The sun is warm on my shoulders as I take off my blazer. I want to run to my car and grab my sunglasses, but I don’t want James to think I left, and I overheard some of the other customers say they were going to walk to this other bar down the street. I figure we might as well keep the party going.

He walks out after a couple minutes, squinting into the sunlight. “This a normal thing for him?” he asks, tilting his head in the direction of the bar.

“Well, I’m not surprised, I’ll tell you that much.”

James just shakes his head and smiles. “And I thought my usual bartender was weird.”

He doesn’t make a move in any direction, and I suppose that means it’s my turn.

“I’m probably going to head over to Barnhart’s down the street, so…” I shrug one shoulder, hoping he’ll fill in the other half of that sentence.

He kind of stares at me for a second before responding. “No, yeah, I should… get going.”

Oh.

He looks genuinely regretful as he runs his fingers through his hair. “It was really nice to meet you.”

So much for that, then.

I manage a smile and a nod. “Yeah, you too.” I pause, biting my lip as I formulate some kind of mildly witty response. “I appreciated the dance lesson.”

“Thanks for not stepping on my feet,” he replies with a low, warm chuckle that brings all the butterflies back to my stomach.

I shift onto my other foot, thinking of something else to say. “Um, well, have a good trip home.”

“Oh, thanks,” he says, as though he’s surprised I mentioned that. “Yeah I am not looking forward to Thursday morning.”  He steps into the street with one foot, then turns around. “Hey. Good luck with your art.”

And with that, he turns and jogs across the street even though he’s nowhere near the crosswalk, and I have to smile at that. East Coasters, I think.

With a heavy exhale, I decide I might as well head home.

It’s blazing hot in the parking lot under the direct sun. I gingerly open the door on my tin can of a car, which I complain about fairly frequently considering how close I am to living in it. I turn on the radio as I start heading home, and this time I flick through a few stations before choosing something I might dance to if I weren’t driving.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

I wasn’t even home for five minutes before my phone rang and I got called into work.

I had been hoping to take a nap and maybe break out my sketchbook and try to figure out this hodgepodge of emotions that has accumulated in the last eight hours. But I could really use the extra money.

We make it through the big dinner rush, which isn’t all that bad since it’s a weekday, and just as things are winding down, one of my coworkers flies past me on my way to the kitchen.

“Can you get table nine for me? I messed up on an order.”

“Sure. How bad is it?”

She grits her teeth and scoops up two platters. “Uh, I’ll be fine if I keep moving.”

I chuckle sympathetically. “Fair enough. I’ll get table nine.”

After taking care of another table, I start making my way across the restaurant, digging in my pocket for a pen. I look up after poking myself with the point, and I almost stop in my tracks.

There’s only one person at table nine, and it’s James.

He’s swapped the jacket-and-tie combo for a dark blue polo with an open collar, and his hair is kind of matted down at the sides in a way that makes me think he was wearing a hat earlier. As handsome as the suit was, I’m seriously taken with this version of him.

I don’t know what the heck he’s doing here because the restaurant really isn’t that close to the bar where I saw him earlier, but it doesn’t matter right now because I’ve already caught his eye.

His jaw drops into an open-mouthed smile that turns my nervous smiling into full-on giggling. “No. Way.”

I hold up my hands as if to say ta-da. “My name is Pam, and I’ll be your waitress this evening,” I say, preparing to take his order as if he were any other customer. That I’ve danced with in the middle of the day. “What can I get you?”

He pauses for a moment, eyes lit up, clearly still surprised. But he smiles and asks, “Well, what do you recommend?”

“I’d probably get a burger.”

“Yeah?” he says with a thoughtful raise of his eyebrows. “Alright then, I’ll take a burger.”

“Which one?”

He smiles somewhat cryptically and hands his menu to me. “Surprise me.”

I’m secretly pleased but I roll my eyes a little before writing Santa Fe burger on the top line.

I don’t even get a chance to set his plate down all the way before he asks me out. “Hey, um… when are you done working?”

My heart flutters once against my chest, though mainly out of relief if I’m honest because I was this close to asking him out myself. “I get off at ten.”

“Would you maybe want to get a coffee or something when you’re done?”

“Yeah, definitely.” I worry that I replied too quickly, but he seems equally relieved that I said yes as I was that he asked me. “Bold move to ask out the waitress this early, no?”

“Well, I waited until I had my food, at least,” he replies smoothly, turning his attention to the plate. “What is this, by the way?”

“That’s our Santa Fe burger.”

“Oh, good choice. That’s the one I was leaning towards.”

I smile for the entire last hour that I’m working, thrilled when I remember that I have the clothes I was wearing earlier in the trunk of my car.

We meet up in the parking lot at 10:08, James in his polo and gray golfing pants, and me in my dress from this morning and my white sneakers because I don’t feel like putting my heels back on.

