Benji looked up. “Where?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
He bolted upright. “Peter Loupier is surprising me?”
“I’m informing you of a scheduled event with an undisclosed location. That’s not a surprise. It’s operational security.”
“That’s a surprise, Peter. You’re surprising me. With a date.” Benji’s grin was possibly the brightest light in the universe. For a brief moment, I worried I might have to look away.
“I’m taking you to a location at a predetermined time for the purpose of a shared experience. If that constitutes a date, then yes.”
“By every objective definition and measure, that constitutes a date. Now, more importantly, what should I wear?”
“Comfortable shoes, something you can walk in.”
Benji waited, blinking his saucer-sized eyes.
I didn’t say more.
“Clothes, Peter. I can’t go wearing only shoes.”
“Oh, right. Wear clothes you don’t mind gettingwet. Oh, and you might want to bring some trunks. For swimming. Swim trunks.”
“Swim trunks?”
“There’s a wet component, possibly a getting-into-water one, too.”
“There’s a wet component to our first date?”
I nodded once. “There’s a component that involves proximity to water. The degree of wetness is variable and impossible to predict with any accuracy.”
“You’re a fucking meteorologist.”
“I’m a detailed date planner.”
Benji’s blinking turned rapid and intense. “I have so many follow-up questions.”
“Save them for tomorrow. Be ready to leave at 9 a.m. We’re on a tight schedule.”
“I’m always ready.”
“You have never, in two and a half months of cohabitation, been ready for anything on time. You have a consistent eleven-minute lag between stated readiness and actual departure. I’ve built the eleven minutes into the plan.”
“You’ve timed my lateness? And incorporated that assumption into your first date calculus?”
“I’ve observed a pattern. The observation is now a planning input.”
“This might be the most romantic thing I’ve everheard. Or the least. The jury’s still deliberating.” He hopped up, darted across the room, and planted a peck on my cheek. “I’m going to be ready at 8:59 tomorrow just to destroy your model.”
I grinned. His saucer-eyes were inches from mine. “I welcome the disruption.”
I went to my room and checked the list one more time. I set my alarm for 7:30, which was unnecessary because I always woke at 6:45, but which I set anyway because tomorrow mattered in a way that I wanted to honor with redundant preparation.
Benji was ready at 9:08, which was three minutes ahead of the predicted lag, and which I chose to interpret as effort.
“I’m early,” he said, appearing in the kitchen in jeans and a green T-shirt (right side out, which I noted) and sneakers that had seen better days but qualified as walkable.
“You’re early relative to your historical average. You’re eight minutes late relative to the stated time.”
