By Thursday evening Kevin was a ball of nerves. He had already made a list of his favourite books, subdivided into different categories. He'd figured out the answer to her question, but wanted to be prepared for anything else she might throw at him.
His gut told him he was going to meet the woman he kept seeing on the train. He felt ready. He hadn't seen her up close on the train, but it was her face he was seeing anytime he thought about Stephanie from the elevator.
Afraid to jinx it, he didn't tell anyone about his upcoming coffee date. He didn't want to be forced to tell Jared about another bad date if Jared asked and it went poorly, he'd much rather surprise him with news he had a decent date.
He stayed in on Friday evening, wanting to go to bed early. He was too restless to actually sleep, so he read late into the night until he fell asleep with his book on the couch. He stumbled to his bed around 2:00 AM; when he woke up at 7:00 AM, he decided he would workout to calm his nerves. His brain was working too fast to let him sleep in any later.
He felt good after his run and quick weight routine, and went home to shower. He wanted to be early, and could always wander around the bookstore first. Being surrounded by books was a sure way to calm down and find his zen.
Kevin saw Stephanie arrive ahead of him and head to the coffee shop. He waited a few more minutes before joining her there.
"Stephanie?"
She turned to smile at him. "Kevin! Hi... again. Have a seat."
She had found two of the cushy chairs by the window, and he offered to buy the drinks before he sat down. He deflected her attempts at giving him money, "Hey, I owe you for that granola bar remember. That thing saved me from starving!" She laughed, and the sound made his heart skip a beat.
He returned with two hot chocolates; he handed her a cup with a large dollop of whipped cream on top, and settled in to the chair across from her. Her face lit up. If everything else on the date went south, he would treasure the memory of her brilliant smile directed at him for the rest of his life. She pointed out that they were no longer on a coffee date, since neither of them were actually drinking coffee.
If hearts were capable of smiling, Kevin knew his would be. She was funny, incredibly friendly and attractive, and Kevin was really starting to worry he would screw this up. She got right down to business, putting her hot chocolate down and leaning forward in her chair.
"Okay, I've waited nearly a week, I need to know your favourite adventure book of all time."
"Alright. It took me a few days, but I finally have the answer. But its not my favourite book of all time."
"Go on... but you know you'll have to tell me that now too," she said with a grin.
"Okay, well my favourite adventure story is The Martian. And my favourite book of all time is The Princess Bride."
She looked at him closely for a minute with her head cocked to the side, then leaned back in her chair and took a sip of hot chocolate.
"Okay, what about The Princess Bride makes it so good to you?"
He held up his hand to stop her. "No wait, first I need to know your favourite, so I know what kind of person I am dealing with here."
She blushed and reached into her purse, pulling out a folded piece of stationary. "Don't worry its all on here. You're dealing with a crazy book lover who wrote them all down by genre, so I'm probably not going to judge anything you say too harshly."
He smiled back at her and pulled out his phone to put it on the table beside her list. "Good, because I did the same thing."
They talked about books for an entire hour.
*
Stephanie had excused herself to go to the bathroom, and a poster caught Kevin's eye. He didn't want to get up and read what it said, but it was something about Com-Expo. He and his guild had already bought their tickets to it. Kevin hadn't quite decided on his cosplay yet, he wanted to pick a character who wouldn't look too outlandish, and ideally someone he wouldn't have to cover himself in body paint to portray. He always felt so grimy by the end of the day if he did. He was leaning heavily towards dressing like Han Solo, but the eleventh doctor was a close second.
Stephanie returned and smiled at him as she sat down.
"So, do you need a refill or want a snack or anything?" she asked pleasantly, but he waved her off.
"I'm fine thanks, but you can if you want."
"I'm good." She settled deeper into her chair again. "So, tell me Kevin, what do you do?"
"Oh, nothing exciting. I'm a software developer." She raised one eyebrow at this, so he continued, "We write a lot of code, and my partners try to sell it to people."
"That's not bad. I can't code anything. I need my computers and software to work properly before I use it!"
"Well, what do you do for a living?"
"I am a Senior Planning and Logistics Coordinator Extraordinaire!" she laughed as she said it, "basically, I arrange vendors and plan logistics for events. Think wedding planner, but not just weddings. Like, huge conventions and things."
"Huh." Kevin looked at the Com-Expo poster over her shoulder. Like that? "That seems like it might be interesting. It also sounds like something I'd be terrible at."
