A small smile played at his lips as his gaze lingered on my face, and for a moment, the rest of the restaurant faded—the other diners, the clatter of dishes, even my anxiety about my car. There was just Luke, looking at me like I was the only other person in the room.
Then someone a few tables over laughed loudly, and the spell broke. The room came back into focus—the smell of garlic and tomatoes, the soft opera music drifting from hidden speakers, the warmth of the wine spreading through my chest.
I knew the moment should feel awkward. That I should look away. Should make a joke to break this weird, weighted tension between us.
But I didn’t want to.
Because sitting here with this quiet, thoughtful man who got flustered over compliments and let himself be mothered by a woman who wasn’t even related to him felt easy in a way nothing had in months. Maybe longer.
I found myself leaning in just as Rosa returned with two enormous plates of lasagna, each portion big enough to easily feed three people.
She set them down with a satisfied nod. “Eat,” she commanded, then disappeared again.
I picked up my fork and cut into the lasagna. The first bite was a transcendent layer of noodle, meat sauce, bechamel, and—this was the real kicker—broccoli raab, all perfectly balanced into one perfect combination.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled around a mouthful. “This is incredible.”
Luke looked pleased. “Told you.”
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and I felt myself relaxing further. There was something about the truly excellent food and the warm atmosphere that made everything feel a little bit more manageable.
“Can I ask you something?” Luke said after a while.
“Sure.”
“What made you want to be a florist?”
I picked up my glass, using the moment to think. Across the table, Luke had placed his elbows on either side of his plate, his fingers laced together, as he watched me with that steady attention that should have made me self-conscious but somehow didn’t.
“My mom, mostly. She loved flowers—always had fresh ones in the house, even in winter. And I loved watching her arrange them, how she’d pair colors and textures in ways that shouldn’t have worked but did.”
I took a sip of my wine, further gathering my thoughts. “It was like art, but temporary. Every arrangement was perfect for a moment, and then it died, and while that should have been depressing, I actually found that really profound and beautiful.”
Luke unlaced his fingers and reached for his own wine glass, but his eyes never left my face. “Impermanence as part of the beauty,” he said, then took a drink.
“Exactly.” I set my glass down and traced a finger along the rim. “And I liked that flowers are part of special moments in a person’s life, you know? Weddings, funerals, birthdays, apologies. They’re a way humans mark important things.”
My finger stilled on the glass. “Though I’m taking a break from weddings for a while.”
Luke leaned back against the booth, his expression sympathetic. “Understandable.”
I straightened, pushing my shoulders back. “What about you?” I asked, needing to move past the wedding talk. “What made you want to build apps?”
Luke swirled his glass, staring down into the ruby liquid for a long moment before his gaze lifted to meet mine again. “Honestly? I didn’t. Not at first, anyway. I was a computer science guy working in robotics. The dating app was kind of a fluke. This guy I knew was struggling with his own app, and I made some off-hand remark about how it shouldn’t be that hard. He said if I thought I could do better, I should put my money where my mouth was. So I did. Built it in a month, mostly as a fuck you.”
I laughed. “Spite is a powerful motivator.”
“It is. And then it worked.Reallyworked. People started using it, and they were actually finding matches, and it snowballed from there.” His fingers tightened around his wine glass, his knuckles going slightly white before he deliberately relaxed his grip. “I never meant for it to get as big as it did.” He set the glass back down on the table.
“Do you regret it?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard. “No,” he said carefully. “I only regret what it turned me into. Or what people assumed I was because of it.” He looked down at his plate, then back at me, like he was weighing how honest to be. “Everyone thought I must know everything about relationships. I didn’t, ofcourse. I know math and patterns. But the actual human part—the messy, complicated, irrational part—that still terrifies me.”
“You’re doing better than you think.” I reached across the table and touched his hand briefly.
The contact lasted maybe two seconds—my fingertips against his knuckles—but the effect was immediate.
Luke’s eyes snapped to mine, wide and startled, his pupils dilating as his chest rose and fell faster. His throat worked as he swallowed, and color flooded his cheeks, spreading down his neck.
