Chapter Twelve
Rowan
We were going on a big date. I supposed we technically had gone on one before, but I hadn’t been super clear on whether it was a date or if it was two men getting to know each other, or what.
This was different. We’d talked quite a bit and spent some time together.
I understood that this was, in fact, a date, and it was going to be a nice, almost-fancy one.
Summit had told me that he had reservations and to wear business casual.
I appreciated knowing exactly what to put on.
It made getting ready so much easier, even if I didn’t know what restaurant we were going to.
If I had asked him ahead of time, he would have told me.
Sammy always wanted to know because he liked to pick out his meal before he got there, but, for me, Summit had made the right call.
I was liking the surprise element of it a lot.
I searched up different restaurants in the city—ones that were close to his work, close to his house, close to mine—to see if I could guess.
I had no clues to go by, other than it had to be some place that wasn’t jacket-only.
If I was going to overthink, playing the game of is it this one or is it that one was a good way to do it.
Summit arrived just on time, and when I opened the door, he had flowers for me. I’d never dated a guy who gave flowers before. A lot of men didn’t think that was very masculine behavior. Those men were missing out.
One night when we were chatting on the phone before bed, I told him about a show I was watching and how the guy brought different flowers every time he and his boyfriend went on a date, trying to figure out which was his favorite.
As part of that conversation, we asked each other our favorite flowers.
His were hydrangeas and mine were lilacs.
I love the smell of them, even if they were only out for a short window of time.
Somehow, he managed to find them and bring them to me.
It wasn’t a typical bouquet. It was so much better because he had not only remembered what I had said, but he took a whole bunch of extra steps to make sure he could give them to me.
“I love them.” I brought them inside, digging through the back of my cabinet for a vase my mom insisted I’d need in my grown-up life and thought I’d never use.
Now, it was being put to the best use ever.
I filled it with water and stuck the branches in, happy that with each breath I took, the fragrance brought me back to a happy time in my childhood when we had a huge bush in the side yard.
“Thank you,” I said again, and he beamed as I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him close. I hadn’t planned it, hadn’t even thought about it as I was doing it, but I was glad to be in his arms for those brief moments.
“While I’d love to stay here for the next five hours”—he gave me one last squeeze before stepping back—“we have reservations.”
He led me out to his car and opened the door for me, very gentlemanly. “What do you think? Do you have a guess where we’re going?” He knew I was trying to figure it out without me telling him.
“I have my suspicions.” If 23,000 restaurants were suspicions.
He shut the door and walked around the car to take the driver’s seat. “Ready?”
“Yes, but I’m half thinking maybe I should close my eyes so I don’t know until we get there.”
“You don’t have to do that.” He opened the glove box, pulled out a small gift bag, and handed it to me. Inside was a sleeping mask with a set of cat’s eyes and a nose on it. It was super cute, and I put it on, loving this game already.
The thing with time was that it was weird when you lost one of your senses. I thought we drove and drove and drove, but when he stopped and had me take the mask off, only a few minutes had passed. I recognized the restaurant as one a couple of miles away from my place.
It had been on TV and in the news. Usually you didn’t want a restaurant that had been on the nightly broadcast. It was usually about safety violations or customers gone violent or possibly a theft.
But in this case, the owner, a local, had won a food challenge, making it nearly impossible to get reservations ever since.
And, based on the number of people I saw walking in and then right back out, it still was.
“How did you get a spot so close?”
“Reserved it,” he said. He unclicked my seat belt and then his own and climbed out, reaching my side before I opened the door.
Beside the car was a sign that read: Reserved for VIP Guests Only.
“You booked a VIP room?”
“It sounds snotty, but they have a little private dining room. I thought it would be nice because we could talk and not have to worry about anyone else.” He took my hand, and we walked inside.
Sure enough, they were turning people away, the host saying the tables were booked, but they could go online and put their name in for a reservation on a future date.
“Do I even want to know how you got this?” I asked.
“Probably not.” We waited for the host, who took us back to a small room filled with books. It was like eating in a library. Fabulous.
“No, seriously, how did you get this?” I asked.
“Let’s just say I called in a favor. A work favor.”
I took that to mean it was a confidential client who helped him.
He wasn’t able to talk to me about a lot when it came to his work because of lawyer-client privilege and all that, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have a lot to say about work.
We discussed the people he worked with, technology gone wrong, and weird phone calls they’d get about cases they weren’t even involved in, but some news leak was sure they had.
I’d never eaten in a private room before.
Never had one server just for me, had food that wasn’t on the menu, and all that came with this experience.
But we could’ve been sitting in a diner like our first date, or on a park bench eating hot dogs, and it would have been just as special.
This was the first time we were together where I knew where he stood, and I was pretty sure I’d made it clear where I did, and that changed things.
It made it more comfortable. There was less worrying about what to say, what to do, or if I was interpreting things correctly.
I left the restaurant feeling like I learned a lot about this man, and I liked all of it. When he dropped me off, walking me to the door, I surprised myself by asking him if he wanted to come in. To my delight, he said yes.