Of course it’d been more awkward than I’d anticipated, completely silent except for one blindingly difficult moment of conversation after I’d stepped away from locking the shop’s front door and gripped the edges of my cardigan to wrap it more tightly around myself against a lingering winter chill in the air.

Reid had cleared his throat and said, “Would you like my jacket?” and it hadn’t even been grudging. It had been automatic, sort of the same as his very well-mannered “Good evening.” I’d been so taken aback that I’d said, “Don’t be nice to me.” Then he’d done another nod and we’d both pretended to be invisible to each other until we got to our destination. Where he opened the door for me.

In our seats he seems as stiff as he had in the shop, his back and (still very nice) shoulders straight and his elbows tucked into his sides, God forbid he puts them on the table like a normal person. He’s still got that slight air of distaste about him—he seems suspicious of every surface in this place, had peered at the heavy-lidded glass jars of biscotti and extra-large cookies and chocolate balls rolled in shredded coconut as though they were exceptionally disgusting dead insects pinned inside a display case for the express purpose of grossing him out. When I’d asked him what kind of coffee he’d wanted, he’d said it was “quite late for coffee” (quite late!) and had ordered an herbal tea instead.

I feel like I’m doing Masterpiece Theatre cosplay.

“It’ll take me some time to get back to the city,” Reid says when I’m in the middle of the first sip of my cortado (bad choice; I’ll be up all night, but what else could I do in the face of that quite late?), and as a conversation-starter it seems entirely like a non sequitur until I realize he’s urging me to get on with my explanation.

“Um,” I begin, and suppress a wince at this tic, something I never realized I did so prominently until I started seriously with videos on social media. The first one I’d ever recorded had it pretty much every third word—some letterers prefer, um, a classic Blackwing Pearl, um, with a nice, um, balanced graphite—and it took me four takes to eradicate the “ums” to a tolerable level. My last video—proof of how far I’ve come—had none, even in a single take.

I try again.

“I don’t know if I’ll have an answer that’s satisfying to you.”

“You may not.” He lifts his hands, a palm-up gesture to indicate our surroundings. It’s a we-had-that-awkward-walk-so-you-might-as-well-try gesture.