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I tell her that my mom knit it, and we talk about clothes while I settle myself on the tarp. It’s not quite the picnic blanket I was envisioning, but it works. And the fact that Miles brought it proves he’s invested in this date working out.

“You’re at U of T, right?” I ask her. “Miles goes to Toronto Metropolitan University. He’s studying planning. It’s such an interesting field. It’s like, planning neighborhoods and cities and stuff. What are you studying?”

Charlene tells us that she’s in her second year in a biology program and says she’s hoping to go to veterinary school in Guelph after.

Miles mentions that he has a cousin who goes there, and soon the conversation carries on about grad schools, career choices, and their impressions of their universities.

They have such an easy rapport that I may as well not even be here, which is fantastic .

I predict that Miles and Charlene will be in love in a month, and Miles will be so utterly enamored that he’ll be even more into romance than I am.

I wish Cara could see how well this is going.

I text her that it’s okay that she’s running late because the setup is going so perfectly that I’m thinking about escaping to let them be alone.

Cara writes back some kissing emojis, then says she and Hannah are still at dinner with Hannah’s friends but will be leaving soon.

I start taking the food out of my bag and laying it out on the tarp.

Miles looks at the containers as I put them in front of us. “I thought you were just bringing a snack. I figured chips or popcorn.”

I laugh. “I am so not a chips or popcorn kind of entertainer.” I clap when all the food is out. “There. I have bread from Mrs. Kotch’s, Havarti cheese, grapes, strawberries, vegan cookies, and dried dates. Oh, and lemonade!” I take a thermos and some clean metal cups out of my bag.

Charlene plucks a cube of cheese from the container. I thought she was vegan? “Havarti! That’s Agnes’s favorite!”

My eyes widen. Who’s Agnes? I glance at Miles, and he shrugs.

Charlene opens a zipper on her backpack, and I notice for the first time that it has a mesh front. “Come out, Agnes! Sana brought you cheese! No, not you, Roland. You like cheddar. Havarti is Agnes’s favorite.”

Um… I raise a brow. Who is Charlene talking to?

Agnes, it turns out, is a small white mouse, who sticks her head out of the backpack to get her cheese. I quickly close the containers of food. I didn’t do all that work to feed vermin .

“There’s a mouse in your bag?” Miles asks.

Charlene beams. “Three of them, actually! This is Agnes.” She picks up the small white mouse in her hand. It’s got red eyes, and honestly, the way it’s holding the cube of cheese is kind of cute. But no . I’m a cat person. Which makes me decidedly not on team mouse. “Inside are Roland and Albert.”

Miles looks at me with both eyebrows raised. And yeah, I agree with him. This is no longer a cute quirk. “I rescued them from a lab at school,” Charlene says. “I take them everywhere . See? They have a little house in my backpack. I even take them to class.”

“You don’t bring mice into LoveBug, do you?” I ask. That’s a health code violation. Julie and Ajit’s café could be shut down.

Charlene doesn’t answer that. “Look how cute Agnes is.” Charlene actually kisses the top of the head of the tiny mouse. The mouse doesn’t seem to care; she’s just focused on the cheese.

Miles suddenly points to the backpack. “Watch the other one!”

One of the other mice, Roland or Albert, climbs out of the zippered opening and stands on top of the bag.

It stares at the three of us for a moment, then scurries down the backpack and onto the tarp.

Charlene seems to want to reach out and try to stop it, but Agnes is still in her hands.

I can see the moment in her eyes where she considers which mouse means more to her, Agnes or whoever the runaway mouse is.

She decides on Agnes and clutches the little Havarti-eating vermin tightly to her chest. Miles reaches out to grab the runaway mouse, but it’s too fast for him.

It scurries off the tarp and onto the grass.

“Roland!” Charlene calls out. “Get him!”

I most definitely do not try to get the mouse. Honestly, it’s taking everything in me not to stand and scream like a 1950s housewife. Why did this girl bring three mice with her on a date ?

As Miles and I watch the small white mouse run down the hill, Charlene finally gets Agnes secured in the bag with Albert, then hurries down the hill, weaving between picnickers and sunset watchers.

“Roland!” she yells. “Rolly! Come back, Roland!” She asks people sitting on the hill if they’ve seen a white mouse.

Miles looks at me. “Should we help her?”

I mean, probably ? If we were at a park with a friend who lost their pet dog, I would help them. The fact that the pet is a mouse shouldn’t change anything, should it?

I sigh, then stand. Pointing to Charlene’s backpack, I tell Miles, “Keep an eye on Agnes and Albert.” I feel ridiculous but call out for Roland as I head down the hill.

“Did you see a small white mouse come this way?” I ask a couple on a pink blanket. The girl shakes her head while the guy looks at me, horrified that I would even ask. Dude, I know .

I keep asking people if they’ve seen Roland as I follow Charlene down the hill. Many people look at me like I’ve lost my mind. At least one person squeals and jumps when I say the word mouse. But most just shake their head.

Once I’m at the bottom of the hill, I turn and ask people on my way back up the hill.

After I ask a cute couple sitting near our tarp if they’ve seen a white mouse, one of the men points to the other, who is taking a picture of something on the edge of their picnic blanket.

It’s Roland. He’s eating a small piece of what looks like cheddar cheese.

“Charlene! The mouse is here!” I yell out. Everyone looks at me. Charlene, who is several meters away, yells, “Grab him!”

Oh God, I’m going to have to touch the thing. I wince… reaching out. It’s fine , I tell myself. It’s like a cat, but smaller. It’s just a pet—it doesn’t carry the plague. But… it was from a biology lab. Maybe it carries… I don’t know. Experimental diseases.

Just as I’m crouching down to grab Roland, a green plastic berry basket lowers on top of him, trapping the mouse with his chunk of cheddar.

It’s Miles who trapped the mouse. “I dumped the strawberries in with the cheese,” he explains.

The two men whose blanket we’re invading clap with glee. “The mouse is trapped!” one of them announces loudly. Which makes many others on the hill clap along with them. Presumably the people who had the heebie-jeebies about the fact that there was a mouse on the loose.

I look at Miles, wincing. This is ridiculous. This date might be an even bigger disaster than the last one.

But Miles’s face isn’t showing anger, like after the fish incident. Or annoyance. Or even his usual smugness. His whole face has transformed into the biggest smile. And then he bows with a huge flourish as everyone cheers that he caught the runaway mouse.

I laugh. Disaster date aside, I managed to make Miles Desai enjoy himself.