Chapter 34: This Was Definitely a Date

Dante reached the shuttle stop early, wearing the shirt he’d chosen after rejecting two others for reasons he couldn’t defend. He could face hidden enemies in black, but lunch apparently required judgment. Anika arrived in a fitted green dress and caught him appreciating her judgment instead.

"You can tell me I look nice," she said, taking the seat beside him. "It won’t lower your final grade."

"You look like I should have checked my bank balance before choosing somewhere," he admitted, and her laugh made the morning’s rehearsal feel less necessary.

He had booked a window table across from the bakery that made Lucan’s pudding, after checking the menu and leaving money for the return trip. Anika sat opposite him beneath a sign promising the soup would remain in its bowl.

A brass spoon stirred his coffee, tapped the cup, and stopped. Dante thanked it. A future ruler treated loyal servants well, even cutlery, although he hoped Anika couldn’t hear that explanation developing inside his head.

"If it brings the bill, you’re allowed to be less grateful," she told him. He said he was trying to make a good impression on the staff, especially the ones capable of entering his eyes.

Anika opened her coat, revealing a silver necklace and a dress Dante immediately wished he’d described better. He hid behind the menu until she lowered it, reminding him he’d ordered. Excellent, his first tactical position had fallen to a woman with one finger.

He asked about her weather research, and she described farms paying for storms that watered somebody else’s crops. Her work could make contracts depend on rain arriving where promised, rather than how dramatic the seller looked producing lightning.

"So you save crops and make money, while my plan mostly involves being impressive near windows," Dante said. Anika smiled and explained that thirty generations of family magic hadn’t convinced her that helping people required being poor.

She wanted credit for her work, especially when people sent her calculations to her father. Dante cleared space for her napkin diagram. He understood wanting someone to believe the impressive thing belonged to you. He asked how she stopped the rain drifting onto another farm.

Anika stopped drawing and looked at him, making him wonder whether he’d asked something stupid. "Most people ask what my father thinks," she said, tapping the small field she’d drawn. "You actually want to know how it works?"

"I was hoping to steal your secrets, but apparently they involve homework," he said, then pointed to the neighboring field. She explained the wind readings, and he asked another question because he wanted to follow her answer, even if looking clever had become a lost cause.

"Would the farmer have to keep paying you to check it?" he asked, following her finger across the drawing. Anika said that depended on the job, then asked whether he was planning to buy a farm with his student budget.

"I’m trying to work out what happens after it works," he said. "Mine keep leaving that part as a surprise." Anika turned the napkin and showed him where she still needed readings. She could be brilliant at this and have unfinished work, which made his own blank spaces feel less like a reason to lie.

Their sandwiches arrived on warm plates, and Dante moved the sugar bowl so Anika could keep her napkin diagram clear of his coffee. She stole a fry while he did it, then traded him half her sandwich as though sharing lunch had already become their routine, leaving him with a ridiculous urge to arrange every meal of his life this carefully.

He mentioned practicing bingo at Rhea’s family pub and admitted his grand voice might struggle with sixty-nine. Anika warned him to improve his material before meeting her mother, then enjoyed watching him freeze halfway through a fry.

After lunch, Anika took his arm along the garden path. Fish in a shallow pond changed from red to green to blue, lighting the stones beneath them. Dante stopped when one swam past in a tiny business suit, carrying a briefcase under its fin.

"That fish looks employed," he said, watching it vanish beneath a lily pad. "I can’t compete with that."

Anika squeezed his arm. "Then try being the one I asked to lunch."

Farther along the garden path, he admitted he kept checking whether she was bored, and Anika reminded him she could answer for herself. He asked for another date, then nearly offered her excuses before she caught his sleeve and asked him to stay on this one.

He’d arrived prepared to establish himself as a fascinating man. Instead, she stole fries and explained unfinished research, and he wanted more of both. Was this how romance worked? All those imaginary speeches, when he could have asked a question and ordered extra potatoes.

Her hand stayed on his arm. Dante could believe a hidden university had waited eighteen years for him, but a woman choosing to touch him still required checking. That seemed unfair. He wanted to move closer without turning a pleasant walk into an investigation of her motives.

"You’re allowed to enjoy yourself," she told him, catching his glance. "I didn’t come all this way to watch you worry about the customer review."

A breeze moved her hair across her cheek. He asked whether he could kiss her, expecting the question to require more courage than it took once he finally said it.

Anika stepped closer and answered yes, then caught the front of his shirt when he hesitated. "You can stop asking your own head for a second opinion."

He rested his good hand at her waist and waited for her to meet him. Her mouth touched his, warm and real, and his carefully imagined version of himself disappeared completely. There was only Anika holding his shirt, kissing him, and staying when he forgot every technique his daydreams had promised.

Anika kept his shirt in her fingers and kissed him again when he began pulling away, letting her other hand settle at his neck. He admitted he might need practice, and she offered another lesson close enough that her necklace touched his chest, leaving no room for the old excuse that she was only being polite.

Her fingers suddenly tightened in his shirt, but her focus slipped past him. He started to ask what was wrong when her knee bumped the bench and she reached for its back.

He helped her onto the bench while she blamed standing too quickly. They had been standing for minutes. For one horrible second he’d wanted to call this the effect he had on women, then saw her fingers struggling to grip the wood and reached for his phone.

Dante took out his phone, remembering Posey’s failed charm, while Anika pressed her shaking hand flat against the bench and asked him not to tell her brother yet.