“I know I don’t have to,” I said to Sarai as I caught the waitress’s eye. I pulled out some bills and handed them to the waitress when she walked over to us. “Keep the change.” I’d given her a fat tip. It was the least I could do after spending so long at her table during one of their busiest nights of the week.

“Really,” Sarai said, pulling some cash from her wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

Sean and Hailey were still talking to each other like they had no idea that I’d just paid for their goddamn dinner. No one was that oblivious. I was pissed, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to make Sarai pay for her own meal. I’d had a good time, and I’d probably be thanking Sean later for setting this double date up, but it was the principle of the thing. The bill was his responsibility.

“Nothing,” I said to Sarai, shaking my head. “Seriously, this one’s on me.”

“It’s not like this was a real date,” she said softly, her lips tipping up at the edges.

“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, standing up from my seat. I pulled her chair out as she finally put away her wallet and stood up, too.

“You guys leaving?” Hailey asked, suddenly out of the Sean-fog she’d seemed to be lost in.

“I still need to get the check,” Sean said jovially. The prick.

“Alex already got it,” Sarai said drily. “I’ll see you Wednesday in class, Hailey?”

“I’ll be there,” Hailey said. She made no move to get up, so I guessed that was our cue to leave without them.

I followed Sarai out of the restaurant, still completely annoyed. That dipshit was going to pay me back. It wasn’t as if I was hurting for money, but I definitely hadn’t budgeted for paying for four expensive dinners this week.

“It was nice meeting you,” Sarai said as we stepped out into the cold night. She was holding her sweater tightly around her.

“You too,” I said, smiling. The night had been complete shit from beginning to end, but now that we were ready to leave, I was kind of disappointed. “Where’d you park?”

“Right over there.” She nodded to her left.

“I’ll walk you.”

She opened her mouth to reply, then tilted her head and snapped her mouth shut again.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have been able to talk me out of it,” I said jokingly. She rolled her eyes, and I knew that I’d guessed her unsaid words correctly. “My dad would kill me if he knew I let a woman walk alone in the dark to her car.”

“Yeah, but how would he know?” she asked, pulling her keys out of her purse as we walked.

“I’m a terrible liar,” I replied.