“Nice sneaks.”

I toss my jacket into the trunk of my car. “Shut up, they’re part of the uniform.”

“It’s cute, I like it,” he says, and suddenly I feel weird responding the way I did.

But I close the trunk and turn to face him, and he offers me his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world to him. There’s none of the cheesy, overcompensating humor that there was in the same gesture a few hours ago, and we’re not dancing this time around, we’re walking, but it feels about the same.

Same warm air, same rhythm, same purpose.

Except maybe it is a little different because it really does feel magical this time.

“Where are you staying?” I ask, breaking the silence anyway. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Oh, not at all. I’m staying at the Marriott up the hill from the bar.”

Okay, so his hotel is near there. “What were you doing over here?”

“I have a friend who lives around here and he invited me to play golf with him. And then I decided to walk over and get some dinner.” He grins to himself. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Los Angeles is that it is not a walking city.”

“That’s for sure. What tipped you off?”

“When there was no crosswalk by the freeway exit.”

“You tried to cross the 405?” I exclaim.

“Now, I didn’t say that,” he replies quickly. “I was about a block away before I realized that would be a dangerous undertaking and I turned around.” His voice deepens a little as he continues. “Which was actually a good thing because I wouldn’t have run into you if I had kept going.”

Wow, okay, so he’s a sappy one. I should say thanks, right?

“Yeah, you probably would have run into a car instead.”

He chuckles, exhaling softly through his nose. “Good one.”

“Thank you,” I say, hoping he knows it’s not just a thanks for the compliment.

It’s a short walk from the restaurant to the coffee shop—no crossing freeways for us tonight. There’s no one else in the coffee shop, which makes sense because it’s late on a weekday. I’m actually surprised they’re still open.

“Can I get a chai tea?” I ask the disinterested, platinum blond-haired barista.

“You want room for milk?” she asks, scrawling on the cup.

“Yes, please.”

“And then can I just get a decaf coffee?” Jim says.

“Sure. Can I get a name for those?”

“It’s for Jim.”

THERE it is.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling as he pays for our drinks (which is the third time today that he’s bought something for me, so I should really do something about that), but I have to bring it up once we’ve sat down.

“Jim, huh?”

His cheeks puff up as he smiles into his coffee. “Yeah, I go by James at work, and sometimes I forget to switch over.”

“What’s wrong with Jim?”

He shrugs. “Nothing, I guess. I just want to be professional, you know?”

I nod even though I kind of get the sense there’s a little more to it than that. Like he’s trying to put on this air of professionalism and he feels like it doesn’t go with who he is. I know that too, because that’s exactly what I do.

But I just give him a little smirk and ask, “What’s your middle name?”

“Uh, my middle name is not first date conversation.”

First date? Should I clarify that we’re on a date? Does that look dumb? I mean, we’re never going to see each other again, so I guess we can call this whatever we want.

“I’ll tell you my middle name,” I say instead. “It’s Morgan. And, um, I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but my last name is Beesly. I don’t know when you tell someone your last name when you’re on a date with them but you just met that day.”

Jim smiles a little and raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, I definitely don’t know that either.” He clears his throat before continuing. “My last name is Halpert.”

I already knew that because I looked at his credit card back at the restaurant, so I just smile and nod and pretty soon we’re both laughing. It’s kind of awkward, but I actually don’t mind that much. It’s not making it any less enjoyable for me.

“So, just so I know how low the bar is,” Jim finally says, “What was your worst first date?”

His set-up makes me smile because I know he’s not being serious at all when he asks it like that. “You have nothing to worry about,” I tell him.

“That bad?”

“I mean, he didn’t throw up in the car while driving or anything, but it was pretty bad. Um, it was a minor league hockey game. He brought his brother, and when I went to the bathroom, the game ended and they forgot about me.”

His jaw drops a little. “You’re kidding.”

“No, they had to come back for me.”

“Don’t forget Pam,” he says aloud, as if he were writing himself a reminder. “Got it.” His grin is as charming as if he had just winked at me, and his eyes are as kind as if he were asking to somehow undo the idiocy of the guy who left me at the hockey game. It’s a combination that sends a warm current from my feet to my fingertips, even through the warmth of the evening and the heat from my tea. He seems to have a knack for doing things like that.

Before I can say anything back, the barista comes over to our table. “Hey, sorry guys, but we’re closing.” She looks over at the homeless man in the corner who must have snuck in while we were there. “Everyone out.”

I get a flash of déjà vu as Jim and I are interrupted by another closing. It’s like we keep being tested to see how we’ll hold up without structure to give us direction.

Last time I was cryptic. Coy. And it backfired.

So I grab his hand as we’re walking out together because I’m not going to make the same mistake again. Jim looks down at our hands and then at me, and when he smiles, I know I didn’t mess up this time.