Soon the two were seated at a table at the back of the mostly empty (and very expensive) restaurant at the newest, nicest casino/ resort in Southern California, Cora sulking with a pack of ice gifted by the bartender on her head. Ravenous as he was, he urged the waiter to hurry things along and take their orders quickly. Cora’s expression blanched when she looked at the menu. “I can’t afford this.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“But—”

“It’s fine.”

Kaveh, having decided he deserved it for surviving the night, ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, the eighty-dollar “Great Oak Surf & Turf.” Cora ordered the eight-dollar “side of mashed potatoes.” When the waiter was out of sight, Kaveh removed the earbuds from his pocket, those-spidery looking things that looked like futuristic ear cuffs, and placed them on the table between them. He was surprised their communication method wasn’t anything much more sophisticated than a set of headphones. High-tech spidery alien headphones, yes, but headphones nonetheless. Headphones that presumably anyone could use.

Eeeennnnteresting.

After the food arrived, Kaveh tucked in, decimating half of his filet mignon and ripping into one of his two lobster tails like a caveman. Cora hardly touched hers, picking at the overpriced potatoes like it was workhouse gruel.

“Here,” he said, moving to shunt one of the lobster tails onto her plate, but she recoiled from it like it was a live scorpion.

“No,” she said. “I’m not hungry.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“It’s fine, really.”

“Please, take some of mine.”

“No, really, I don’t want it!”

This yanked a deep-rooted instinct in him, a lifetime of immigrant parents and aunties imbuing in him the importance of making sure everyone had gotten enough to eat, but something about the visceral way she reacted to the lobster told him there was more to it than just the typical faux modest “I’m a dainty little bird” affect endemic to The Whites, so he held his tongue.

She took another bite of her potatoes, swallowing it like it was cold medicine. She then noticed that he was staring at her, and averted her gaze back to the plate of potatoes. But of course he was staring. He couldn’t help but stare. Here’s the disheveled, blue-haired mess who talks to aliens. Her upper lip was slightly fuller than her lower lip, giving her a cute natural pout, and what he’d initially mistaken for frumpiness was really ill-fitting clothes on a willowy frame. If she washed out the Manic Panic and got a few hours of sleep, she’d probably clean up downright adorable.