This wouldn't go in a romantic direction even if he were single. A lot of it was superficial stuff, but he was at least ten years older than her and kind of chubby. Though he pulled off the hipster beard thing pretty well, she wasn't a big fan of facial hair. It wasn't a deal-breaker by any means, but it did typically make her less inclined to imagine that there'd be kissing afterward.

In less superficial territory, his personality was...fine. He was friendly and pleasant to talk to and clearly had multiple functioning brain cells. There just wasn't any strong connection. She preferred guys with a sharper wit. A heartier laugh—he laughed, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

Not that any of this mattered. He'd made no indication that he was trying to get into her pants, or that his interest in her was any different from their stated reason for having dinner together.

She really wished Charlene would be part of what Gertie jokingly called "the publicity tour" but which was really limited to a few quick interviews. It wasn't as if she was shamelessly cashing in on the situation—this would be the first paid interview, and nobody had yet offered to make a major motion picture out of her life story—yet she couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty about getting all of this praise while Kimberly was still missing. Gertie knew that Kimberly was almost certainly dead, and she wasn't sure if that made the publicity tour better or worse. If Charlene was along for the ride with her, she'd feel better about the whole experience.

Her parents, and even her aunt, had assured her that she was doing nothing wrong. (Though, not surprisingly, they emphatically did not approve of her trying to offer herself up as bait for the abductor.) It wasn't as if she was embarking on a vile cash grab like selling authorized t-shirts or charging for pictures. She made sure to give Charlene the appropriate credit every time she spoke to the media. She truly believed that they'd done a good deed, even if the piece of shit father killed himself, and she didn't see anything wrong with talking about it.

The salmon was delicious. Warren suggested pairing it with a glass of white wine, but she stuck with Diet Coke. As they ate, he asked a lot of questions but didn't seem all that interested in the answers. He didn't check his cell phone or stare at other women or anything like that, but there was very much a "just waiting for his turn to talk" facet to the conversation. Warren wasn't a very good storyteller, offering up anecdotes about his childhood in Michigan that ended without much of a point, and it was entirely possible that she was subconsciously doing the "waiting for her turn to talk" thing as well.