I couldn’t believe he called me the same day as our juice bar date. It was moving a little faster than I expected, but I honestly didn’t mind. I was so elated that I called Lorana to share the news. Normally, I wouldn’t bug anyone after 9:00 p.m., but this was a special circumstance. Lorana was, of course, supportive and happy for me.
“Just do me a favor,” Lorana said in a more serious tone. “Keep your guard up for now. He could be a D agent.”
“Why would an agent be interested in a boring nutritionist?” I said, laughing at the idea.
“Your dad works for the Bureau,” Lorana reminded me. “They could be targeting you to get to him or to get information about what he does”
“Well, he’ll be mighty disappointed if that's the case.” I yawned and flopped back onto my pillow. “My dad never talks about his work.”
“Just look for signs,” Lorana urged. “Oh, and call me afterward and tell me everything!”
I agreed and hung up the phone. That night, I had a difficult time falling asleep. I was excited but also worried about what Lorana had said. A sliver of doubt crept into my mind about Julien. My brows furrowed. Why didn’t he show any indication that he felt a problem earlier today? Maybe he knew I would go check it out? I’ll heed Lorana's warning, I decided. Can’t hurt to stay a little guarded. My thoughts shifted to the gorgeous sound of his laugh and I fell fast asleep.
Our first dinner date went very well. Julien arrived at my apartment complex on time. I peeked into the security camera before answering and saw he was carrying flowers. How romantic! No guy had ever brought me flowers before.
“I’ll be right down,” I chirped. I grabbed my sweater and bounced down the stairs.
“You look amazing.” Julien flashed a brilliant white smile. Does he bleach his teeth?
He handed me a bundle of white lilies.
“Wow, thanks! They’re so pretty,” I exclaimed. “Let me run these back up and put them in some water.”
When I came back down, he was standing patiently by the stairs to the entrance of my apartment.
“I’m double-parked, so we should probably head out before I get a ticket,” he said, gesturing to a silver, older-looking VW Golf.
I glanced at the car and made a mental note to tell Lorana about it. D Glows are notorious for loving status symbol items—I would hardly call a beat-up VW Golf a status symbol.
As I was getting into the car, I caught him looking at me in the reflection of the passenger window and smiled in spite of myself. This was probably the most effort I had ever put into a date, so I was happy he was checking me out, as terrible as that sounded. I had loosely pinned my hair up and wore gold hoop earrings my mom would probably say were too large. I wasn’t sure where he was taking me, so I chose a nice peach spaghetti strap dress with a white sweater and strappy gold sandals.
We ended up going to an Italian restaurant downtown—nothing extravagant, but it did have heavenly food and a nice romantic ambiance. Candles flickered gently on every table's white cloth, and even the lighting overhead was dimmed to perfection. Did he pick this restaurant because it was romantic, or was it just a coincidence?
“How did you hear about this place?” I asked as he pulled out my chair. Wow, so polite. Opening car doors, pulling out my chair, and giving me flowers? Where has he been all my life?
“A colleague suggested it,” he said, sitting down. “I’ve never been here, but she comes here all the time.”
“Oh?” I grimaced. A female colleague? Did they date?
“She comes here with her husband,” he stammered, as if reading my mind. “She is much older than me—I mean, not that older is bad or anything. I mean, I don’t even know her that well, I just talk to her because she works in our administrative office and she's helpful.” He spoke so quickly I barely understood what he was saying, but I got the gist.
He took a sip of the water that the waiter had placed in front of him. I looked down at my menu and tried not to smile. I think he wanted to make certain I knew he wasn’t interested in whoever this woman was, and that made me happy.
The light-gray Normal waiter came back to ask if we wanted the wine menu. Julien looked over at me. “I don’t need it, do you?” he asked, quickly adding, “I don’t drink.”
“No,” I said. “Red wine has some redeeming qualities, but I really don’t like it.”
“Oh, you’ve tried it though?” Julien looked genuinely surprised.
“Yes, once,” I admitted. “I had it at a wedding.”
Many L Glows drink alcohol; it's not forbidden. It's just all about moderation.
When the Normal waiter came back to take our order, I settled on ricotta and spinach ravioli. I was initially leaning toward the mushroom linguine, but then thought the cream sauce posed a potential threat to my outfit, so I stuck with my less messy option. Julien ordered a roasted chicken and tomato pizza.
“Chicken pizza?” I teased somewhat skeptically, squishing up my nose.
