“Sure. I have two tickets to this concert in Fort Greene a week from Thursday, if she wants to go.”
“Cool! I’ll text her.”
“It’s nice to know you think enough of me to set me up with someone in my borough.”
I tossed a purple grape onto his plate. “She seems great. And she’s apparently been going on dates with a lot of jerks. Maybe you can show her there are still good guys out there.”
“But only in Brooklyn.”
“Right.” I missed the easy banter. I wanted to get back to easy.
“Not totally off-topic, but I was also asked out on a date.”
He raised both eyebrows. “Not off-topic, but pretty big news. Who’s the lucky guy? Or girl,” he said quickly.
I laughed. “He works at the restaurant I went to on Saturday.”
Charlie clapped. “I’m proud of you, Sam. All the angst, and then you just made it happen.”
“I didn’t make anything happen. He asked for my number, and I wrote it down.”
He balled up the sandwich paper and shot it in the trash can across from us.
“Buckets.” He looked at his watch. “I have a call in ten minutes. You heading back to our office?”
It was our office again.
“So when’s the big date?” he asked as he held the elevator door for me to step in.
“There’s no date. He asked if I wanted to grab a drink sometime, but I haven’t responded.”
Charlie looked at me sideways.
I laughed. “What?”
“So you gave him your number, but you’re just gonna ghost?”
“I don’t know. He seemed nice. All the girls thought he was ‘super cute.’ I don’t know ... I guess he read the specials eloquently enough?”
“Ouch.”
I shrugged. “I’ll text back today.”
We sat in our office working with earbuds on the rest of the day. It was pouring rain, and the clouds were so low you couldn’t see out the window.
“Looks like we both have dates Thursday,” I announced a few hours later.
“What’s that?” he asked, taking out an earbud.
“The waiter. He asked if I was free next Thursday, and I said yes.”
“Ah. Nice!” he said as he put the earbud back in.
I sat there and stared at my phone. I couldn’t tell if Charlie was on a deadline or just over talking about dates. I texted Caroline, who I could count on being more excited than I was that the date was actually happening.
She called my cell less than a minute after.
“Babe!This is huge. Do you want me to come over and help you pick out an outfit? Maybe help you do your eyes a little bit more than you usually do?”
