"I got this," I said, waving away Amir's attempt at paying for his coffee.

"Thank you, Ethan," he said, putting that hand on my shoulder again.

We sat down at the only clean table and I asked the first question that came to mind, "Amir, is that Arabic, Hebrew, or Persian?"

"In my case, Arabic," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. "My dad is originally from Lebanon, but my mom's Canadian."

So that explained his exotic good looks.

"tasharraftu biliqaa'ik, Amir," I said, with my hand over my heart.

"You speak Arabic?" he asked, looking at me in shock.

"Only a few phrases I learned to impress our Arab clients," I said.

"I consider French to be my mother tongue," he said. "But I speak basic Lebanese Arabic."

"Yet you sound more like a New Yorker than half of the people I work with."

"What can I say, I'm a big "Friends" fan," he answered without a moment's thought.

So far, the conversation was flowing smoothly. It seemed like the initial overwhelm of his striking good looks had started to wear off.

"What about you?" he asked. "Are you a New Yorker born and raised?"

"Nope, I'm from Boston," I said. "I moved here in two thousand and..."

That's when I realized how pathetic I was. When I moved to New York for my Bachelor's more than twenty years ago, had he even been born yet?

"Hey, what happened?" he asked.

"Nothing, I suddenly felt very old," I replied with unexpected honesty.

"Hey, age is just a number," he said, patting my hand.

It felt nice, I'd missed "touch". Julie had many wonderful qualities but she'd never been very affectionate.

"Yeah, I guess," I said, carefully pulling away my hand. I was now feeling silly about my moment of senseless self-pity.

Amir looked at me as if trying to solve an equation before asking, "Do you like to read?"

I nodded in confirmation but gave him a curious look.

"Do you know what Tapas is?" he asked, carefully.

"Can't say that I do," I replied. Where was this going?

"Can I borrow your phone?"

If this was anyone else but him, the answer would have been a categorical "no".

"Hey, you have the latest iPhone!" he said, looking impressed.

I didn't care much for technology apart from my Xbox but my company upgraded my phone every year.

Amir did his thing lighting fast, like all those of his generation. He pointed out a new icon amongst my otherwise anemic selection of apps.

"I made you an account and added a book to your library that I hope you'll enjoy," he said.

I muttered a quick "thank you", as I looked at my watch.

Fuck! Our time was already up!