The conversation flowed easily between them on the way to the restaurant. That had been a small concern for her. She worried that based on their gigantic age gap, they might not have much in common.
As they settled at their table and perused the menus, she finally mustered the courage to ask, “Talan, exactly how old are you?”
“Four hundred and eighty-six years sometime next month. We weren’t the best timekeepers back then,” he said, a smile pulling at his lips. “Is that an issue for you?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I’ve always liked older men.”
He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Oh, really?”
Feeling more lighthearted than she had in some time, she just laughed, nodded, and then took a sip of her water.
They both looked back to their menus until he asked, “Did you know what you’d like to order?”
“The ravioli,” she said.
He looked at the description and rather suspiciously said, “I don’t know how I feel about Gorgonzola and pear together. I think I’m sticking with the linguine di mare. Would you like to order some wine?”
She winced and said, “Sure. Wine’s not my forte, though. I leave it to you to choose.”
She realized he’d said nothing about actual nourishment for himself. Lilly could appreciate that he was willing to eat a meal with her, but it didn’t really benefit him to do so. She had seen a list of blood types under the beverage choices, and she certainly didn’t want him to think he couldn’t nourish himself. As he scanned the wine list, she asked, “I know that you’re going to have dinner with me, but are you planning on eating as well?”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that,” he said. “Would you be okay if I did?”
“Please,” she said. “I can’t expect you to starve yourself when I’m around. Besides, I already saw you drink the synthetic stuff the other day.”
“Fair enough,” he said, a mix of pleasure and relief on his face.
By the time dinner was done, Lilly was relaxed and genuinely enjoying her time with Talan. She had managed to shut off her brain. Between work and school, she was always thinking ahead. It wasn’t often that she could just be in the moment. This moment in particular, she realized as they walked into the sparsely crowded jazz club, was better than most. She took his hand while they
made their way back to one of the small booths tucked into the corner. When she felt the almost imperceptible squeeze he gave, she couldn’t help but smile.
Once they had settled in, sides pressed against one another in the back corner of the booth, they picked up the thread of conversation where it had stopped in the car. She had been talking about one of the papers she was in the process of writing for her psych class. It was about Freud’s theories on the psyche. He was incredibly insightful, but she supposed that would happen after four hundred plus years. As that thread of conversation died down, he asked the question she’d been dreading.
“The other night you mentioned that restaurant management was in your DNA?”
“My parents owned a small restaurant in Kansas where I grew up. There was never really a question as to what I’d do with my life. I had a lot of practical experience from when I was younger, and I’m good at it,” she said, hoping to stave off further questions about her family.
“They must be proud then,” he said.
“I’m sure they would be,” she said, deeply regretting the slip the other night that was prompting this line of questioning.
He must have seen that he’d hit a nerve because he said, “I’m sorry. We can talk about something else if you wish.”
Lilly took a deep breath. “I’d have to tell you eventually anyway. It’s a little heavy for first date stuff, but, here goes. My parents and my brothers were slaughtered by a group of rogue Transfigured when I was fourteen. They broke into our house. I was down in the basement raiding the fridge we kept down there. They must not have realized that I was in the house, or I probably would have ended up like them.”
Talan gazed at her for the longest time, as if he was searching her face for some idea of how he should respond. Finally, he said, “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible. Were they caught?”
“They were caught and put to death,” she said numbly. “Not that it really helped anything after the fact.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Talan finally broke it by stating the obvious. “I’m a little surprised that you’re here with me, based on what you just told me, Lilly.”
She gave him a small smile and said, “You’re difficult to say no to.”
He watched her with such sadness in his eyes that she reached out for his hand. It lay idly on the table, toying nervously with the edge of the napkin. She didn’t even think he realized he was doing it.
Talan immediately wove his fingers through hers and quietly said, “I hope you know that I would never hurt you, little one. I wouldn’t drink from you without permission. Certainly never like that. I promise you. They were monsters.”
When he called them monsters, he’d spoken with such censure and disgust that she could feel it coming off of him in waves. She hated that she’d cast such a dark cloud over the evening. She was careful to inject both humor and warmth into her voice when she said, “I know you’re not a monster, Talan. I wouldn’t be here with you if I thought you were. I’m not that hard up for a date, trust me.”