The restaurant is more crowded than I expected for a weeknight, bubbling with bodies like a pot of mortal soup at a rolling boil. Small groups of teens and twenty-somethings hem us in on both sides, like Kattar and I are the extraneous tide in a little pool surrounded by flesh and bones as numerous as the grains of sand. Everything is sound, ricocheting into my skin like a thousand pint-sized kamikazes exploding in minute amounts of tranquil panic. 

Someone. Joking and debating - too little too late - why they should have gone out for Chinese or Mexican instead. Someone laughing at a companion’s failed dye job that made them look like a ginger-haired skunk. Complaining about totally aggravating partners and how totally ‘starving’ they are though they’re less than twenty minutes away from dinner at this point.

At least three sets of parents with pre and grade-schoolers are ordering an early dinner while trying to convince their irascible offspring, rancorously crying for McDonald’s, to try something new. One set actually brought a Happy Meal with them for their toddler, and that’s as ridiculous as it is very probably illegal, though nobody but me really seems to mind.

Kattar is fidgeting uncomfortably, unnecessarily intent on his menu, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with the cantankerous kids, who at this point, are throwing themselves on the floor.

I’m also sure he’ll never tell me why, even if I ask, so I try my best to ignore it like I ignore the tantrum.

“I met my new agent today,” I say slowly, in an attempt to break the silence. He looks up abstractedly, and I can almost feel his interest fragmenting like a thousand slivers of broken glass. I only get one, and the apathy stabs me like one of Cupid’s arrows. 

Something about her smile becomes venomous.

This arrow, it would seem, is tipped with amorous liquid wrath, bubbling up subtly in the warmth of my skin. I feel it before I perceive it.

“Her name’s Emelia Howard,” I say pettishly, surprising myself with the exasperation I let ooze through my tone. “She seems really…”

I try to think of something nice to say, fumbling about in the distant seeming memory like I groped through the darkness of Kattar’s immaculate bedroom.

“She’s very pretty.”

Kattar nods, but he’s not looking at me, glancing sideways at two giggling teenagers as they pass by whispering to each other behind their hands. 

His expression is a mixture of nerves and irritation, a cloudy cocktail casting a shadow over his white face. When he looks back at me, his eyes are two lines, like he’s squinting against the sun.

“She’s what now?”

“Pretty,” I say flatly, and it sounds like snapping, but my beauty doesn’t seem to notice in the least, “Like a dress-up doll.”

There’s only a second’s pause but that’s too long a silence before he seems to hear me and reply with a slight laugh.

“She must be really tiny if she looks like a doll to you.”

His lip is lightly trembling.

I see it but I don’t.

“No, I didn’t mean…” the words are like a groan. But his eyes are on another set of strangers.

“It’s just going to take me some adjusting,” I say into the ether, pushing against the fire, bleeding me a shade of strawberry sangria up to my temples. “There are just too many changes happening all at one time, I guess. Between working with The Foundation in the first place, and now switching to a new agent. I’m not sure I've adjusted to the first turn of events before I’m decked by another curveball. Now Andrew and his business partner are planning some renovations so they can sell our mom’s house and-”

“Selling your mom’s house…?” Kattar says, suddenly attentive. But that’s not a conversation I want to go into, and the minute he locks eyes on me he can see that, at least. 

“Andrew and his business partner are going to be coming to the area for work, so now there's the lunch with them. Not that I don’t want to go, I mean, of course, I want to finally get to see him again, but there’s so much…”

Almost forgot. To breathe.

“-And now my landlord is planning to sell the apartment...”

That gets him. Like he’s received an electric shock, there’s a micro-flinch as his eyes rivet to mine with something like indignation and worry.

“You’re being kicked out?”

“Not necessarily,” I say a little louder than need be, like pushing the words into reality could help me wrap my head around it all - is the same thing as making a decision.

Don’t I wish Fate could just make the decision for me. 

Or has it already?

“Mr. Houghe gave me the option to buy my apartment if I didn’t want to move out, but I'm still torn. Honestly, I don’t really want to go anywhere. I like my apartment, and it would be…too much at the moment, to have another big change.”

“How much time do you have to decide?” 

Even as he asks his eyes are following a baseball-capped tween whose attention seems to be glued to Kattar, despite a lousy attempt to look like he’s ‘not staring.’

“Six months,” I sigh, feeling my annoyance fizz over like a ravenous volcano - foaming at the mouth

Let it go. 

I feel acutely serpentine, trying to keep this hiss out of my voice as I quietly seeth.

“I have six months to make a decision, but between preparing for that event I’ll be doing with your mom’s magazine and how packed my schedule daily is going to be when I start working with Ms. Howard, I’ll barely have a minute to breathe, let alone think.”

