It's a (COVID) Date

“It’s tonight! It’s tonight! It’s tonight!” exclaimed Mackenzie, excitedly, as she hit her alarm button waking her up and danced in her bed excitedly.

“Snuffles, it’s finally Friday! And you know what that means?!? I finally get to go on my date with Brian tonight! Ah, I’m so excited! I have no idea how I’m going to get any work done today, but only 12 hours stands between now and that date!”

Beep, beep, beep.

She just received a text on her phone.

“Good morning beautiful! I can’t wait to see you tonight.”

She replies back, “Good morning sweetheart! I can’t wait to see you tonight either. :)”

“I have to get started with my day, so I hope you have a good day until we get to see each other.”

“Thank you, I hope you have a good day too.”

Mackenzie gets up and puts on her gym clothes to get her workout in before getting on with her day.

After her workout, she takes a quick shower, makes some scrambled eggs and toast with avocado for breakfast, and a cup of orange juice. She takes her time enjoying her breakfast as she has the extra time before she has to start work. Time just seems to be going so slow this morning.

After cleaning up the kitchen, she heads to her office and turns on her computer. Time to get this workday started, so that date night comes quicker.

*******

4pm. The work day is officially over.

Finally!

Now it’s time for Mackenzie to get ready for her date.

She jumps into the shower. Shaves. Exfoliates. All the things. Making sure her body and hair is perfectly smooth and clean.

After her shower, she applies a fresh clean powder lotion over her entire body to help make her smell delicious.

She dries and puts wavy curls in her hair. Then she does her makeup. Not a lot of makeup, just enough to make it look like she has some on. Brian had told her a few days ago how he likes women who wear just a bit of makeup, but they are beautiful even without makeup. So she does know a little about what he likes. And she really wants to look her best, for her first date with Brian.

Then Mackenzie slips into her little black dress. This dress is so simple, yet elegant at the same time.

The straps just sit on her shoulders. The bodice form fitting and shows off her assets perfectly. The skirt is loose and flowing and falls just below the knee.

She does a few twirls in the mirror, just admiring the work she has done to look so elegant, yet simple for an amazing first date.

I just hope Brian is as amazing on this date as he has been the past few days with the texts and calls we’ve had, thought Mackenzie.

Ah, it’s 5:45pm. Brian said the date will start right around 6pm.

Mackenzie has a few nerves that she needs to get out. So she opens Spotify on her phone and searches for a Lady Gaga song to help her just move and shift these nerves.

Born this Way starts playing on her phone. Mackenzie just starts dancing around and shifting all this nervous energy.

Knock, knock.

He’s here! Just a few minutes early, it’s 5:56.

Mackenzie turns off the music and goes to open the door.

When she opens the door, there is a delivery man, wearing the standard face mask, standing there with a huge cardboard box in his arms.

“Mackenzie Harris?” he asks.

“Yes I am,” she replies smiling.

“This is for you,” and he hands over the box.

With a huge smile, “Thank you!”

“Enjoy your date!” and he turns to leave.

Mackenzie brings the box back inside her house. She takes it to her living room, where she has her laptop set up on the coffee table. She sets the box on the floor beside the coffee table and takes a seat on the couch.

She takes a nice, long deep breath and then opens the box. Inside, there are all different size boxes, each one has a number on the box, 2 through 6. And on top of all of the boxes is an envelope with the number 1 on it.

She picks up the envelope and opens it, taking the card inside out.

The front of the card said: “You’re the best thing I ever found on the internet.” Inside, the card said: “Here’s to an amazing first date, I can’t wait to have a great night with you.” Then after the inscription was a zoom meeting room number.

She plugs this number into her zoom on her computer and then Brian is on her computer screen.

“Hi beautiful! It’s so great to finally see your beautiful face. Ah you look so amazing!”

Mackenzie’s heart flutters and she has butterflies in her stomach. “Hi, I’m so excited for this date. Thank you for asking me and for planning it.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure, Mackenzie. I had fun planning this date and I can’t wait to enjoy it with you.”

They sit in the quiet for a few seconds just smiling at each other.

“Shall we have a drink?” asked Brian.

“Of course, I’m guessing that is box #2?”

