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But driving with Gideon had been different than driving by herself, and while she was on the road alone, she had no choice but to replay every interaction she had had with him since yesterday.

They were going on that camping trip tomorrow.

She was obsessing about that. About him. And she didn’t stop, even as she pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant.

She got out and walked up toward the front, where she saw Mike standing at the end of the sidewalk. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he responded.

He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

It was warm because his skin was warm, but not for any other reason. When Gideon’s fingers had touched hers, it had been like a lightning bolt had gone off through her body.

This was just regular old ninety-eight point six meeting skin of the same temperature.

There was nothing deeper. Nothing that affected her beyond that simple contact.

It was all very weird.

She realized it was vaguely gross to have somebody’s mouth on your skin when they didn’t light you up inside.

If I said I was going to kiss you...

I would fucking kiss you.

“I thought I might get a hamburger. I mean, they look like they’re pretty good hamburgers. I checked the menu online.”

Wow. Way to convince the guy she wasn’t a weirdo.

“Well. I didn’t look.”

Check the menu online. How could anyone live with themselves going to a restaurant when they didn’t know what they would find? Maybe that was anxiety. But honestly, she just thought it was sensible.

“Well, what else did you think looked good?” he said, seeming to recover from the awkwardness of her introduction.

“The flatbread. The fried cauliflower as an appetizer. I like sweet potato fries.”

“Great.”

He didn’t sound like he thought it was great. He sounded a bit bored, actually.

They walked into the restaurant and were seated by their host. “So, real estate.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“How did you get into that?”

He started talking in way too much detail for her to ever retain any of the information, and honestly she was never going to care.

It was funny how she and Gideon could talk about anything and she felt like she cared a lot.

“And you’re moving to Boston?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

It was weird how distant that felt now. And it was closer. It was just that all of these things with Gideon had been looming large in her mind. This mission to become some sort of legend.

It somehow seemed a little bit smaller. Which was silly. Because it was the reason she was doing all this.