Luna was in his face the moment Ryan stepped through the door. “How’d it go?” She demanded. “Tell me everything.”

Ryan carefully slipped his shoes off. “It was fun.” He wasn’t exactly sure how to describe the date to someone else. It hadn’t been traditional in any way, but it had felt perfect for who they were.

“What did you do?” Luna grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the couch, where she made him sit down. She was serious about getting the details.

He shifted uncomfortably under her expectant gaze. “Uh, we ate a late lunch? We went to The Works for burgers.”

She gave him a thumbs-up. Apparently, she would approve of the restaurant for a date.

“Then we went to his place.” He swatted at her when she gave him a surprised yet impressed look. “We carved pumpkins!” He dug in his pocket for his phone to show her pictures. He had decided to leave his pumpkin in Jake’s residence room, since the room needed a bit of decoration.

A plastic bag fell out of his pocket and Luna immediately snatched it up. “What’s this?” She held it up to the light suspiciously.

“Pumpkin seeds.” After carving, they had cleaned and toasted the seeds together for a snack. Jake had given the leftovers to Ryan to take home.

“Yummy.” Luna opened the bag and popped a seed in her mouth.

Ryan laughed. Growing up, Luna had always insisted on carving pumpkins not for the jack-o’-lanterns, but because she loved the toasted seeds. Of course, she was a terrible cook and others would always have to do the toasting for her.

He unlocked his phone and texted Jake. ‘Less than five minutes.’ He snapped a photo of Luna with the baggie and sent that as well.

Jake sent back a grinning emoji. They had had a long discussion on the walk back to Ryan’s apartment about Luna and the pumpkin seeds. Jake had bet that Ryan couldn’t keep them from her for more than ten minutes. Evidently, he had been right.

‘What do I get as my prize?’

‘What do you want?’

‘A second date?’

“Who are you texting?” Luna leaned over and snatched the phone from him. She looked at the screen and made a sickly-sweet face. “Aww.” She started tapping at the screen.

“What are you doing?” Ryan lunged for the phone. Lucky for him, the bag of pumpkin seeds was still on her lap, and she released the phone in favour of saving it. Unlucky for him, she had already sent a text to Jake.

‘You were already going to get that.’ Complete with a sly face and, for some reason, an eggplant.

Ryan started to frantically type out a message telling him what had happened, but before he could send it, he got a reply.

‘Hi Luna.’

Ryan relaxed. Jake knew it had been Luna. He wondered if the eggplant was an inside joke they had.

‘Tell Ryan I’m already making plans. I’m thinking somewhere dark where he won’t be the only one not talking.’

“What’d he say?” Luna pressed her shoulder against his so that she could lean in and look at the screen. She pouted. “Boo. Why do you have to be so innocent?”

He blinked at her, confused. “What?”

She pointed at Jake’s last text. “What do you think he means by that?”

“A movie.” Ryan studied the text. It was a movie, right? What else could it be? He thought hard about it. Somewhere dark where they wouldn’t be talking. Dark, and no talking…

Oh. Ryan’s face suddenly felt warm.

Luna started to cackle. “You’re so cute!”

He ignored her and started to type. ‘Please tell me you mean a movie!’

‘Welcome back!’ He sent a grinning happy face with it. ‘Yeah, I thought we could see a movie. Is there anything playing or coming soon that you wanted to check out?’

Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. Then he felt a little thrill in his chest. He was excited to go out with Jake again. He left Luna and the pumpkin seeds on the couch to go look up what was playing.