First off, thank you thank you thank you for all the wonderful comments y’all have been leaving on somewhere a place for us—your comments give me life, water my crops, et cetera, et cetera. I am THRILLED to tell you that I got a lot of writing done last weekend, so NO MORE DELAYS (she said, blindly confident despite the fact that midterms are looming on the horizon). So, for now at least, we’ll go back to our regular schedule of posting new chapters on Sunday and, hoo boy, I think you guys are really gonna like tomorrow’s installment. The angst of last week won’t be … resolved, per se, but it will be … well, you’ll see;)

In non-angst news, my inbox is FULL of queries about the fair and lovely “Daisy.” And, I think I left you all hanging last time when I described our latest encounter and then in the next post was like “lol I have a date now” but the important thing is: the date happened. And Reader, it was good.

She’s a lot quieter than I expected. Last time I saw her, I assumed her initial shyness was just because we caught each other off guard and she was soaked from the rain. Because when I walked her to the bus stop, she seemed pretty dry and confident—I mean, she asked me out! Like, in person! That’s a baller move.

So I was a bit surprised to find that she’s a lot more reserved. Which is not a bad thing by any means, I’m just feeling a little self-conscious and nervous because I feel like I don’t have a mode that isn’t super talkative and giggly and overly enthusiastic. I seriously hope I didn’t scare her off.

I don’t think I did because, after dinner, she took me to this cool bakery and then for a walk around this big park that’s in our city. And the way that it happened, it seemed like she planned it. SWOON. I can’t remember the last time I went on a date where I felt … wooed. Maybe never. Okay, definitely never. And there was something about the walking that seemed to relax her, like not having to look at each other over a table weighed down with distracting food made it easier to talk.

Because here’s the thing: Daisy loves food.

“I’ve just always been obsessed with it,” she told me as we walked around a big pond in the middle of the park.

“Eating it or making it?” I asked. “Or both?”

“Definitely both.”

She smiled. When she smiles, it’s this lovely, hesitant thing. Like she doesn’t really know if it’s okay. Like every time she wants to smile, she has to dust it off first before bringing it out.