would you be so kind

September 3rd, 2019

It had been a really long time since Oliver had been this nervous. Everyone had convinced him that it was a good idea, but he was still terrified of what was coming. In this moment, he regretted the bullshit decree that he had laid down about his own birthday: everyone had to bring a date. He had wanted everyone to make dramatic entrances to formal announcements. At the time, he had no interest in anyone, so he hadn't dreamed he'd be asking anyone who meant anything to him. He had kind of assumed he'd go with someone like Thurmond or some other guy or girl he'd had a fling with. Maybe he'd even just throuple with Brian and Emily.

Now he was standing outside the back door to the Lockwood house. He was holding the sign and had a bunch of red and black balloons around him. He knew that Lachlan would be watching from his clubhouse. Lachlan had been Oliver's ultimate hype man in all of this and he was going to ride the wave to the end. So, Oliver had to go through with the plan, as much as he wanted to bail. This felt like the culmination of all the nerves he had felt around Delilah.

Oliver pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent Delilah a text, telling her to come to Lachlan's quickly. He knew that this was the door she would exit from and he was standing there with his sign.

Delilah Lockwood had been downstairs in the music room with her dog Bear. It was a Tuesday and that meant that Delilah was in the middle of filming a video for the day. Today she was filming one of her cover songs, this one was one of her sitting at the piano, so she had her lights set up and her microphones set up to pick up better sound than just the original video camera would have picked up. It had taken quite some time for Delilah to pick up how to play the song she was doing and compose it in her own key that she had set for it. Delilah was a sucker for Disney movies, especially Tangled as she had seen it in theaters. Unfortunately Tangled wasn't what she was doing today, as much as she loved 'I See The Light' she would rather do that as a duet one day on her channel. Instead she was doing 'Go The Distance' from the movie Hercules.

The brunette was in the middle of playing the intro when she seen her phone light up with a text message. She wasn't expecting to get a text message at all, but there she was getting one. She didn't mind too much though she could probably go for a break about now so she hit pause on the camera and she grabbed her phone to see that it was Oliver who had texted her. It said something about going to Lachlan's house, which confused her a little bit. Were they all getting together for some games of some sort? Delilah was confused but she sent a message back saying, 'Okay.'

She got up off the piano bench and walked out of the door to the music room, she was just going to use the backdoor. It was way easier to use ever since she got the gate put into the backyard, because before there was no way to get in or out of the backyard, the only door was the front door if you wanted to leave the property. Ever since her dad had been sent away to prison to await his trials the house was sort of in her possession until further sorted by the court, she had been spending more time with her friends and a back gate just made so much sense. Either way she walked up to the back door and turned the door knob pulling the door open.

Oliver knew that the sign he was holding was cheesy as hell but he loved it. He had a feeling that Delilah would like it, too. They seemed to like the same things. Anyway, she knew about his desire for his party. In that moment, though, a new wave of fear had washed over Oliver. What if she had asked someone else and just hadn't told him or Lachlan yet. At least one of them was close enough with her that she'd tell them, right?

The sign he was holding matched the theme of his party. Painted in his okay-at-best handwriting, each line alternating between red and, was written,

"We're going to the casino,
so I thought I'd test my luck

Will you do me the honor,
And be the date of this shmuck?"

Next to it was a little wheel that you could spin. It had 8 sections on it, alternating between red and black like a casino wheel. On the red sections were yes and on the black ones were no. There was a little gold ticker arrow at the top. Oliver was rocking back and forth from the balls of his feet to his heels when he watched the door handle turn. He took a deep breath and painted a smile on his face to cover up the immense nerves he was feeling. When he saw Delilah he said,

"Hey there, Delilah."

As she had turned the door knob on the door and opened the door, she was just startled to see someone at her back door that she almost took a step back. It took her a minute to collect her mind and thoughts and to really focus on the situation at hand. Her eyes slowly began to focus with the pouring in of the daylight and immediately her eyes went to the black and red balloons that were all around Oliver.

