Date Night [Nolan]

Planning a date was definitely not Nolan's area of expertise, considering the fact that he'd never done it before in his life and really just didn't know where to start. There were a lot of options of activities they could do, but would some of them not feel as much like a date as others? Or would Marissa not like it? He figured that, since they were still pretty young, their date could still be a fun evening out, not necessarily going to some fancy stuffy restaurant where people would look at them weird because they didn't really seem to belong. As for movies, he didn't know what kind of movies she liked and, though romance flicks were generally a safe bet with girls, he really wasn't that much into seeing one of those, not right away anyway. So a fancy dinner out and a movie had been discarded from his picks. But then, what if that was what she was expecting? Would she be disappointed with an evening that was a bit more on the casual side, would she feel like they were just hanging out as friends rather than really being out on a date with one another?

At the end of the day, he'd decided to stop worrying about it. They'd established that they were going on a date, so whatever they ended up doing was a date, even if they just walked around the park for the whole evening. Not that he'd picked that, but he wanted to make a point to himself, and so after a little while longer of debating, he'd decided to take her to a bowling alley. Bowling seemed like an innocent enough passtime, and Friday and Saturday nights were cosmic bowling nights so that ought to be even more fun. And then, there was generally a small diner next to bowling alleys where you could get burgers and fries, chicken strips, hot dogs, pizza and all that stuff. Not very healthy, but it didn't hurt to splurge once in a while. After making that decision, the one thing he'd told her about their date night was to dress casual, and so after getting himself ready with a simple shirt and pair of jeans, he'd walked the way across the school grounds so that he could go and pick her up, sure to make it there at least ten or five minutes early, but as it turned out she'd beaten him at it and he smiled lightly as he approached the bench on which she was sitting. "Hey," he greeted her, bending down slightly to press a light kiss to her cheek. "Ready to go?"

There were times when Nolan couldn't help but wonder what his parents woud think of Marissa. After all, their opinion had always mattered a lot to him, though there were moments when he knew he couldn't please them all the time considering how demanding they tended to be, and that had been one of the reasons why he'd seeked a boarding school that would allow him a bit of freedom, a bit of room to breathe. Nonetheless, it didn't mean that what they thought of what he did didn't mean anything to him anymore, and he was well aware that the girl he was dating was something they'd have an opinion of. Of course, he couldn't think that they'd completely disapprove of Marissa and think her completely bad for him. She was a sweet girl, really fun to be around and all over he was happy with his decision of dating her. And that was a good enough reason to leave his mother in the dark as to his relationship status for a little while longer, because he knew the kind of hopes she held for his future, and if she was to dislike his current date, he didn't really want to hear it.

Not that she'd have any logical reason for disliking her anyway, so he figured it shouldn't matter as far as that went. But she was his mom and she only wanted him to be happy and all of that, so he couldn't begrudge her being a little over the top when it came to planning how his life would go as he grew older. For the time being though, he preferred not worrying about it just yet, and so he'd just focus on the first date he was gonna be spending with Marissa, hoping she would find it fun and smiling when she agreed that they should go now. He shook his head though when she asked if there wasn't any chance she'd tell him where they were gonna be going, smiling when she added she was still trying to figure it out. "I made such effort to keep it from you all week, it'd be pretty lame of me to give in when we're minutes away from getting there," he told her with a light chuckle, though he grew a bit more serious. "It's not really a whole lot, but I hope you're still gonna have fun," he told her with a light smile as he walked with her toward the bowling alley, which was about ten minutes away from school.

Really, Nolan figured there wasn't much of a chance of his ruining this date. It wasn't like he'd decided to go for a kind of activity that would keep her entirely bored or wanting to get back to the Academy sooner because she just didn't like what he'd decided they would be doing during the evening, but still, he didn't know either if she enjoyed bowling. Bowling had seemed like an innocent enough activity to him, something that a lot of teenagers enjoyed doing, so chances were she would be cool with it, and the worst that could happen was that she wouldn't know how to play because she never would have been to a bowling alley before. Which, to him, seemed a bit weird to be honest because he remembered in middle school when it was the activity of choice for a friday night, and sometimes it even was a school activity that they took them to do around the end of the year, if they wanted to go of course, so in his mind, the chances of her not knowing how to play were pretty slim to none. Then again, maybe bowling wasn't that popular a thing everywhere, so he couldn't know.

