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"You have that extracurricular light in your eyes. I don't have time for whatever fun looks like in your tax bracket."

“That’s exactly why we’re going,” he says, pushing away from the counter and stepping into my space. “Your brain is redlining, Serena. You’ve watched the same eight seconds of that tape enough times to memorize individual pixels, and now you’ve spent two hours measuring a teaching cast that you already admitted has nothing left to tell you. We’re taking the night off. Real food, fresh air, and absolutely no trying to identify mysterious men from twenty-year-old camcorder footage.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to any of those things.”

“You didn’t. I anticipated resistance and planned accordingly.”

Of course he did.

I narrow my eyes. “Planned what, exactly?”

“A date.”

I keep my expression neutral. “That does not tell me the activity.”

“No, but this particular date does include one.” His mouth curves in a way that immediately makes me suspicious. “There’s a community sip and paint at the old rec hall tonight.”

I stare at him. “A what?”

“Wine. Paint. A room full of people discovering they have dramatically overestimated their artistic ability.”

“You want me to paint.” I stare at him.

“I want you to consume alcohol while attempting to paint next to me,” Baryn says. “I’m told they give us all the same picture, several tiny cups of paint, and just enough instruction to make us wildly overconfident in our abilities. Then we drink until everyone’s interpretation of a sunset becomes increasingly abstract and somebody decides the instructor is suppressing their artistic vision.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It sounds fantastic. Neither of us has to be good at anything. Nobody’s dead. Nothing we produce will be admissible in court. You can make the ugliest fucking tree in Maine and there will be absolutely no consequences.”

“I don’t like being bad at things.”

His grin widens. “I know. That’s at least forty percent of why I want to take you.”

“I have never once expressed an interest in recreational acrylics.” I study his face, searching for some indication that this is a joke.

There isn’t one.

Which is when I realize he said date.

There are currently four people in the room.

Before I can determine whether Baryn has fundamentally misunderstood the accepted numerical parameters of dating, Tamsin straightens behind him. “Absolutely not.”

Baryn turns. “I wasn’t⁠—”

“A community sip and paint?” Tamsin asks, already offended. “Baryn, I have a reputation. If a single photograph of me holding a palette and a glass of Chardonnay that came from a box appears online, I will deny it under oath.”

Simon looks up from his laptop with considerably more alarm. “Wait. We’re going too?”

“No,” Baryn says.

“Because I’d actually rather barf and die," Simon replies.

“I didn’t invite you.”

“I was cleaning the audio from the footage.” Simon gestures toward his computer like Baryn has personally threatened to throw it into a river. “I don’t have three hours to paint a rustic wagon wheel with a bunch of retirees named Linda.”

Tamsin frowns. “Why are you assuming retirees?”