Chapter Twenty-Five
There are obvious connotations around the third date, of which I’m painfully, academically, feminist-theory-level aware, and which I know I absolutely should ignore.
I will not ignore them though. Not tonight.
I know, I know. It’s the patriarchy. It’s centuries of social conditioning wrapped up in a neat little three dates equals sex bow. It’s outdated, reductive, and honestly a bit embarrassing.
And yes, fuck the patriarchy. Burn it down. Salt the earth.
However, and inconveniently, this is Theo, and I actively want to sleep with him.
Which is not the same thing as being pressured into it, I would like to state for the record.
This is not me succumbing to societal expectations.
This is me, a fully modern and self-aware woman making a fully informed and entirely autonomous decision .
. . that just happens to align perfectly with a deeply ingrained cultural trope.
It’s annoying, but what can you do?
If anything, I resent that the patriarchy got here first. I would have preferred to arrive at this conclusion independently, like a pioneer of my own bad decisions. Instead, I feel like I’m following a very well-worn path, except I’m doing it in excellent shoes and with better social commentary.
Theo has no idea, of course, although the fact that I’m wearing the same black dress he apparently loves will give him a pretty good hint, as will the knowledge that this is a natural expansion to our second date, which had been a dream.
It wasn’t at a bakery, that second date, but at a tiny cinema that smelled faintly of dust and buttered popcorn.
Theo bought tickets for a classic cinema double feature — The Ghost and Mrs Muir and Blithe Spirit — and we sat too close together in seats that were definitely not designed for modern human comfort, sharing popcorn that was lukewarm at best. His arm brushed mine at least twelve times (yes, I counted, don’t judge me for it) and each time felt less accidental than the last.
By the end of the first film, I’d stopped pretending I didn’t notice. By the end of the second film, I’d stopped pretending I didn’t want it.
We walked out into the night, talking about ghosts like they were real, and somehow that conversation softened into something quieter. The kind that makes the rest of the world fade into background noise.
He told me about his career. About how he’d become estranged from his father after walking away from the family business to study mathematics, and how he’d fallen into statistics almost by accident.
“How did your father feel about that?” I asked.
“There are lots of things my father and I strongly disagree about. Statistics was just one of them.”
“What happened?”
Theo shrugged. “I asked my father to reconsider his position. I pointed out that there was a twenty-seven per cent chance of estrangement in all families, and that only thirteen per cent of those estrangements ever end in reconciliation. I asked him which outcome he wanted for us.” He grimaced.
“Bringing up statistics at that point didn’t exactly help my case. ”
I made a soft noise of sympathy, then told him about my own family, about how I’d always felt out of place, how I’d opened my shop hoping it might make me feel more like I belonged.
“Did it help?” Theo asked.
I shook my head. “No. But I’m good at it.
And I’ve found a kind of . . . place in the world, I suppose.
Even if it’s not the one I thought it would be.
Wait. I have one of my cards here . . .” I quickly rummage in my bag, pulling one out.
I scribble a few words on the back before handing it to him, and Theo laughs, before tucking it into his pocket.
And then we kissed. Not a quick, polite, “goodnight, lovely to see you” kind of kiss either.
No. We kissed like we had nowhere else to be.
Like time had politely stepped aside to let us get on with it.
Like we were making up for something neither of us could quite name.
Minutes blurred. Or maybe it was hours. Honestly, I have no idea, and quite frankly, I couldn’t have cared less.
When we finally pulled apart, I was slightly breathless, my heart beating fast within my chest. Theo had smiled at me. His grin soft, almost a little crooked, like he knew exactly what he’d just done to me.
“Our third date will be even better,” he promised, which was, frankly, an outrageous claim to make after that kiss.
“How can you be so certain that there even will be a third date?” I asked, in a voice I hoped sounded flirtatiously indignant, but Theo, as it turned out, was a man who came prepared with data.
“Well, because statistically,” he began easily, like this was a normal follow-up to kissing someone senseless, “second dates have a fifty-seven per cent chance of turning into third ones. The odds are on my side.”
I’d simply stared at him. “Did you just cite a study to me?”
“Yes.”
“On dating?”
“On outcomes,” he corrected me seriously.