Nonetheless, even if it turned out that she didn't know how to play, he was sure that she would catch on pretty quick. It wasn't a very complicated thing after all, you just had to make sure you didn't go past the line on the alley, and that you aimed well. If she had trouble or anything, they could always put up the bumpers for her, which was generally something that helped beginners. And then, there was the possibility that she did know how to play really well and she would beat him, though he was pretty good himself, but either way, he figured he'd only see once they got there. He smiled at her when she heard her assure him that she was gonna have a blast and felt her reaching for his hand, keeping hers in his after she squeezed it lightly as they kept walking toward the bowling alley, reaching it not too long after that. "Well, here we are," he announced, turning to her to see her reaction so that he could figure out from it whether she was happy that he'd decided to take her there, or whether she'd have rather they kept walking past the place.

Nolan couldn't help but grin when Marissa reacted to the place they were gonna be having their date at, feeling happy and also relieved that he seemed to have made a good pick as to where to take her for their first date. After all, there were some people who didn't really enjoy playing bowling and she could have been one of them, so he hadn't been able to know for sure if she really would have fun after being brought here. From the way she lit up though, he figured that wouldn't be a problem, chuckling lightly when she then turned to him and informed him that he was going down, shaking his head a little. "We'll see about that," he teased her back. He admittingly hadn't played in at least a year or so, but he'd used to be in a little bowling league every wednesday night with other kids his age, and he'd really enjoyed it. It'd been different from his football or soccer practices, or even swimming lessons. It hadn't been about performance, just fun.

He held the door open for her before heading inside himself, the smell of fastfood hitting his nose as they walked by the food counter, figuring they'd probably come back over there later on in the evening because a slice of pizza or a burger with fries sounded like a pretty good dinner to him. However, that would wait until later, and he hoped Marissa would be okay with that kind of a dinner too, not really knowing what kind of food was her favorite. He figured he'd find out tonight. Soon, they reached the counter, nodding slightly at the guy standing behind it and glancing at the bowling alleys, most of which were empty. "We'll take an alley for the two of us, two games," he told the guy, figuring that would be a good enough amount of games to play, then they could eat, and if they wanted to play some more they could do that after dinner. He payed the guy when he gave him the total, waiting for Marissa to give her shoe size before giving his own and grabbing the pair when it was handed to him, heading to a closeby chair to get them on.

Nolan wasn't sure if, in situations like these, he was supposed to just play like he would normally play or tone it down a little just in case. He knew a lot of guys would go for the latter option, because they figured that was the only way the girl they were playing against would have a shot at getting a score close to their own or something like that, but he didn't think that was actually such a great idea. First of all, he was sure that Marissa could turn out to be just as skilled, if not more, than he was, because bowling wasn't really a sport at which one gender was better than the other and so girls could easily kick guys' asses if they played it often enough, and then second of all, the idea of throwing the game seemed like a pretty boring one, not to mention the fact that if Marissa found out or figured out that he wasn't playing his best to let her win or whatever, she probably wouldn't appreciate it a whole lot. Nah, at the end of the day, it'd be better to just play how he normally played.

The one thing he liked just a little less about playing bowling was the whole shoe aspect. When he'd been younger and had played in a league, he'd had his own shoes and bowling ball, but he'd eventually outgrown both and by that time, he didn't play enough anymore to invest into another pair. Still, wearing shoes that had already been worn by dozens of people before him, some of which maybe didn't have the best foot hygiene, had never been very appealing, especially since he knew they didn't wash the shoes in between customers, they just deodorized them. For now though, he tried not to think of that as he got them on and then followed Marissa to the bowls rack so that he could grab one, trying a few before deciding that the red one would be the best weight for him and heading over to the alley the guy at the counter had indicated for them to take so that they could start playing, glancing up at the screen and noting that Marissa would be up first. "Ladies first," he said a bit teasingly, sitting back as he waited for her to go.