“I’ve never had it, so I thought I’d try it,” he shrugged. “I’d be happy to give you a slice.”
“No, thanks, I’m a pescatarian.”
Julien's face seemed to turn a shade paler.
“Really? Will it offend you if I eat meat in front of you?” An earnest look of worry suddenly crossed his face.
“No,” I giggled.
It doesn’t matter if he eats meat. It was thoughtful of him to ask if it would bother me if he ate meat. There are no meat restrictions for Glows, but almost all of my friends and family were vegetarians. The exception was my mom, who didn’t care for pork or beef, but loved chicken.
“My mom loves lemon chicken and always orders it when we go out to a Chinese restaurant,” I said reassuringly. I didn’t want him to feel guilty about it.
“Whew,” he said, wiping his brow jokingly. “I was worried you were going to kick me to the curb.”
I studied him for a moment. One could tell without knowing him that he took care of himself. His nails were neatly trimmed, he had no stray eyebrow hairs flying about, and he dressed casually but put together. His dark-blue V-neck sweater with a crisp white shirt underneath looked new and, now that I thought about it, sophisticated. Then I saw his watch. Is that a Patek Philippe? That's one of the most expensive watches on the market! I gulped. I had never seen one up close before, but I recognized it from an L Glow editorial I recently read opining on how luxury watches were unnecessary. How much money did he make? I suddenly felt awkward. I didn’t earn anything near the kind of money someone would need to make in order to afford a flashy watch like that. Julien noticed me staring at his watch and carefully pulled his sweater up over it.
“That looks like a pretty nice watch,” I said, trying to sound casual. Lorana's words were now echoing in my head. Was this a sign? Could he be a D Glow agent?
“I probably shouldn’t have worn it,” Julien said, looking a little flustered. “It gives people the wrong impression. Believe me, I could never afford a watch like this on my salary. My grandfather actually won it in a raffle. He didn’t like it, so he gave it to my father. My father already had a watch he liked, so he gave it to me. So there you have it.” Julien hastily drank the rest of his water and raised his hand to catch the waiter to ask for more.
“Oh, that's such an interesting story,” I said, truly relieved to hear he didn’t just go buy it on a whim one day. “I couldn’t afford a watch like that on two of my salaries,” I laughed. The momentary tension that had built up inside of me passed.
We ate and talked for a solid two hours. I thought he was having a good time. He laughed at all my funny client stories. I was careful to talk only about the funny things said or done, but not give any personal information like the client's name or age. He asked me a few questions about family and where I grew up, but by the end of the night, I felt like I’d gotten little information about his own life, except that he had one younger sister who enjoyed doing background checks on people.
“Police?”
“Something like that,” he said, winking.
Perhaps a light agent? Things were looking hopeful.
We chatted about our favorite movies as he drove me back to my apartment. I, of course, adored romantic comedies. He admitted that he preferred action films but said he would be willing to watch a romantic comedy if it was with me. Holy light, he knows all the right things to say. Julien found a legal spot a few feet away from my building and parked. He then came around the side to open my door. “Milady,” he murmured, taking my hand to help me out of the car—his perfect humor and chivalry was to die for.
“Thank you,” I said, beaming ear to ear. “I had a nice time tonight.”
“I’d hope so,” he said. “I’m going to be living on the streets for a while after this date.”
I knew he was joking; we both had remarked how reasonably priced everything was given its good quality. Our opinions aligned so seamlessly about everything that it was probably impossible to feel uncomfortable joking about anything.
“Very kind of you to spend so much on me,” I jested back. I really did have a nice time. Did he?
He was looking directly into my eyes now. I was feeling too timid to meet his eyes, but I swore I felt his gaze glowing on my face. Was he going to kiss me? Butterflies flipped in my stomach in anticipation.
He leaned in and kissed me on the check.
“Good night, Skyla,” he breathed softly.
“Good night,” I said, barely squeaking out the words. He stepped away and I turned to leave.
“I’ll text you,” he called out as I started to walk into my building.
“OK,” I replied, turning around to wave.
I got inside of my apartment and closed the door slowly—it was late and I didn’t want to wake any neighbors. I stayed by the door for a minute in the darkness and closed my eyes to try to hold all the details in my memory as long as possible. My cell phone started to beep; it was Lorana. She saw from the “bestie365 app” that I was back at home. I flipped on the lights and answered the call.