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“Meaning what?”
“We’ll say I stopped to help when I saw you on the side of the road. Except in our fake story, we’ll say you happily accepted my help instead of telling me to get lost.”
“Sorry about that. I just really wanted to be alone. It’d been a long day.”
“You never told me about that day. What exactly happened?”
“I’ll tell you some other time. So what else do we tell these people? Is Saturday going to be our first date?”
“No, let’s tell them today was. We’ll say I invited you over for dinner and that we hung out the next night too.”
“Meaning tonight.”
“Yeah.”
“Are we?”
“Are we what?”
“Hanging out tonight?” He gets the slightest hint of a smile.
“Of course we are,” I say, playing along. “We had a good date last night. So good that you asked me out again for tonight, but this time I’m going to your place.”
“You are, huh?” His smile grows. “Am I supposed to make dinner?”
“That’s up to you. I planned last night’s date. You plan tonight’s.”
“I can’t cook. Is there any place that does take-out?”
“Tony T’s Barbecue, but Tony’s wife works the register and she’s really nosy. If you go in there, she’ll ask you tons of questions. I’ll just go there myself and bring the food to your place. Sound good?”
“Yeah. Let me give you some money.” He takes out his wallet and hands me a hundred dollar bill. “It’s all I’ve got. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll just bring back the change.”
Who carries around hundred dollar bills? The one he gave me wasn’t the only one he had. I saw several in his wallet.
He gets up from the table. “So what time will you be over?”
“Around six. I need to go home first and change. I’ll text you when I’m heading over.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Oh, that’s right. Then I’ll call Miller’s number. His phone is still working, right?”
“Yeah.” He chuckles. “It’s bright yellow with a ten foot cord and these massive buttons with huge numbers.”
“His eyesight isn’t so great. My grandma used to have a phone like that too.” I get up and take our mugs to the counter. “So I’ll call you on the phone with the giant numbers around six. Does that work?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you then.” He turns to leave.
“Wait, before you go, could you help me close the windows? I have trouble getting them closed enough for the lock to turn.”
“Sure.” He walks into the living room and begins closing the front windows.
“It smells so much better in here,” I say, as I try to close the side window. It closes, but not all the way. “Thanks for staying last night. It really helped having the windows open.”
“I think they could use another night of being open. I can still smell that couch.”