“That’s better than some alternatives…” he mumbles, and that strikes me dumb, like a hard disc error. I stare at him stupefied like I’m frozen in time.

“What day are we meeting with your brother for lunch?” he asks, somehow still oblivious to or completely ignoring my expression as he squishes some stray water droplets into the glossy tablecloth.

It takes me a minute before I can force myself to respond instead of biting his head off.

“They’re thinking Wednesday. If you’re free.”

“I’m always free.” He says flatly.

Splish. With one thin finger.

I think about apologizing but I don’t. Don’t want to. 

And I know he wouldn’t appreciate it if I did.

His eye is wandering over all four corners of this little LED-lit world, and for the umpteenth time, I shock myself as my mouth says faster than my brain-

“For heaven’s sake, what on earth are you looking at?”

He glances to the side like he’s pointing at the next table over with his daggers for eyes. “I think the other patrons are staring at me.”

I scoff and he looks quickly in my direction.

So now he pays attention.

I blow a gasket.

“Oh, big surprise. They’re staring. Did the prince just forget how hot he was for a second? I’m sure it’s such a pain. Too bad you left your paper bag mask at home next to the fan mail, and I’m not in the mood to fetch it for you right now. So if you could just try to think about something other than yourself for 0.2 seconds, we’re supposed to be on a date right now. Do you think you can do that for me? Do you think?”

Ho-

He stares at me dumbfounded - dazed. I read that identical expression in his eyes, more shocked and bewildered than it can be angry or even upset-

I see the night before his mother’s party - him weeping over the table and I want to take it back, cover my mouth, start to apologize, as my words finally seem to register with him and he turns from that colorless mask to a burgundy flush…

“I’m sorry…I don’t know why I just went crazy…”

I think it, but I don’t say it. 

My mind and my heart tug-of-war between apologetic and angry, but angry is winning today - for some reason-

Maybe I’m just overwhelmed-

Alicia…

Don’t be that girl…

No excuses.

But I’ll say sorry when I mean it.

And that time is not now.

Kattar’s face ebbs a dozen shades of red and tinted white, eyes perplexingly light, lips parted, a dizzy mix of flabbergasted and flustered-

I realize he’s…blushing.

It takes him two attempts to even be able to speak, the first sound out of his mouth more like a nervous half-laugh than anything intelligible, as he tries to gather his thoughts, staring into the fabric of a tartan-print cloth napkin.

“I’m…sorry.”

And those words surprise me more than if he’d decided to throw a fit in the middle of the restaurant and go home.

“I hadn’t even realized I was upsetting you…” he smiles awkwardly, still not meeting my gaze as he pushes a stray strand of hair back into place behind one ruby-tinted ear.

“W…yeah,” I stammer disconcertedly, “I mean, we are on a date. I’d like a little attention from my…”

My what?

“My bad,” he smiles a little embarrassedly, meeting my gaze now with a rosier glow than I think I’ve ever seen on him, “I…just…”

“It’s my first time being out in public since the accident.”

Ohhhh.

Snap.

I’m such a jerk.

How did I not realize…?

I want to say something, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, as he just beams at me glancing up from beneath the dark lashes with a slight, bashful smile.

“It’s my fault,” and he means it,  “I’m all yours.”

Now it’s my turn to flush scarlet, from my cheeks to my hair.

Don’t phrase it like that.

He’s teasing me.

But there’s something about the shy light in his eyes that is so much sweeter and more honest than the roguish, devil-may-care confidence, that I almost lose my sensibilities.

He’s not teasing me. And that’s…

“Never mind, go back to being distracted.”

He smirks, raising one eyebrow as the waiter comes over with our plates.

“I am.” He mouths, and I nearly choke on my water.

“You can only pick one,” he laughs brightly as I glare at him, desperately trying not to start coughing all over my dinner. “You now have my full undivided attention.”

“Uh-huh,” I nod slowly, as patronizingly as I can manage, trying to take my eyes off his face and focus on the pastel red plate in front of me. Tandoori chicken has never been as uninteresting in its whole existence as it is at this moment, but I stare into it like it has the face of a supermodel, just to avoid the one smiling at me.

“Well…I was just saying I have to figure out what I’m going to do about the apartment situation, or finding a new apartment, but I have no idea when I’m going to be able to make time to go house hunting...”

“Mhm,” he nods, making full eye contact with me as he takes a sip of water.

“Okay, stop it. That's creepy.”

Now it’s his turn to laugh and cough at the same time, only he actually does choke, and has to cover his mouth with a napkin to keep from spewing lemon water across the table.

“For heaven’s sake! Don’t go and kill yourself!”

Despite his impending doom he keeps laughing even as he tries to regain his breath, practically glowing with laughter up to his dark eyes, twinkling like arching black stars.

“Are you allergic to behaving like a normal human being?”

“Our lives would be too boring if I did.”