She didn't know where to look to next, but when she heard him talking to her and saying the famous lines she had her practically her whole life since the song had come out she replied, "What's it like in New York City." Instead of speaking the words she sung them a little. It was then her eyes glanced over the poster board and as she read each line the smile would slip on her face and continue to grow. She would notice the wheel next that had the little 'yes' on the red sections and the 'no' on the black sections.

Delilah was honestly incredibly touched by the amount of effort and thought that Oliver had put into everything. Not only did he practically plan his own party through Delilah and Lachlan these last few weeks leading up to the big day, but now he had thought this all through. It meant way more to the daughter of Epione than many things in her life. In a way she got a little teary eyed at it all as the emotions poured into her. This was one of the first times she ever had a grand gesture done.

Her hand reached out and she turned the wheel so it'd land on the yes. "Of course I'll be your date Oliver."

Oliver was studying Delilah's face as she came out of the house. He followed it as she replied to his stupid Plain White T's joke to the balloons to his face to the sign. He watched as the smile on her face grew as her eyes moved along the lines. That smile helped calm Oliver down a little bit, his smile becoming less and less force. He let out the ultimate sigh of relief when Delilah replied.

"Of course I'll be your date Oliver."

An absolutely ridiculous grin spread across his face as he set the sign down and pulled Delilah into a tight, quick hug. Then, he took a step back and laughed nervously. "I was really hoping that you would say yes. I was worried I'd have to go with like Emily or Brian or something just as friends. I mean, I guess this could be a just friend thing. I would like it to be a date though. Is it okay for me to say that? I don't want to push or anything. I... I'm gonna shut up." Oliver said, bookmarking his ramblings with another nervous laugh.

When things calmed down a little bit, Oliver heard the glass door of Lachlan's clubhouse open. He turned to see Lachlan with a goofy smile on his face.

"Yes, I was watching. Of course I was watching. Anyway, someone has to get a picture of you two. C'mon." Lachlan pulled his phone out and Oliver gave in easily, picking up the sign and posing with Delilah.

Seeing Oliver's smile grow into something more genuine as she said yes made it easier to recover from the well of emotions that existed inside of her. When he pulled her in for a quick hug she used that time to wipe off the few tears that had escaped her face. She felt a little more collected at this point and less caught off guard by the whole thing. It made Delilah realize there were few times she was truly surprised in her life and this was one of them. It also made her realize that whenever other surprises came up she'd probably just cry tears of joy at them.

As he pulled away from the hug she heard Oliver go into a series of ramblings about how if he went with Brian and Emily it'd just be as friends, and eventually the ramblings went in the direction of Oliver wanting it to be a date but he didn't want to push her. Delilah couldn't help it but the biggest smile grew onto her face as she waited for him to be done talking so she could talk, she could tell he was nervous so she wanted to clear it up for him, "Oliver, it's okay. It's a date, I-" She was cut off by hearing Lachlan walking over and what she wanted to say next she didn't exactly want to say in front of Lachlan even if she knew it'd probably get back to him anyways.

As he came by to lift his phone up, Delilah posed with Oliver and the sign that he made. Really the sign had been so well made and it was extremely cheesy, but Delilah liked it. It had twists of Oliver in it and homemade things along with effort just meant a lot to her. After Lachlan got his pictures she looked over to Lachlan, "You can go now, we'll come over to your place in just a moment. I want to talk to Oliver." Delilah said for once saying what she needed, but she had something she wanted to say to Oliver and she could feel the nerves starting to stack on top of each other with the more time passed on.

Oliver felt better as his best friend took pictures of him and Delilah with goofy smiles on their faces than he had felt in a long time. With how rough the last couple months had been, he wasn't too sure that he could feel this happy anymore. Yet here he was, a genuine, uncontrollable smile on his face. He felt like he was in a musical and should start singing some ridiculous song about it being a great day and things going up from here and how this was the start of something.

Instead, he felt like all of the air was let out of him like a balloon when Delilah said that he needed to talk to him alone. Lachlan turned on his heels with a nod and headed back inside. Oliver felt like he'd ridden an entire emotional relationship rollercoaster in less than a minute. How were they already at the "we need to talk stage"? The logical part of his brain was telling him it was probably nothing, just something that wasn't meant for Lachlan's ears. He wasn't logical, though. He was Oliver Garrett. What Oliver Garrett was good at was flying off the handle.

