In the car…
"So Robert, where are we going anyway?"
"Well, it's a secret."
"Hey, I am serious about being hungry. You're not planning anything too exotic are you?"
"Planning? How could I have possibly planned anything tonight? Perhaps you forgot, I've just been along for the ride tonight."
"It looks like your driving?"
"Figuratively, that is. You're not really allowing for me to sweep you off your feet, with the whole showing up on my doorstep… or rather in my basement today."
She had to admit, it was probably a lot to deal with today. I mean he had just lost his arm yesterday. And here she was spending hours with him in his home, and them having him take her out to dinner… uninvited. No wait. She did invite him. Only he said "no." Elizabeth looked down and started fidgeting with her hands.
Sensing her insecurity he boasted, "I can handle it though. It may be a challenge to impresses the likes of you on short notice, but I have my ways."
They pulled into a dark parking space next to a concrete building with chucks of painted wall missing. "We're here," he announced pleasantly.
"You're kidding right?" She made no sign of getting out of her seat. "Robert, if these are your planned ways of impressing woman. Well I…" she stammered, confused, "well, actually, it makes a lot of sense to me why you are so… uptight all of the time."
He leaned over and undid her seatbelt. "For that, I ought to leave you out here. You have no idea what you are about to see."
And that, for once, was the complete truth. Robert led her into a stark, white, empty restaurant with harsh, overhead, fluorescent lighting. He was holding her hand casually but once they entered, she grabbed a hold of his arm with her other hand. Curling up to him she whispered, "Where are we?"
"Come on scaredy… let's have a seat."
As they took their seats an Asian woman seemed to appear out of nowhere and filled their glasses with water. Through broken English she asked Romano if he wanted two of his "u-ural." He nodded, and she disappeared again into the undecorated white walls that surrounded them.
Seeing Elizabeth's nervousness across the table, he reached out and touched her hand. "Hey, I took a risk."
"Yeah apparently, so did I."
"Oh Lizzie, don't be so judgmental."
She looked up at him and smirked, "my, how the tables have turned." She smiled relaxing a bit.
He took that as a good sign. "Well Lizzie, it's Vietnamese. It's a delicate balance of Chinese, Korean, and Thai. And if you don't think that this is the best meal you have ever had…" he smiled, "after lasagna ala pavement that is. Then I am afraid we are just too incompatible."
"Incompatible?" she questioned, taking in the weight of the word.
"Well yeah. If you don't love this, you must have damage to your cerebrum. And I do have my standards in the woman I'm dating, Lizzie. I'm more of a pre-lobotomy kind of a guy."
"The woman you're dating?" she smiled at him with questioning eyebrows. "Aren't you getting a bit ahead of yourself here?"
"Yeah, well you never know. You play your cards right tonight missy, and I just might have an opening for you."
"Well wouldn't that just be a dream come true," she answered dripping with sarcasm.
She smiled warmly at him. Through their twisted word play they both knew that he had asked her to trust him… and that she had said, "yes."