A Date with a Celebrity

You were nervous as hell. Not because you were going out or anything - you’d long ago gotten used to the occasional looks you got for your size, and while you didn’t usually eat at fancy places like the restaurant the town car was pulling up in front of, it wasn’t like you were worried about getting your forks wrong or something (mostly because it wasn’t that fancy).

No, you were shitting bricks because you were about to meet April Freaking Vilanova.

The week and a half since you had gotten the message that you’d won the raffle on the app had been a bit hectic. Your coworkers at work either didn’t care, or really cared because they were also fans of the different TV shows and games that she’d voiced characters for. Hannah and Hikaru were relentless in getting you ‘prepared’ for the date, and you’d had a couple of ‘practice dates’ with both of them at your apartment over dinner. You felt like those had made you more nervous rather than less as both women insisted you learn to be more direct at flirting.

Even Margot, your friend from the apartment next door, had been in on it. She’d helped pick out your outfit along with the others, and had sat in on one of the ‘practice dates’ to help give you encouragement. All three of them seemed to think you should know all of these different signals and gestures and things that, deep down, you knew were silly.

Yeah, this was a ‘date.’ But it wasn’t a date. It was more like a meet-and-greet at a Comic Con - April Vilanova was getting paid to be the face of the App, which meant she was getting paid to be on this ‘date.’ And that kinda felt a little gross to you, and also a little bad.

You still didn’t want to waste the opportunity to meet her though, and you’d already been sweating a little when the town car that the App ‘event manager’ had booked for you showed up in front of your apartment. Now you were getting out in front of the steakhouse and had to blink a couple of times because of all the extra lights. There was a red carpet leading from the parking lot which definitely wasn’t usually there, and they had erected one of those background walls that had the app logo and the steakhouse logo and a couple of others repeated over and over.

There was a photographer already taking photos of you coming out of the car, and that made you immediately feel self-conscious, but you did the first thing your friends had told you to do and you fixed your posture and smoothed out your suit jacket, then put on a smile.

Fake it ‘till you make it, Ollie, you could hear Hannah’s voice in your head.

You were approached by the event planner, who shook your hand and then led you down the short carpet to the photo-op wall. You already knew everything she told you since she seemed to just be repeating the instructions she’d told you on the phone, and over email. Twice.

Then she left you there in front of the two photographers and you felt awkward as fuck. They also seemed to be feeling awkward.

“Sorry if I have a nip slip, fellas,” you said. “This dress just doesn’t want to cooperate with me.”

One of them smirked and the other smiled and snorted at your stupid joke.

At some unheard cue, both of them raised their cameras and started snapping pictures off to the side, and you looked around and realized April was coming up the red carpet from the other direction as you had where a walled tent had been set up.

Holy shit, she was actually here.

“Wow,” she said with a grin as she walked up to you. “You’re a lot taller than I expected.”

Your mouth worked once as you took her in, unable to produce sound for a split second. April was… well, she was gorgeous, but in a different way than the photos you’d seen of her. And even then the interviews you’d seen from various conventions or online reporters. You realized quickly it was because she wasn’t just an image on a screen, she was here in front of you.

April had a naturally warm, tanned skin tone from her Sicilian heritage, along with gorgeous brown eyes and dark chestnut hair that had been styled and coiffed by a professional. Her nose had a slight hook to it, like the beak of a bird of prey, but it suited her face. She was also a little short, maybe the same height as Hannah when you had expected her to be a little taller like Hikaru, but she was wearing a pretty burgundy dress with a slit up one leg that revealed the matching burgundy heels she was wearing. It also featured a generous amount of her rather prodigious amount of cleavage.

“H-Hi,” you said. “I get that a lot, actually. You make that dress look really beautiful.” It felt stupid coming out of your mouth, and part of you panicked that you’d fumbled the compliment - Margot had drilled into your head that you should compliment what she was wearing once, and her hair once, and something about her smile later on.

April smiled though, her eyes narrowing as she did it and cocked her head to the side. “Thank you so much, that’s sweet! So, are you ready to take some pictures with me, tall, dark and handsome?”

“Sure,” you said.

April knew what to do. You definitely didn’t. You felt like an idiot for the first couple of minutes, but you tried your best to keep a smile on your face, to suck in your gut a little but not so much it was obvious, and you made sure you did the one thing that Hannah had beaten into your head.

No Hover Handing.

The first time you touched April’s shoulder you were nervous as fuck. It wasn’t touching a woman that had you feeling that way, just the whole overwhelming situation of it all. Still, she didn’t cry out or shoot you a sour look or anything, so you got a little more comfortable that she was OK with it.

Then she turned to you. “James Bond pose?” she asked with a grin.

“OK,” you chuckled, and you both turned and pressed your backs together, raising up finger guns as you posed. Then she called out, “Lightsaber battle!” and soon you were making silly faces at each other as you swung pretend lightsabers. Then she was pretend-stabbing you in the chest as you looked shocked. Old Timey Fisticuffs. Kawaii Japanese Schoolgirl throwing up peace signs. Horrified by something off camera. Looking stoically off into the distance. Old Farmer Couple.

“Alright,” the event manager finally said as April seemed to start running out of silly ideas. You were both laughing at your mutual antics. “We need to get you inside now. We’ll take a few photos during the meal, but we’ll try to be circumspect. Then you two are off to a private screening of For the Money of Love.”

“Great,” April said with a smile, then looped her arm through yours and looked up at you with a smile. “I’m so sorry, but after all that I’ve completely forgotten your name and they just told me in the tent.”

“I’m Ollie,” you said.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ollie,” she said. “I’m April. Let’s go eat, I could **** a cow for the steak right now.”

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