The only thing I was told about the date was that it was a casual affair and that I would be picked up at 6pm the next day. I refused to acknowledge that it was a date for fear of passing out or convincing myself that I was dreaming. So I just got dressed in a pair of jeans, comfortable black boots, and a soft knit sweater with a V-neckline that showed off just a bit of cleavage.

I tied my hair in a half up-half down look, my curls acting just as chaotic as they always were and I tossed on just a bit of foundation. If I treated this like a date with Casey Gordon, I would have spent hours stressing about what to wear and how much makeup I should put on. But this isn't a date with Casey Gordon, we are simply just hanging out, like we've done so many times before.

But then I meet him in the parking lot of my building and he's wearing dark jeans, a black t-shirt, and a well-fitted brown suede jacket and I want to vomit. His light hair was gently styled and he's got a grin the size of Jupiter on his face, lighting up the entire parking lot. Staring at him from across the parking lot made me want to die, he was so beautiful and this was really happening. Don't blow it.

"You look nice," he said as I approached on wobbly knees. He then smoothly opened the passenger door of his car and waved me inside.

"Thanks. You too," I mumbled awkwardly as I got into the car. It was just Casey, I tried to remind myself. That thought process had worked so well until I actually saw him and all of my resolve went out the window.

I sat my hands between my thighs and the seat of the car as he got in the driver side and started heading for the main road.

"So," I spoke up after clearing my throat. "Where are we going?"

"I've known where I would take you on a first date since I was fifteen," he told me as he drove, not looking nearly as nervous as I was feeling. "I had it all planned out perfectly, I had an itinerary typed up and everything."

"That's the least surprising thing that I've learned in recent days," I told him with a little laugh as a blush started to heat up my face, and I was sure it would stay there all night long. "You're adorable."

"Did you have any daydream dates we'd go on?" he asked me.

I tried to think of one, but I couldn't think of anything, so I just shook my head and said, "Not really."

"Well, this whole thing just got much more embarrassing," he mumbled with an awkward laugh.

I couldn't help but join him in laughing and then say, "I don't know, my daydreams were always focused on the moment I told you how I felt. I had the script written nine different ways, I imagined the outfit I would wear when I did it, the exact amount of feet I'd stand from you. Close enough to reach, but not too close where you'd feel uncomfortable. I imagined what the kiss would be like if you allowed it. But my imagination never really got passed that moment."

"I never thought about that, because I knew I'd never actually get the courage to say it."

"I came close a few times. Always chickened out at the last second."

When Casey pulled up to the Folger Shakespeare Library, I shouldn't have been surprised. I did really enjoy Shakespeare when I was in high school and even now could appreciate his work when I had time to revisit it. But, still I felt a little bit surprised.

"You hate Shakespeare, Casey," I reminded him with a nervous laugh as we got out of the car and walked together into the building.

"But you love Shakespeare, and I wanted to impress you," he said to me, holding the main door open for me before he followed behind. "You know how you said my eyes light up when I'm talking about my research."

I just nodded.

"That's what happens to you when you're reading Shakespeare. So yeah, I think it's boring and I have no idea what he's saying most of the time, but I could watch you look at this stuff all day long." I started to melt when he said that.

I'd been to the library many times before, but even now the ornate, grand halls and tall ceilings were breathtaking. It almost reminded me of Hogwarts in some ways. Every decoration on the wall was intricate and purposeful. Even if this building wasn't the Shakespeare Library, I'd still want to visit just for the building's beautiful style.

And this time, I was with Casey and it was a Real Date, which made the entire thing even better.

I wanted to reach for his hand because, as two people on a date, I felt like we should be able to do that, but as we stopped at the first exhibit, his hands were stuffed in his pockets, which was usually something he did when he was nervous.

"This is a date, right? Like, a real one," I asked him, mostly rhetorically.

He looked confused by the question and then said, "Um, yeah."

Without looking away from the books on display in front of me, a smile started twitching on the corners of my lips as I said, "Then hold my hand, you nerd."

Casey started to smile too, stepping closer so that he could smoothly remove his hand from his pocket and let his fingers find mine. "My bad," he muttered softly as I wrapped my fingers around his. His hand was so much larger than mine and warm and soft. I felt like I could feel his heartbeat in his palm, or maybe that was mine.

