Page 11 of Call Off the Dark

Now a block from the restaurant, Helen checked her phone. No calls or texts from Tyler. Since they’d met, they’d had no communication confirming the date, and a tiny part of her wondered if he’d even show. The previous morning had been so thrilling that it felt almost like a mirage.

The air was chilly tonight against her bare legs. She’d worn a little black dress and heels, which wasn’t completely fitting for the season, but she’d wanted to feel subtly sexy, and this dress made her feel exactly that way. Her tailored wool peacoat was over the top of it.

She straightened up as she approached the door to the restaurant. If Tyler wasn’t there or if he turned out to be a disappointment upon further conversation, it would be fine.

But when she entered, he was standing there waiting for her, and his eyes were so warm that she felt herself soften immediately. He was in dark indigo jeans with a gray dress shirt and a casual fitted brown blazer. The contrasting colors somehow worked perfectly, as if he’d just thrown them together, but she hoped he’d debated his wardrobe choices as long as she had. The inviting heat inside the lobby enveloped her, so she undid the button at the center of her coat that held it closed and noticed as he quickly took in her dress.

They shared a hello hug, and he said “You look pretty” as they pulled apart, and her body hummed at the compliment. Plenty of men had complimented Helen on her looks before, but plenty of men didn’t make her feel like this.

A hostess seated them at a reserved window table with a black tablecloth and a view of Lake Washington. The last date Helen had been on, two months earlier, the guy had taken her to a teriyaki place with paper folded napkins in upright metal casings on each laminate round table.

Here, the setting sun off the lake gave the water a slightly pink glow that made the space feel magical, but she told herself it wasn’t magic. It was weather and atmosphere, that was all. As Helen and Tyler read the menus and discussed the options, she tried to ignore how intensely attracted she was to him.

Because she was feeling so out of sorts, when she placed her pasta order she said, “Hold the olives,” but she didn’t realize her mistake until the server was already taking Tyler’s order. Helen loved olives. She’d meant to say, “Hold the onions.”

When the server turned to leave, Helen said, “Actually, I would like the olives on mine. But can you please hold the onions instead?”

Helen smiled at Tyler after the server left, and she said, “I’m not normally indecisive about olives.”

Tyler shrugged. “Olives can be perplexing.”

“They can. They come in both black and green.”

“And purple and brown.”

Helen laughed. “You really know your olives.”

His eyes glinted with quiet amusement. “I’m full of mundane trivia.”

Talking about olives shouldn’t have felt as fun as this did, and that’s when Helen thought, I’m in trouble.

Helen and Tyler didn’t just talk about olives that night. They talked about their childhoods and their favorite movies and how they didn’t understand why the provided dumpsters at their respective apartments were always full, even on the day after garbage pickup.

Helen was happy to find out Tyler’s mile pace wasn’t that much faster than hers and that he was sporty and liked the outdoors. Growing up, she’d played many sports herself, admittedly sometimes changing interests too often as she switched from the field to the gym and back into the dance studio, but she’d been a kid who always wanted to be doing something. And now she wanted to date someone who would go on a hike with her, not just play video games for hours on end like her last boyfriend.

When they talked about jobs, Helen admitted that she was feeling unsure about hers. When she’d been hired at the marketing firm, she’d held some kind of enchanted idea that it would be days of creative writing and exciting campaigns, promoting people and things she would feel passionate about. She’d graduated from college this past June with an ironclad plan: Be brave! Be bold! Become someone special! But she’d spent the better part of the last year hitting snooze on her alarm two to three times each morning as she faced another day of copywriting and graphic design for clients’ products that half the time she secretly thought were garbage.

Tyler asked, “Are you plotting your escape?”

“My escape?” she repeated. “From my job?”

“Yeah. If you hate your job, you should find something you like better.”

Helen blinked. She’d never considered leaving. “Don’t you hate your job?”

“No. It’s pretty good. A lot of it’s programming. It’s like working on a puzzle, and my boss is cool too.”

“Well, that sounds very un-American of you,” she said, and they both laughed for the millionth time. And then she added, “But I’m glad for you.”

By the time their plates were cleared and they were sipping chocolate martinis, her body was pulsing with how badly she wanted to sleep with Tyler. She’d never slept with anyone after only one date, and she didn’t want to lose her mind over someone she’d just met.

Except after talking to him for almost three hours straight, she felt like she’d been waiting to know this man her entire life. Throughout dinner, she’d laughed so much that the corners of her mouth ached a little. It wasn’t his quick wit that had destroyed all of her defenses though. It was the way he listened to her and asked her questions like she was the most fascinating woman in the city. She thought, He is really good at this, and even as she recognized that it might be a well-honed seduction tactic—perhaps Tyler was an expert at unwrapping women—she was still captivated by it.

When Tyler took a sip of his cocktail and asked Helen if she would rather be a lion or a housecat, she asked, “Am I a lion in the wild or one in captivity?”

“Wild.”

“Hmm, okay.” The vodka tingled in her chest. “What kind of a life do I have as a housecat? Am I completely housebound or can I go out at night and get into mischief?”