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She leans forward in her seat. “You have the strangest job.”
“I love it. It’s creative, and I get to solve problems. Kind of like your job?” I ask, hoping to bridge back to her talking about herself.
“Did you create Byron for your own use?”
I nod. “I really had no intention of donating it to your library.”
Jane’s shoulders slump, and she hides a frown behind her wine glass. “So why did you?”
“Honestly? One of the Board members heard about it and asked. I usually donate prototypes to university robotics departments, so I had no reason to say no. I truly had no idea what the outcome of that decision would be. You believe me, don’t you?”
She nods.
I reach across the table and take her hand in mine. “Let’s talk about something else. Something fun, like…” I study Jane’s face to see what topic would make her happy. “Do you like puzzles? Or do you play board games?”
“I love Scrabble. Kind of expected, I suppose. And word games like Balderdash. And Boggle. I am the town champion Boggle player.”
“I didn’t know there was a Boggle competition in Maple Valley. If I had, you’d be holding the silver medal.”
“In your dreams!”
If only she knew how much of my dreams have been occupied by all kinds of games with her. “How about going toe-to-toe with the self-awarded quote meister?”
She beams, “You want to challenge a librarian to a contest about books? Bring. It. On!”
For three hours, between bites of food and silences where I enjoyed just looking at her, Jane and I spar. But instead of hitting each other with boxing gloves, we throw literary punches, trying to outsmart each other with quotes or story references we don’t think the other would know. We don’t keep score—at least not on paper. And good thing, too, since she is definitely ahead when the waiter informs us the restaurant is closing.
“This was, without a doubt—well, aside from the awkward first five minutes—the best first date I’ve ever had,” I say with one hundred percent sincerity.
“Me, too.”
“My place for a nightcap?”
“You’re nothing like what I assumed,” she answers with a non-answer.
“A good thing, I hope.”
She thinks it over for several nerve-wracking seconds and settles on, “You’re full of surprises.”
Which is my cue. I pull out my phone for the first time since I picked her up four hours earlier. “I have a surprise for you.”
Her eyebrows and smile both rise.
“I assume you haven’t looked at your QuickStar profile?”
Jane shakes her head slowly and pulls her phone from her purse. “I deleted the app this morning. Why?”
I check my app and can’t quite hide my smile as she reinstalls it. Even in the dimly lit restaurant, I can see that her eyes go huge.
She starts swiping fast. “What did you do, Bryan? Why do I have half-a-million followers?”
She looks up, but instead of delight, I see terror in her eyes.
“They’re all there for Book Talk with Byron. I told my followers to check it out.”
She pulls open my profile and starts to read. “You told your followers I got fired? And that I needed cheering up? You told them to like my videos and leave comments?”
“Did it work?” I ask hopefully.