Holding his hand made this all feel a little bit more real, and it lit something up inside of me that I'd never felt before. It was a good thing I'd seen this exhibit before, because after we started holding hands, my brain couldn't retain anything else. I stared at the informational plaques and pretended to be reading them, but I had no idea what was going on.

I'd imagined this feeling so many times that it felt like I was dreaming, like this couldn't actually be happening. It was a made up scenario that I played a million times in my head, a figment of my imagination. It felt like watching Big Foot doing the Gangnam Style dance on the National Mall. Such a wildly fantastical idea that had no business being in the real world.

"You ready to keep going?" Casey wondered after I had been staring off into space for probably ten minutes.

I started to blink my dry eyes and then glanced up at him and nodded, "Yep."

With our hands still entwined, we walked along the hall to the next exhibit and again, nothing about the plaques or informational readings registered in my head.

"Is Macbeth still your favorite?" he asked me.

"Of course. It will always be my favorite," I confirmed. "It's not like he's coming out with anything new."

"Right," he agreed with a laugh.

I caught him looking at me in the corner of my eye as I tried to digest any of the words in front of me. "What?" I asked him, hoping he wasn't catching on to the fact that I wasn't actually reading anything and was still so caught up in the feeling of his hand around mine.

"Just looking at you," he said with a little shrug. "I feel like if I look away, I'll wake up and you'll vanish."

I started to wonder if he was going to kiss me right there in the crowded museum, because it kind of looked like he wanted to. I obviously wanted it too, but I wasn't sure our first kiss should be a public affair. Maybe I had it worked up to be so much more than it really was in my head, but I imagined our first kiss to be something explosive. Not made for public consumption.

There was ten years of pent up sexual tension and longing for each other that would be released in that one kiss and just thinking about it made me start to feel sweaty. My chest started to vibrate with the pounding of my heart as I pictured the moment in my head.

"You're adorable, Casey," I muttered in a shaky breath as I turned back toward the display of old books in front of us and began to study them. Well, pretend to study them, because now, I wasn't just thinking about his hand holding mine, but I was imagining The Kiss.

I wondered if it would happen tonight, or if we were both too nervous to make the move. And then I started to think about if it would lead to more than kissing. I squeezed his hand a little bit tighter in mine, wondering about where that hand might wander to later in the evening.

"You're really being studious tonight," Casey said to me with a light laugh. "How many times have you read that plaque?"

"None," I admitted to him, letting my head fall sideways until it rested on his suede-covered bicep. "I'm distracted."

His laugh became brighter as I felt the weight of his head against the top of mine. "You're adorable, Josie," he said back to me before he started to walk away from the books further down the corridor. "What do you normally talk about on a first date?"

"Boring things like what we do for work and how big our families are," I answered him. We didn't stop at the next exhibit and just continued strolling through the museum, glancing at everything without the theatrics of pretending to stop and read everything. My brain was too hyper-focused on everything about Casey, so I was happy with the new cadence of our walk. "All things that I already know about you."

"Tell me something that I don't know about you," he said as we walked.

"Um," I started to wrack my brain for something interesting that he didn't already know. We'd been apart for six years, so you'd think it would be fairly easy to do, but I struggled for a while before finally saying, "My junior year of college, I got dressed up for Halloween, went out to this frat party with Natalie, and ended up dancing so hard that I sprained my ankle. Totally sober, by the way. Some frat guys had to help carry me to Natalie's car and they were laughing the whole time, it was humiliating. Had to wear a boot for a while and whenever somebody asked me what happened, I lied and said I hurt it while playing soccer."

He laughed and said, "Have you ever played soccer?"

"No, which is why I imagine that I'd hurt myself if I tried, so it's believable."

"What were you dressed up as?" he wondered curiously. "Just trying to set the scene in my head."

"Sexy Freddy Krueger, obviously."

"Obviously," he agreed with a little laugh. "Please tell me there are pictures. Of the costume, not your wobbly ankle."

It took some time for my nerves to wear off, but once our conversation started to flow, I was reminded that this really was just Casey I was talking to. It was easy to feel comfortable with him, to fall back into being best friends except now, we were holding hands and that made it better.