"Did I do something wrong?" Oliver asked. His dark eyebrows were turned in and the smile was gone from his face.

Delilah watched as Lachlan walked away and once she figured he was far enough to way to maybe only make out a little bit of what she said, she took a deep breath and looked over to Oliver. She heard the words that fell out of Oliver's mouth and she just continued to smile as she shook her head no. "No, not at all." She spoke softly, it was then that her nerves were basically toppling over each other, she had set the stage for herself to say something without Lachlan hearing, but now she wasn't sure if she could get the words out.

If she knew one thing though, she knew that she couldn't keep pretending there wasn't something pressing at her. She couldn't just sit back and let it pass her by like she had down before. Maybe she was taking Lachlan's advice here, she was going to try and say words this time and talk about things because maybe this was how you got what you wanted or at least it was how you knew whether it'd go somewhere or not, right? Delilah didn't mean to make Oliver nervous or overthink her words, but she understood because she had been like that a lot lately.

The daughter of Epione grabbed Oliver's hand in hopes that maybe it'd calm him down. "It's actually something really positive, I hope." She started saying before she looked up at Oliver. "Oliver, I actually like you a lot. Like I keep overthinking everything you say and it drives me crazy. I keep having these little glimpses of feelings and I convince myself its nothing, but it really isn't. I can't ignore them anymore, I wont ignore them anymore. I understand if you don't like me that way, but I just had to say it."

Oliver was as stiff as a board as Lachlan walked away from them. His hands were down at his side and every muscle in his body was tight. He knew that if he passed out right now it would be really bad because he was definitely locking his knees. He would honestly probably consider just running away if he felt like he could even move his legs. Instead he was stuck standing here, watching Delilah and waiting to here Lachlan close the door behind him. Finally, he did.

Oliver felt as Delilah took his hand and suddenly he felt like she was pulling all of the nerves and anxiety out of him. He felt as it traveled out of his body, up his legs, down his neck, to his arm and then his hand and out of him. All he felt was calm. He wished he could live in this moment forever. Then Delilah started talking, explaining the exact feelings he'd been feeling towards her. Oliver thanked the gods that they hadn't kept him in that moment forever, for he would have missed this. If he was giving this little speech, it'd sound almost identical, maybe a little less put together. Oliver didn't know what to do. So, he placed his free hand lightly on the side of Delilah's neck and kissed her very lightly.

When he pulled back he said, "I'm not particularly great with words when I have to say them outloud." He smiled. "In case you couldn't tell from that and the whole little date ramble earlier, I do feel the same way."

She had so much confidence going into it with her little speech she mentally prepared a little bit ago. Delilah has always been good with words but even still she felt as if she could have worded what she said better, and she worried about what his reaction would be. Did he even like her back? Did she just make a fool of herself? It was hard to tell. Part of her was glad they were outside of her house so if she had to go inside quickly to escape the possibility of him not liking her back she could do so.

The only thing that kept her grounded and kept her composure was the fact she was still holding Oliver’s hand. It was nice to have contact with Oliver because if this went poorly it might be one of the last and she just wanted to saviour it. She was so much in her head that she almost didn’t notice the shift in his movement. His hand was now placed on her neck and he leaned in for a kiss. Delilah was surprised for a split second, but instantly a stream of happiness sunk in.

Delilah couldn’t help but smile back when he spoke. “I got your message loud and clear. I’m very glad you feel the same.” The legacy of Cupid said as she reached up on her tippy toes and gave him a peck in return.

“Let’s head over to Lachlan’s before he gets too lonely over there.” Delilah wasn’t going to lie she would have loved to just spend time with Oliver here at her place but she did tell Lachlan they’d be back over in a bit.

The two of them would walk over to Lachlan Reid’s clubhouse hand intertwined. They would hang out staying up late that night just goofing around the three of them.
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