Chapter 3: The Dinner

The weekend passed in a haze of thought, a blur of restlessness disguised as routine. I cleaned the house—twice. Not a surface went untouched. I rearranged the books on my shelf alphabetically, then by color, then by theme. I reorganized drawers that didn’t need organizing, wiped down windowsills that hadn’t gathered a speck of dust.

I went grocery shopping despite having plenty of food. Bought ingredients I didn’t need, told myself I’d try a new recipe. The salmon sat untouched in the fridge while I ordered takeout and stared blankly at the television. I opened my laptop intending to catch up on work, but the blinking cursor mocked me. I didn’t write a word.

Everything I did felt like staging. As if I were preparing for someone to walk into the room and notice how orderly, how composed, how ready I was.

But beneath the surface of everything ordinary, I was humming with anticipation.

Sean.

His name alone had become a kind of pulse in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about him—his voice, his smile, the way he looked at me like he already knew the answer to a question I hadn’t asked yet. There was something unnerving about that look. Like I was a puzzle he’d already solved and was just waiting for me to catch up.

Every detail from the week replayed like a loop: the curve of his lips as he said my name, the lazy elegance of his posture, the calculated pauses before he spoke. Even the humiliations—fetching food, carrying boxes, crouching to retrieve his pen—had shifted in my memory, reframed not as indignities but as offerings. Each one a brick in a path I hadn’t realized I was walking until I turned around and saw the road behind me.

I told myself I should feel used. That I should resent the power dynamic we had silently built. But I didn’t. What I felt was a deeper kind of ache—one rooted in longing, in the delicious uncertainty of not knowing what Sean would ask of me next. And Monday, that blank space he’d marked with only a time and place, had become a beacon. It glowed at the edges of my thoughts, soft and insistent.

By Sunday night, I’d changed outfits three times just to sit on the couch and watch a film I couldn’t focus on. Every scene bled into the next, none of it sticking. I was restless in my skin, pacing the apartment like a man preparing for something. I kept glancing at the clock, not because I had somewhere to be, but because I felt like I was waiting. Not for a time. For him.

I dreamt of him that night. Vague flashes. His hand on my shoulder. His voice close to my ear. I woke up with my heart pounding and a tension low in my belly that didn’t ease.

Monday arrived like a weight.

At the office, I could barely function. I answered emails with robotic brevity, attended two meetings and retained nothing. Sean was visible only in passing—across the floor, at the end of a hallway. He didn’t come by my desk. Didn’t email. Didn’t call.

And yet his absence was sharp. Intentional. I felt it like a shadow stretching across the day.

I found myself watching for him without meaning to. Listening for his voice in the copy room, catching myself standing too long by the espresso machine just to catch a glimpse of him walking past.

At one point, I opened the drawer where I kept his note. I didn’t need to read it again. I already knew the words. But I read them anyway. Slowly. Letting them sink in again.

Dinner and Drinks. Barberian’s. Monday After Work.

A simple line. But it had become a kind of countdown, ticking louder with each passing hour.

By 4:30, I was in the office washroom, adjusting my shirt, redoing the knot of my tie. I second-guessed whether I looked too formal, too casual, too eager. I applied cologne last-minute, hoping it wasn’t too strong. I was, in every sense, preparing—not just for dinner, but for something more.

Barberian’s was warm against the evening chill, all polished wood and low lighting, the clink of glasses and hum of quiet conversation lending the place a subtle air of confidence. I arrived a few minutes early, heart knocking a little too loud in my chest, palms dry from over-washing in the office washroom.

Sean was already there.

Seated near the back, he was angled slightly toward the entrance like he’d been expecting me. He wore a dark navy wool blazer over a charcoal turtleneck, sharp but effortless, a contrast to my own meticulous second-guessing. He didn’t smile—just inclined his head the slightest bit in acknowledgment, as though we were picking up a conversation paused moments ago.

He stood as I approached, not formally, just enough to level our gaze.

“Right on time,” he said, motioning toward the seat across from him.

“You said after work,” I replied, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

He smirked faintly. “So I did.”

The server appeared almost instantly, offering a wine list and confirming the reservation under Sean’s name. He waved her off gently.

“We’ll start with drinks.”

Sean ordered a sparkling water. I ordered wine. Pinot Noir, by reflex.

He leaned back in his chair, his movements economical but full of presence. “You seemed distracted at the office today.”

“Just a lot on my plate,” I said too quickly. Then added, “Mondays.”

“Mm,” he murmured, the sound noncommittal but knowing.

The server brought our drinks, and I took a quick sip—more for composure than thirst. He watched, of course. His eyes were unreadable, but his mouth curled slightly at the edges.

Something in my chest twisted. A flicker of vulnerability. I felt suddenly warm beneath my collar.

“You’re nervous,” he said, not unkindly.

I smiled, trying to pass it off. “I just wasn’t sure what tonight was about.”

He tilted his head. “Do you need it to be about something?”

That shut me up. My heart was doing its own choreography now, something fluttery and fast. I sipped again.

“You look nice,” I offered, almost stupidly. “I mean—it suits you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Thank you. And you look like you changed shirts three times.”

I laughed, caught. “Only twice.”

“Still. Cute.”

That word again. My stomach flipped. It hung in the air with a strange kind of weight. Sean was younger than me—by at least a decade, maybe more—but there was no irony in his tone. He said it like it was fact, like it amused him to acknowledge it out loud. Cute. No one had called me that in years, and certainly not someone like Sean—someone so confident, so composed, someone who seemed to command rooms just by walking into them. Coming from him, it didn’t feel patronizing. It felt disarming. Intimate. Like he’d peeled something back in me and decided it pleased him.

He asked about my weekend, and I stumbled through half-truths: errands, books I didn’t read, an attempt at cooking. He didn’t press. Just listened, that subtle smile lingering as though he already knew every detail I left out.

By the time I was finishing my second glass, I could feel the warmth curling in my chest. My nerves had softened around the edges, dulled slightly into something hazy and almost pleasant. I started speaking more than I intended to—longer answers to his simple questions, stories with too many details. Every time I laughed, it was a little louder than I meant. I felt his eyes on me, absorbing, appraising, saying very little in return.

I couldn’t tell if I was impressing him or simply amusing him.

My hand kept reaching for the wine glass. I wasn’t drinking to enjoy it—I was drinking because I didn’t know how else to hold myself together in his presence. The alcohol made me braver, but it also made me clumsier. My thoughts were beginning to slosh at the edges.

He asked me how long I’d been at the firm. I answered. He asked if I liked it. I told him too much. I started to say something about the culture, about the hours, about how the partners tended to hoard their files—and then stopped myself, realizing how far off track I’d wandered.

Sean didn’t interrupt. He just watched.

That made it worse. Or better.

I ordered a third glass without thinking.

“You have a habit of saying yes to me,” he said, out of nowhere.

I paused. “Do I?”

He nodded, slow. “It’s not a complaint. Just an observation.”

“Maybe you’re just good at asking.”

He considered that for a moment. Then: “Or maybe you’re just better at obeying than you think.”

His comment struck me, not just because of what he said but how bluntly he’d said it. The heat in my face had nothing to do with the wine.