“Can’t pick just one,” he said.
Wow!
Maybe he’s overcompensating for last time, but it’s not a bad overcompensation.
“So, what now?” I said. “I hope you didn’t have all your energy for just this one hike!”
I was teasing him, of course. But what I didn’t expect was that the answer to my question would be a very familiar one.
“Well, time for Will’s Wiches, obviously,” he said.
“For real?” I said. “Are you trying to give me déjà vu?”
“On the contrary,” he said with a smirk. “I’m trying to give you new memories of each place. Didn’t think you’d want the old memories.”
That’s actually a pretty good point.
“You’re lucky you’re right,” I said.
And I’m lucky he’s right too.
* * *
We took separate vehicles down to the sandwich shop, though I could easily see that Phoenix was hoping for the alternative. I wasn’t opposed to it, most especially since I knew how good it would feel to ride a motorcycle—but I was not yet getting on the back of his.
For one, riding a motorcycle might as well have been a de facto gateway drug to riding something else. For another, just practically speaking, if I rode on his bike from the park to the sandwich shop, it locked me into spending as much time with him as he wanted. And as great as the early part of the date was, I wasn’t quite willing to give up my flexibility yet.
But if he kept being in good, playful spirits...
Well, I wasn’t a complete prude.
He beat me to Will’s and had already gotten us a table outside. I ordered a ham and cheese sub, while Phoenix got two grilled chicken sandwiches.
“Healthy and voluminous, huh?” I said.
“Hey, you don’t get to be a biker like this without eating so much,” he chuckled. “I’m just trying to make sure all of the gains go to my muscles and not to my gut.”
“Some of the older bikers know how to increase their waistline, that’s for sure,” I joked.
But the younger ones? The ones who lifted weights in their free time, who ate a ton of steak and chicken and meat, the ones who got tattoos and didn’t mind walking around shirtless whenever they got the chance?
Well, let’s just say it was a good thing that as a bartender, it was somewhat natural for me to flirt whenever a customer engaged. Even if such flirtations were temporary and short-lived, they were a nice little outlet.
“So now you’ve made a good impression at the park,” I said as our sandwiches came out. “You’re making a good impression here.”
And now...
“I take it you didn’t plan for the date to end here.”
Phoenix shook his head as he took an enormous bite of the first sandwich, nearly taking a quarter of the entire thing down.
“I actually didn’t plan anything past this,” he said. “Not because I didn’t want the date to end at this point, but because I really had no idea what I was going to do after.”
He took another bite. I sat in silence, curious to hear what was next. I, too, wanted the date to keep going forward, but I didn’t want to suggest something that could have been misconstrued by Phoenix as innuendo.
“But I have an idea,” he said.
“What’s that?”
