“I would love to.”
And you continued walking, your arms linked once more.
And maybe in seven years you would be back at the restaurant, referencing this night with cabernet and sweet nothings, celebrating this night that had been so randomly elected as the start of your futures.
