“I don’t drink that much beer. And every time I throw a party to reconnect with my friends, the beer stack grows. I buy beer and then people bring more beer than they drink.” She gave Biscuit a bowl of water and put rice in a pot of water to boil.

“I can throw a party that will take care of all that beer.”

She laughed. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but you’re welcome to it.” The comforting smell of boiling rice filled the room.

“Can I help with anything?” he asked.

“No, it’s really easy.” His presence was making her nervous. She couldn’t believe they were about to eat dinner together. In her apartment. Maybe they should’ve ordered takeout. Then he could have chosen what he wanted to eat. She tightened her grip on the curry dish as she poured it into a pan to heat, worried that she might be clumsy.

“We need music,” he said.

She unlocked her iPhone and handed it to him so he could choose some songs.

He studied it and her bookshelves. “I see you still have CDs.”

“This spoken by the man who still has records?” Although she’d inherited some of those CDs from her mother.

“I can’t part with them. And records have a superior sound,” he said. Her CD collection was mostly pop and dance, with just a few jazz and alternative pop CDs. Not deep or angsty. “There’s a lot you can tell from a person’s music and book collection. Very revealing—especially the one opera CD.”

“As you may have guessed, that was a gift.” It felt like she had passed muster.

“Well, I’m expecting you to throw good dancing parties.” He hooked up his phone to her speaker and light pop music filled the apartment. Jake moved along to study her DVD and book collections. “We like a lot of the same books—unless these were all gifts or part of a college reading course: The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22 …”

“Pride and Prejudice?”

“Well, I can’t say it is in my top ten. But it has its wisdom, and my sister Fiona loves it, which is why I read it, so I can be wise to her tricks.” He’d read Pride and Prejudice? Did she know any other guy who’d read it?

“‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife,’” she quoted.

“Yes, which is the equivalent of my view that dating for men is like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said.

“Touché. I hadn’t thought of that.” As he studied her bookshelves, she said, “Now you’ve moved to the college reading course shelf: all the World War II history books. But I’m not supposed to point that out. Just think how brilliant my reading taste is.”