Nadia walked out of the office, and immediately her eye was drawn to a man in a security uniform, wearing a yellow rose in his lapel. He looked to her immediately. She recognized him as the man who had come up to her lab earlier that day with the flowers – the one who had stared at her and said the thing about understanding what all the fuss was about.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Nadia.’
Nadia nodded. ‘Hi, again.’
‘I’m Romeo. I didn’t introduce myself before, but I work with Daniel, and I hope you don’t think this is strange, but I wanted to tell you, before you met him – he’s a good guy. He was telling the truth about why he had to leave that night, when you had your first date. His mother needed him. But then, he’s just that kind of guy …’
Nadia nodded again. She looked in the direction of the road, wondering who else she’d speak to and where he was hiding.
‘I’m supposed to tell you that he’s regretted it since it happened. He regretted standing you up. He’s thought of you every day since then, and I can vouch for that because we’ve talked about it.’ Nadia smiled. ‘He said to take note of all the details you can, because you’ll never have another first date again. He’s going to do this one right.’
Nadia raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s confident of him,’ she said.
Romeo laughed. ‘He’s confident about you, I think,’ he said. And then: ‘Okay. Go in that direction, across the road. Find the next person. Enjoy!’
Nadia smiled at him, and kept walking.