Before I could turn around, Drew peeled off the jacket and yanked the tie over his head with such speed he got slightly caught. It was so adorable I couldn’t help a small chuckle.

“Ready?” he asked, throwing the jacket and tie on the couch and grabbing his more casual dark gray coat from the rack by the door.

“Yeah.” I looked up toward my parents’ bedroom. “Apparently, they’re not coming out until we leave, so…”

His sympathetic eyes met mine. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk about them the whole time. I don’t even want to think about them. I’ve been doing that my whole life, and this is my night off.”

“Whatever you wish,” he said, and even though I used to hear his training behind those kinds of words, I now smiled.

“Whatever you wish.”

His face lit up, and it briefly made me sad that it took so little. That he was so walked-on and forgotten that words, which could be empty, could make him shine so bright.

Mine will not be empty, I promised both him and myself.

As we took our seats for hot pot, I was especially glad I hadn’t dressed up.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the familiar, savory scent. “Oh man, good choice. One of my favorites.” Which of course he knew.

I left out that hot pot reminded me of my parents, and that it somehow felt blasphemous to enjoy it without them, though we usually did hot pot at home with our little portable tabletop cooker.

Drew smiled. “Dinner is straightforward—I know you love hot pot and this is one of my favorite places—but I’m hoping dessert will be more memorable. Shit, and I don’t mean that in a sleazy way.”

“I know.” I laughed. “In some ways, you’re the perfect one to charm the parents, huh? So innocent you don’t even realize those innuendos until after.”

He chuckled with me, but when our laughs subsided, an uneasy quiet set in. Maybe because we both realized this was a real date, and it was kind of weird.

Except that what he was really thinking was even weirder. “Sorry… I just remembered that your parents like to do hot pot—actually, didn’t you guys used to have it at Thanksgiving? We didn’t this year, though, huh. Should we not have come here? I didn’t think of it until—”

“You know so much,” I interrupted. “It’s like you’ve read my diary or something.”

“Oh God, that’s creepy. I’m so sorry.”

I sighed. “It’s not your fault. Obviously. It’s just… a little awkward, I guess.”

He leaned toward me. “What would help?”