Chapter Text
Saturday morning, at 9:53, Mel frantically called Samira. Admittedly, Samira was her second choice. Becca had already declined her FaceTime call.
“Mel? Is everything okay?” Samira asked, tinny and echoey with the call on speakerphone.
“Um. Mostly. Yes, I think. Am I getting you at a bad time?” Mel asked. Her personal crisis should not be her friend’s problem.
“Not at all. What’s up?”
“What would you wear on a first date? Because suddenly, it’s like I don’t own any clothing that would be suitable for anything, and you know how I like being prepared, but you also know how my last first date ended up, and I feel like that outfit is cursed now.” There was silence over the line for a long moment.
“Mel, I’m switching this call to FaceTime.”
“Help,” Mel said as soon as her friend’s face came onto her screen.
“Show me your closet,” Samira said in reply. Mel propped her phone up on her desk.
They went over the details - the locations, the predicted weather (to be taken with a grain of salt, because Pittsburgh), the man and how he’d asked her out. Samira had needed to put her phone down and take a lap around her kitchen before they could get back to the matter at hand.
“That’s how Langdon asked you out? Are you joking? Oh my god, Garcia was right. He has absolutely no game.”
Well, that answered that question, but sparked several others. Wasn’t Garcia a lesbian? And also on-again off-again dating Trinity? Were they actually still dating? Why would she have opinions on how much ‘game’ a straight man like Frank had? Mel banked her questions about that for later. There was an outfit to plan. Her daily uniform of jeans and ratty graphic tee-shirts were not going to cut it. There was one dress, buried in the depths of her closet, that had been impulse-bought in the wee, lonely hours of the morning when Mel had been particularly lachrymose and hunting for dopamine. (She loved that word, lachrymose.) It was dark blue linen, with a full skirt and a square neckline. It had felt like a frivolous purchase at the time.
“And it has pockets, Samira,” Mel said, holding the hanger in front of her and swishing the skirt dramatically. Paired with her trusty flats and a beige cardigan Becca had crocheted ages ago, it felt like the perfect casual late-morning date outfit.
“That solves it,” Samira said. Her eyes drift away from Mel and toward the top of her screen. “Ugh, another Hinge message. Remember my sad, single ass on your wedding day.”
“Frank and I aren’t going to get married.” Mel’s face was burning. “What does your Hinge message say?”
Samira looked into her camera like she knew exactly what Mel was doing changing the topic. The camera feed paused as she swiped to read the new message.
“Oh my god. You have to be kidding. Mel, sweetie, everything is fine, but I gotta go,” Samira said all in a rush.
“Is everything okay? Samira?” But the call ended with three sad boops before Mel could finish talking. A text came through: Sorry babes! I promise all is well <3 Have fun today!!
Samira promised everything was alright... Mel set a reminder to text her later. She had a date to get ready for.