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“It did.”

She turns her glass a quarter turn on the cloth, which is a thing I’ve watched her do with a pen on a chart about forty times, and it turns out to mean something entirely different across a table.

“You are staring again.”

“I’m admiring the work.”

“The steak.”

“Sure.”

Halfway through dinner she reaches over and takes a piece of my ribeye.

“You didn’t ask.”

“I asked you to marry me.”

“Eventually.”

She points the fork at me. “You proposed first.”

“And got rejected. We’re discussing your successful attempt.”

She’s trying not to smile and losing it at the edges, so I move the plate closer, and she takes another piece and doesn’t thank me for it.

Then she turns her wrist over and looks at the time.

It’s not a long look. It’s the look a person gives a watch when they’re somewhere they would rather not be for very much longer.

Her glass is still most of the way full.

I put the thought away. It’s our first date, she married me yesterday, and I’m not going to spend the evening auditing her face.

“Ask me something,” she says.

“About what?”

“Anything. You have been collecting questions since November and asking me about shoulder range instead.”

I put my fork down. “Why’d you keep the truck?”

“Because it starts.”

“That’s not an answer, that’s a product review.”

“It is both.” She drinks some wine. “Next.”

“Worst job you ever had.”

“Modeling.”

“Worse than the guy sending his steak back twice?”

“A great deal worse. Next.”

“Something you’re bad at.”

Astrid considers that longer than she has considered anything else at this table.