“So,” I said as I reached for the small pot of cream and dumped half of it in my cup. “I’m not your type?” It’s not like I needed any more confirmation of this fact, but again my mouth was moving faster than my brain.

“Hey,” he said, and his tone wasn’t jokey anymore. “That wasn’t at all what I was trying to say. Sometimes the words get tangled in my brain, if that makes sense.”

It did make sense. Too much sense, if I was honest. I felt exactly the same. So much so that I had made up a business on live TV. But I was not going to give this guy any more satisfaction today.

I paused for effect, simply to needle him a little more. “No big deal. Happens to me every day. Water under the bridge.”

I waved him off and watched his eyes dart from me to the table, then back to me again. They were so dark and yet so beautiful. Not the sparkly bright kind that populated the romance novels I used to sneak from my grandma Elsie’s shelves in middle school, books I later packed up and took to the assisted living facility she’d had to move in to. Books I had to toss last year when she’d passed. His eyes were dark and swirling, murky, like the ocean in winter. Every time they moved, his thick black eyelashes swept across them in a hypnotic, rhythmic fashion, like they were trying to get me to forget what had just gone down.

“What I meant to say was that I didn’t think I was your type. I don’t”—he ran his fingers through his hair—“have a way with words, let’s say. I work in finance. I do data and numbers. I don’t always know how to articulate what I feel. I meant that…” He was searching. “I don’t normally date women like you.”

I threw my hands up. “Seriously?” I laughed. “You’re only making this worse! Did you not see my mom up there, telling the world I haven’t brought a man home in almost ten years? I’m not having a good day.”

“No.” He waved his hands in front of his chest. “I mean, I don’t pick women up on the subway.”

How was it possible that a man this handsome was also this socially inept?

“Well, where do you pick women up, then?” I took a sip of my coffee, holding the cup to my lips as I swallowed. It was warm, and the smooth edge of the mug was grounding. “The stock exchange?”

He laughed at this, and nodded his head as if to say “You got me there.”