"Well, you basically just have to talk to a lot of people and make them give you exactly what you want, and try to get a good deal. Easy peasy!" He paled at the thought, so she went on, "actually, it's easy for me now, I know who does what the best, and once you hire them enough, they tend to do a bit more for you. My job is a lot easier now than when I started. Well, until I got my new job that is, this one is a bit crazier than the last. Some of the events are really huge, but that makes it exciting."
"Do you have any hobbies or anything?" He glanced at the table between them. "Like, besides reading I mean."
"Oh, I used to play a lot of sports, so sometimes I play in a rec league. I love to run and be outside. I like cooking and baking, but I hate cleaning up the mess afterwards, so I don't do nearly as much as I would like." Kevin was beginning to panic. Those were slightly less nerdy hobbies than he was hoping for. "What kind of stuff do you do in your spare time?"
"Well," he took a deep breath. "I love watching and playing hockey, and working out. I love all types of games, and a group of my friends like to go to trivia nights after work sometimes."
"Oh cool. I haven't been to a trivia night in so long. Not since college. But I play a lot of board games with a group of friends."
Board games huh? Well that's a good sign. "What kinds of board games do you play?"
"Oh, all sorts. A lot of card-based games, like exploding kittens and unstable unicorns. Have you played those? If not, I would recommend them. They are ridiculous. I also really love playing Dominion and Ticket to Ride. Those are some of my favourites. Our group tends to play games that have a larger luck element, because if they are too strategic, we generally all just get too upset with each other. It gets personal sometimes."
"Ah, my friends either play co-op games or strategy games. Not a lot of random luck games. The guys don't like losing abruptly."
Stephanie's phone trilled suddenly. She picked it up to see the number and turned it over. He looked at the poster again.
"You can take that if you need to."
"I don't recognize the number. They'll leave a message if it's important." She turned to look over her shoulder, "what are you looking at?"
As she turned, he got a clear view of the scar above her collarbone. He thought he was ready, but his body betrayed him as he confirmed it was the girl from the bar and the subway.
His brain short-circuited. "What? Nothing!" What kind of psycho response was that? He looked at the table, suddenly feeling the need for space, "I'm going to get a water, do you want anything?"
She shook her head with a raised eyebrow, and he headed to the counter. He avoided looking in her direction while he waited in line. Something about that scar shook him deep inside, caused him to lose all control of his mental faculties, and he felt stupid for his overreaction. It was just a poster. Nothing wrong with looking at a poster, but you had to make it weird. Can't just go back and admit it now, that would look really bad. He glanced back at her and saw her studying the posters on the wall. Grabbing his water, he headed back to the table.
For the next half hour, they talked and joked about inconsequential topics. He couldn't stop thinking about how pretty she looked, and how quick and funny conversation was with her. It was all comfortable and easy, and he was shocked how calm he felt with her, now that his panic about her scar had passed. He was tempted to tell her all about himself, but was really afraid of how she would react.
She liked books, but there was a big difference between liking books and stories, and trying to create your own or fully immerse yourself in the characters. Dungeons and Dragons was quite possibly the nerdiest thing you could do, and it was one of his favourite hobbies.
He loved dressing up as characters, and telling people that he likes cosplay was usually met with blank looks; once explained, they just think of it as "playing dress up". Sometimes they just equated it to dressing in drag. To Kevin, that seemed like the fastest way to scare a girl off.
"Kevin? Did you hear me?"
Oh shit. "Sorry, I got caught up in an errant train of thought there. What did you say?"
"Oh, I was just wondering if you had heard the release date for the new Spellmasters movie?"
"No, is it soon?"
"A few more months, I think. I'm really excited for it."
"Cool." He looked at his watch, and she seemed to take this as a hint he wanted to leave.
"So, I should probably head out. I do have a few things to do today before dinner."
"Oh yeah, me too." He didn't really.
"So, it was fun seeing you again, and not being trapped in an elevator this time. I always like talking about books with a knowing conversant." She smiled at him.
"Well, I don't normally get to prepare sub categorized lists for people who send me weird messages online. It was a fun change."
"Ah, see normally my first question on MatchedUp is asking guys what their favourite book is, and if they tell me something stupid or say they don't have one, I move on."
"What's your second question?"
"Usually if they smoke or not." Kevin laughed out loud at that.
"Well, I don't smoke. Never have, never will." She smiled in return, and they headed for the door. Outside, they split in two separate directions.
Overall, it wasn't the worst first date he'd ever had. If it was even actually a date. She never said one way or another, but she also didn't make any move to kiss him at the end. He was confused, but he headed home with a spring in his step.