Clara anxiously anticipated clock to strike nine. She couldn't focus on her work as his words were echoing in her head the rest of the day: 'See you at closing time.' This distraction resulted in three wrong drink orders and being shouted at by Mr. Blake. When the time came, she hurriedly got out of her smock and hat. She walked out the door, turned the corner, and promptly ran into a tall person walking in the opposite direction as her.

"Oh, sorry! I didn't see you there." She looked up and saw Alex grinning at her. "Alex! Hey! What are you doing here?"

"I'm here for our date, I thought I made that pretty clear." He was wearing a green overcoat and his hair looked like it had actually been combed. Clara laughed. "My boss isn't here, Alex, you don't have to pretend."

"Oh, I'm not pretending. I want to take you out on a date. Preferably right now." The look in his eyes told Clara he wasn't joking.

"Okay, um, where did you have in mind?" She could feel the color rising in her cheeks.

"Well, I thought we could just walk until we found a really grungy place and then skip over that. Then we could keep walking until we found a place that looks relatively clean." He grabbed her hand and pulled on it to get her walking with him. After they had walked for maybe ten minutes, he leaned over and whispered in Clara's ear, "You smell like really strong coffee."

She giggled. "Occupational hazard." They continued to walk until they reached a small park, which was abandoned due to the late hour. He left her to run over to a swingset with two swings and motioned for her to sit in the one beside him. She walked skeptically towards him and sat down.

"Do you like the stars?" He asked.

"Sure. They're pretty, I guess." Honestly, she had no opinion on them.

"They're just fascinating. Big balls of fiery gas suspended in nothing. Sustaining life for thousands of years before they finally die." Clara just sat looking at him while his eyes twinkled with the very subject he was talking about. "They look so small to us but they are gigantic in actual size. Millions of degrees Fahrenheit. The universe is incredible."

The air was still and quiet. Clara looked up and tried to see what he was seeing. After a while she timidly said, "It's always been my dream to travel the world. My mom passed down a book to me, 101 Places to See, and I want to visit all of them before I get too old and have to pass it on to my daughter. 101 places to see and I've never left home for more than a week, let alone left the country." She sighed sadly and looked down at her dust-covered shoes.

He turned to look at her. "Hey. That's okay. I wanted to be an astronomer but my dad insisted that I get a real job, so I entered the Psychology program. I'm a clinical psychologist now, but I always look to the stars and think about what might have been."

Clara decided to lighten the mood. "A psychologist, huh? Have you just been analyzing me for some experiment? What would Dr. Freud say about my habits?"

He laughed as he started to swing. "Well, I've only been observing you for about a day and I can tell already that you have a pretty sane mind." His long legs pumped as he propelled himself higher and higher. Soon, he was flying so high, it seemed as if he would touch the stars he loved so very much. Clara was swinging too, just not nearly as high as he was. Slowly, they stopped swinging. "Why don't we get out of here?" Alex said. He offered his hand, which Clara gladly took, and they walked away from the swings, away from the park, away from the road, until they finally made it to Clara's apartment.

"This is my stop," she said quietly. She walked up her stoop to unlock her door when she felt Alex behind her. She looked up at him and turned around, waiting for something to happen.

"I had a really nice time tonight. Thanks for swinging with me." He said this with the smallest smile she had ever seen. Clara looked down at her feet, then back up at Alex's face, got on her tippy toes, and gave him a gentle kiss. It was awkward because her lips just barely made it to his. She unlocked the door and motioned for him to come inside. They walked up the several flights of stairs that lead to her apartment, she unlocked that door, and they were inside.

"Whoa, so this is where you live." He was looking at the fairy lights she has strung up around the apartment and her various holiday decorations.

"Yeah, you can take a seat if you like. Do you want any food? Maybe some… coffee?" She asked.

"Sure, I'll take some cereal and coffee, please." He sat down on her couch. Clara poured the Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch and coffee and sat next to him.

"Cap'n Crunch?" He laughed.

"Yeah, it's all I really have right now. I haven't gone grocery shopping in a while. I've been working long hours the past couple days." She elbowed him lightly in the ribs. He smirked as he shoved a huge spoonful of cereal in his mouth, then took a sip of coffee. "Wow! I guess that's one of the perks of dating a barista, the amazing coffee 24/7."

Clara froze. Were they dating? For real? She had kissed him and he was sitting in her house right now eating her food. Alex turned to look at her and he had huge chipmunk cheeks full of cereal. She laughed and decided that they were dating. Why else would he be acting this stupid? Clara waited until he chewed the mass of cereal in his mouth before leaning over to give him another kiss. One kiss turned into two and two into three and three into four. Soon, they were lying horizontally on the couch.

She broke free to whisper, "I'm really glad you walked into the wrong shop," and continued to kiss this man she just met, but felt as if she had known him for years.