“All right then. It’s settled. My treat. My car’s parked right over there.” He pointed across the street at a narrow alley that ran behind the soccer field.

“Now?” I glanced down at my bedazzled jeans and stretchy gauze shirt, the latest trend I’d borrowed from Britney Spears, bundled under a thick fur-lined coat. “Hell no. I don’t know you well enough to go to dinner with you.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point of a date? To get to know one another?”

“No, you’re supposed to call me first. Woo me with your words. Then a date might be on the table.”

“Wow, old-fashioned, huh?”

“Yep, I’m a lady.”

He laughed. “Why do I doubt that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Girls who wear jeweled pants and high heels like that”—he pointed at my shoes—“generally aren’t ladylike. But I could be wrong.”

“And you’re such a gentleman, huh?”

“I never said that. But I’d be willing to prove I am.”

“How so?”

The wind was picking up, along with the snowfall. It stirred my hair into a halo and bit my skin. Geoffrey must have noticed me shivering.

“At least let me give you a ride home, and then I’ll follow all the proper protocol for winning your heart, milady.” He swept the air with his arm in a gallant gesture.

“Does that actually work on girls?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had to try this hard before. You tell me. Is it working?”

His cheeks, ruddy from the cold, lifted with a grin I couldn’t resist. A warm car sounded really good to my frozen toes. Maybe dinner wouldn’t be so bad either. I hadn’t had authentic Italian food since Lily last cooked for me and had got me hooked. The overcooked noodles and canned marinara our cafeteria served were barf-worthy. How could I say no?

“All right, I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you buy me dinner, but this better be damn good for me to blow off my friends.”

“I promise it’s to die for.”

As we walked to his car we chatted about how eggplant parmigiana got an undeserved bad rep for being slimy, and agreed that alfredo was the tastiest among the sauces. In the alley several cars were lined up against a crumbling brick wall. As an extension of campus parking, usually faculty and athletes parked here, and it didn’t occur to me that Geoffrey wasn’t either of those.

“I’m the green sedan,” he said, pointing to the crookedly parked car—a nondescript Japanese import, in rough condition—at the end of the row.

“Nice parking job. I’m guessing you didn’t pass your driver’s test on the first try?” I teased.