Then I...sat there. In a chair. And waited.
“I’m the worst,” they murmured. “Sorry, I’m done. Let me just...”
I hadn’t brought a book or anything, but I figured they wouldn’t mind if I looked at their books. There was a low bookshelf running under the desk, next to the chairs. (Sidney could give a class in organizing small apartments, it was super impressive how much stuff they managed to fit in their place without it feeling cluttered.)
A few graphic design books, a lot of filming books, a handful of small business books. A tiny corner of mystery novels. I was still poking through when they clicked off their monitor.
“I’m really sorry. I should know that if I think something’s going to take ten minutes, it’ll probably take twice that. I hope dessert isn’t messed up?”
“Nope. The cinnamon’s less crisp, but it’s kind of a cool look when it gets all saturated and blurry, and it’s definitely not going to affect the flavor.” I handed them their bowl when they’d sat down. “Do you need time to decompress before, like, talking and stuff?”
They went very still. “Actually...that would be amazing. Is that all right?”
“Totally all right.”
“Thank you.”
I grabbed one of the books I’d been looking at—about making short films—and paged through it. I didn’t want to start eating without them, but I didn’t want them to feel a bunch of pressure to be on, either. And I sort of love picking up a book on a subject I’ve never even considered before and learning about it. I’m kind of a nerd for random stuff.
The book had pretty well absorbed my attention by the time Sidney spoke. “That’s the first filming book I ever bought myself.”
“It’s really interesting.”
“It is?”
“Hell yes. Like, how lighting influences narrative? I never even considered that.”
They smiled. “Yeah, isn’t it fascinating? Because it’s also about how the brain processes stories, all the things your brain is taking into account without you consciously realizing it.”
“Exactly!” I surrendered the book back to its place on the shelf. “I should have read that before planning our faildate this morning and I would have known that The Diner at noon on Saturday was not the right soundtrack for our date.”
“We are not calling it a ‘faildate.’”
“Oh yes we are.” I straightened up. “Excuse me, I am the subject of The Love Study, and I can refer to my dates however I want.”
They chewed on that for a moment, an unwilling smile tugging up their lips. “I feel like I should be able to argue with that as the other person on the date, but as the facilitator of The Love Study I have to concede you’re right.”
“Thank you,” I said primly. “Shall we dessert?”
“We certainly shall. I’ve never thought about how ‘breakfast’ is the only meal word you can use as a verb. You think that’s because it’s basically a contraction including a verb?”
“Maybe?” I gave it some thought. “Can you use ‘supper’ as a verb? I didn’t grow up in a ‘supper’ family so I don’t know how it works.”
“I think you can ‘sup.’”
Ten really dumb jokes tripped on the tip of my tongue. “It’s taking a lot of self-control not to make any ridiculous puns right now.”
“If I could come up with a good pun about your lack of punning, I’d use it.” Their expression got serious. “Declan. You don’t have to withhold your puns from me. I accept you no matter how punny you are.”
I leaned forward. “I think you’re going to regret saying that. Except now I’m punless. What if your acceptance has robbed me of the ability to pun?”
“Mmm, yes.” They stroked their, like, five whiskers. “I have heard of such cases. The Pun Cure, it is called. Only those derided for their pun-making can truly embrace their puntastic identity.”
We looked at each other like total goofballs for a full ten seconds. Then we laughed.
“I can’t believe you’ve stolen my superpower.” I handed them their dessert (again).
“I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings, but I don’t think of you as particularly into puns. Have you been holding back?”
“Well, when I was a teenager I thought puns were legit hilarious and clever. It was pointed out to me in college—when I acquired friends who were, you know, honest with me—that my relentless punning wasn’t that funny. So I curbed the undesirable behavior. Mostly.” I would have kept talking except they had taken a bite of peaches and cream and I could tell they were no longer listening.
“Ohhhhhhh.” Was that a moan? I hadn’t ever made Sidney moan before (yet, anyway), but that sure sounded like a moan. “This is...this is so...” They ate another bite, with a slice of strawberry. “Oh wow. This is...words can’t even do it justice.”
Technically none of the fruit was even in season, though one of the great things about California was year-round access to edible fruit. I took a bite of my own and yep, pretty dang good. “Yeah, it’s adequate.”
“Adequate? This is delicious.”
“If this was late summer, it’d probably be better.”
“Okay, you can make it again for me in late summer and I’ll let you know. But for real, this is delicious. And the cream! The cream melts in my mouth.” They flushed. “Oh no, now everything’s a sex joke. But I don’t care, because this is...so...goooooooood...”
That time it was definitely a moan, and definitely on purpose. I shook my head, attempting to not be in any way moved by Sidney moaning over my food, though it made me feel appreciated and a little turned on.
We scraped our bowls clean with our spoons when we were done and Sidney took them up to the sink. “I can’t get over how good that was. Fruit and whipped cream. But the cream made all the difference. It’s nowhere near that good out of a can.”
“I should think not! But no, I know. And it’s always sickly sweet and vaguely chemical out of a can. I make it a little less sweet with more vanilla and no can flavor.”
“The lack of can flavor is a treat, thank you. Thank you for all of it.” They sat back down again, seeming restless. “I feel like you took me out for lunch and then I asked you to come back to my place to make me more food and sit around while I edited video.”
“We split lunch! And I guess you sort of did? But I don’t know.” I thought about the whole day, from my pained date selfie until now. “This has been the best part of our date for me. It was for sure not lunch.”