Brian smiles and says, “Let’s see.”

They both reach for their box #2 and start opening it. Inside is a wine glass, a bottle of Mojave Rain Merlot, a corkscrew and a dark chocolate with sea salt bar. Both of them empty their boxes on the table in front of them.

“I wish it wasn’t a pandemic and we could actually have this date in the same room. I’d love to be able to open that bottle for you.” Brian said.

“I know, just sitting next to you on this couch and sharing this wine with you would be so much more enjoyable. But we have to make the best of this whole situation. And hopefully one day soon, you’ll be able to open a bottle of wine for us and we can enjoy drinking it together.”

They both open their bottles of wine and pour themselves a glass of wine. Once they have their glasses poured, they both put their glass toward the camera on their computer, to basically clink their glasses.

“To us having a great night,” said Brian and they both took their first sip.

“Box #3,” says Brian with a smile on his face.

They both reach for box #3. It’s warm in Mackenzie’s hands when she picks it up. She opens the box and inside is the heat coat to help keep the food warm. She opens the heat coat and pulls out the plate. She sets the plate on her table in front of her computer and removes the lid.

Steam comes pouring out. Then Mackenzie can finally see the meal that sits in front of her - fettuccine alfredo with shrimp, scallops and a lobster tail.

“Oh, my favorite!” exclaims Mackenzie.

Brian has a huge smile on his face, “I know. I wanted to make this date really memorable and I had a lot of fun planning it.”

“And it’s still so hot,” replies Mackenzie with a smile.

“It is. Let’s dive in and enjoy it. You’re also going to want box #4 as well.”

They both opened box #4 and added the fresh italian bread and butter to their plates. There was half a loaf of bread in each of their boxes.

“There is way too much bread here to eat the whole thing,” Mackenzie said.

“You can definitely save it for later.”

They both enjoy their meals and slowly make their way through the rest of the boxes and their entire bottle of wine. (And they both ended up eating all of their bread and butter.)

Box #5 was a molten chocolate cake, still warm and gooey. When Mackenzie took that first bite, she unconsciously moaned over it’s deliciousness.

“Oh what I would give to be the one who makes you make that sound,” swooned Brian.

“I can’t help it, it’s just so good,” then with a wink, “hopefully one day you will make me make that sound and a few others too.”

And the final box - #6 was a square of dark chocolate filled caramel and sea salt.

Brian and Mackenzie just had so much fun chatting and spending time together with each other. Neither one paid attention to the time at all throughout the night. They just enjoyed spending the time with each other.

Before they knew it, it was 11:30pm. Mackenzie stifled a yawn and they both looked at the clock on their computers.

“Oh wow! It’s 11:30,” exclaimed Mackenzie. “I’ve just been really enjoying this time with you that the time just flew. Thank you for such an amazing first date. But I need to get me some sleep, that is if I can even sleep tonight.”

“I have really enjoyed this time with you too. And if I was there with you, I’d definitely want to be able to give you a good night kiss. But I definitely hope you’ll give me the chance to have another date with you?”

“Of course I will. I want to keep seeing you and I would let you give me a good night kiss.”

“How does next Friday sound for another date night like this?” asked Brian.

“I’d like that. Are you going to plan it again or do you want me to?”

“I’ll plan it. I loved planning this for tonight. The only part I don’t like is that we aren’t in the same room together. I already have another idea for a date anyway.”

“Okay. I’m definitely looking forward to it,” smiled Mackenzie.

“Well, I’ll let you go get that beauty sleep because I know it takes a lot of work to keep that beautiful face looking so well. Good night beautiful,” Brian said as he blew a kiss towards the screen.

“Good night Brian,” Mackenzie replied, blowing a kiss towards the screen.

And they both signed off Zoom and turned off their computers.

Mackenzie put everything back into the original box so that could easily dispose of it tomorrow, then cleaned up quickly and headed to her room, where she changed into her comfy cotton shorts and tank top pjs and washed the makeup off her face.

She was still on such a high from the amazing night as she crawled into bed. While she lay there waiting for sleep to overcome her, she just kept replaying parts of the night. Soon she fell asleep with a smile on her face.