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Hannah rolled her eyes at him. “You worked so hard to get me to agree to this date! Can you not prophesy doom for ten whole minutes? That’s my job.”
“I don’t think you can call dibs on anxiety, Nan,” he said, but he squeezed her hands.
She pinned him with her best “I see through you, Blue” face, which was pretty great, considering how many decades she’d spent perfecting it. “You wanted a date, let’s have a date. What do people talk about on dates?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been on one.” He looked uncomfortable. “Of the two of us, you would know.”
“You’ve never been on a date?!” She dropped his hands in shock.
“I’ve been in love with the same person since I was fifteen, and as we’ve covered, this is our first date.” He looked confused that she’d even asked. “Demisexual?”
“That makes sense.” She nodded.
“Sooooo, what do people do on dates?” he prompted.
“Ask each other about their jobs, hobbies, families, books they’ve read lately, podcasts they listen to. Everything we know about each other already, I guess.”
“I have no idea what books you’ve been reading lately. Let’s do it. Let’s pretend we’ve never met.” He schooled his features into what she assumed he thought of as a “normal guy on a date” face, though it mostly looked constipated.
“Tell me about your work,” he said in his douchiest voice.
“Well,” she said, going along with it. “I’m the events and customer experience manager at a small Christmas-themed farm, event location, and inn that I inherited from my aunt. I run it with my cousin and my best friend.”
“Oh, that sounds interesting, and busy. Do you enjoy it?” He leaned toward her, and her body ached to mirror the gesture.
“It’s the only thing I’ve dreamed of doing all my life,” she answered. True, if not the whole truth.
“That’s not really an answer to whether or not you enjoy it,” he pointed out.
She could say that she’d always thought she would be traveling the world with her husband on her vacations from work, not trapped in a self-imposed princess tower where her home was her work and her vacations, but they were supposed to be dating and not fighting.
Collin set down their plates. “You need a meat loaf plate,” he told Levi.
“Oh man,” Levi said, his eyes inhaling the plate of homemade mashed potatoes and roasted brussels sprouts, “you’re so right. Oh, but wait, can I get a container of egg salad to go? I’ve been told it’s better than mine.”
“Best in the state, I’d say.” Collin set down a burger in front of Hannah. “I’m trying this recipe out. It’s a lamb gyro burger. You gotta let me know what I can improve.”
“You’re really going to eat tzatziki, huh? A whole new Hannah. One who likes surprisesandcucumber.”
Hannah cut her burger into neat quarters so she could pick it up without making a mess. “Do you remember telling me once that my problem is I’m mad that I don’t get to write the script for life?”
Levi nodded. “Yeah, it was a mean thing to say. I’m sorry.”
She waved him off. “Maybe there’s a time and place for us to unpack every cruel thing either of us said to each other back then, but it’s definitely not here and now. I bring it up because I’ve been working with my therapist, trying to process our breakup instead of staying stuck circling it forever, and one of the things she’s having me do is inventory whether I’m mad about things you said because they were too true, or because they seemed so totally wrong.”
He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Okaaay.”
She picked up one of her burger quarters and gestured with it. “So, in the case of the script comment, you were right. I was always trying to write a script so I wouldn’t be so anxious about everything; then I would get more anxious when people didn’t follow it. But once I started letting my life just happen every once in a while, I realized I don’t actuallylikebeing in charge of every detail all the time, and I kind of enjoy surprises.”
“Holy shit,” he said, blinking owlishly.
“Too serious! What do you do?” she asked, back to their fake “first date” conversation.
He raised an eyebrow, like he noticed that she’d never answered his question about liking her job but didn’t call her out on it.
“I’m a chef. I spent several years traveling the world via various cruise ship and yacht jobs and learning in kitchens wherever I ended up. Recently, I was on a reality show in Australia.”
“Did you win?” she asked. The finale wouldn’t air for a couple of months, and she was dying to know.
