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ASTRID: Maybe.
CAL: Loved hockey more.
ASTRID: I think we need to rip the Band-Aid off.
CAL: ?
ASTRID: Dinner tomorrow as friends—and not the kind with benefits. Everyone keeps their clothes on and their hands to themselves. We just need to utilize the science of muscle memory to retrain ourselves into understanding that seeing each other doesn’t mean getting naked.
CAL: So no one has to do the walk of shame nearly naked down the stairs?
ASTRID: Oh God. You saw that? I am going to build that Men In Black eye zapper thing to make you forget about that.
CAL: Not gonna happen.
ASTRID: Dinner. We prove we can be in each other’s company without ending up naked, and then I can stop hiding in random supply closets at the arena.
CAL: I wasn’t even at the arena today.
ASTRID: I know. I saw a reporter.
CAL: The first game of the season is next week. Reporters are kind of a constant right now.
ASTRID: Not this one. She’s on the clickbait beat, and I really do not want to get on her radar again.
CAL: Again? Bad?
ASTRID: Only if you don’t want one of the most heartbreaking and humiliating experiences of your life splashed all over the news for the whole world to read. For months. Going through that again is my biggest nightmare. Not to mention how it would really mess up my dad’s last year before retirement.
CAL: His what?
ASTRID: Fuck!
CAL: I take it I’m not supposed to know.
ASTRID: No one is supposed to know. Please don’t tell anyone. I can’t add a bunch of drama for my dad. Again.
CAL: I won’t tell anyone. Just like I won’t tell anyone about that cute birthmark on your ass.
ASTRID: You are such a jerk.
CAL: And yet you still asked me out on a date—for the protection of your panties, of course.
ASTRID: It’s not a date.
CAL: And the point of the not-date is to make sure we can be in the same room together without any kissing?
ASTRID: Or getting naked—or naked enough.
CAL: Just food and fully clothed conversation.
ASTRID: Exactly. Unless you think you can’t do it?
CAL: Are you daring me?
ASTRID: Just appealing to your competitive nature.
CAL: Like you’re not the same way.