“Okay. Well, what percentage chance is there that a third date will . . . escalate after a second one?”
“Sixty-four,” Theo had instantly replied, without a hint of irony, and I had to laugh as I kissed him on the cheek and then walked into my flat.
Now, here we are, with our third date about to begin and a sixty-four per cent chance of escalation on our shoulders, which, if anything, feels low given my dress and the current circumstances.
I take Theo to a restaurant I found via my sister, who gave it a review so glowingly vague I just had to try it, and it’s the kind of place that insists it’s not romantic — which, of course, makes it absolutely insufferably so.
The lighting is so low it feels like the room is trying to keep a secret.
The chairs don’t match, as if they all showed up from different IKEA sponsored break-ups.
Candles drip like they’re racing each other to the table linen.
Our waiter breezily explains that the menu changes constantly, according to the lunar cycle, which sounds charming until you’re actually looking at it and realize you understand maybe three words — and they’re all prepositions.
Allegedly it’s written in English, but every dish is described like it’s auditioning for a Shakespeare revival.
I order something called a deconstructed meadow with emotional undertones and pray that it’s a salad.
Theo loves it.
“This is brilliant,” he says, before he picks up the menu and scans it like he’s decoding something ancient. “Did you know your deconstructed meadow comes with a serving of seasonal ambiguity? A bold choice.”
“Well, what did you order?”
“The braised bovine in a slow-collapse of root vegetables, suspended in a nostalgia-infused reduction of time, fire, and quiet longing,” Theo replies.
“You have no idea what any of that means.”
“Who cares?” he replies with a grin. “It’s fun to say. This place is great,” He looks at me fondly. “Bonkers though. Why’d you choose it?”
I shrug. “I felt like we needed a place worthy of third-date escalation.”
I give him a knowing smile, one he returns, before we’re interrupted by the arrival of our food.
It looks like art and is annoyingly good and our date only gets better from there.
We talk the entire time, and not in that strained, first-date way either.
Instead, it’s easy, like we’ve known each other for far longer than we actually have.
He tells me things that feel oddly specific — little preferences, half-formed opinions — like he’s remembering himself out loud.
I tell him things I don’t usually tell people this quickly, and don’t entirely understand why I trust him so soon.
I’ve never felt like this before, not with anyone, and at that thought I feel a flicker of fear; a real moment of doubt.
I consider pulling away, but then Theo . . .
Well, Theo reaches across the table for my hand, and just like that, the moment passes, and all doubt is gone.
His hand on mine feels so incredibly right, and I can’t help but lean into it a little, allowing my fingers to sink into his.
His thumb traces small, absent circles against my skin while we talk, and it’s incredibly distracting.
I lose my train of thought twice and blame it on the wine, but in truth it's him.
Him, and his warmth and humour and those blue eyes I lose myself in all too easily.
There’s a moment — somewhere between dessert and me pretending I’m too full for dessert and then eating half of his — where the conversation dips, just slightly.
It’s not awkward but simply quiet, and Theo looks at me with eyes that are almost molten.
One of his hands travels up my arm to the strap of my dress, and he tucks his thumb under the fabric lightly, giving a small pull I feel all the way to my core.
“You wore this dress last time,” he says, his voice low. It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
“I like it.” There’s something threaded into his voice now. Something hotter than before.
I hold his gaze. “I know.”
He stares at me and I lean back, licking my lips.
“What do you like about it?” I ask, feeling brave.
He sits back, but his hand never leaves mine, and he pulls on the strap of my dress one more time. “That depends — do you want the truth or a respectable half-truth?”
“The truth, obviously.”
“Okay.” He nods slowly. “The truth? I haven’t once looked at you in that dress without wondering what you look like underneath it.
” He leans forward, letting that line and all the images it instantly draws forth settle into my mind.
“Your dress is lovely, don’t get me wrong.
But oh my God, you’d be a thousand times lovelier without it. ”
“You . . . you basically just admitted you’ve thought about me naked,” I say through a dry mouth, a tremor of what I can only describe as longing running through my blood, heating my skin.
Theo nods. “Pretty much from the moment you fell into my arms, cat ears sliding down your hair, it’s been on my mind.”