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His answer comes after a few seconds.

D: Dinner.

One word again.

But not like good. This one feels like an invitation.

I stand on the sidewalk with my phone in my hand, people moving around me, and for a moment I forget where I am.

Dinner. With him. The man whose voice I heard in the dark last night. The man who still hasn’t given me his name. The man who somehow turned a wrong number into the only reason I passed today.

My sensible side rises up fast.

I don’t know him. I don’t know his full name. I have artificial insemination in two days. My life is already complicated.

I shouldn’t go to dinner with a stranger just because he knows anatomy and has a voice that did something unreasonable to my nervous system.

I type: Are you asking to meet?

D: Yes.

No hesitation. No softening. Just yes.

My pulse moves faster.

Me: That is probably a bad idea.

D: Probably.

I laugh once under my breath.

At least he doesn’t pretend otherwise.

Me: I don’t know your name.

D: You know I’m a doctor.

Me: Doctors can also be murderers.

D: Public place, then.

That helps. It shouldn’t make me like him more, but it does. He doesn’t argue with the reasonable boundary. He accepts it immediately.

Me: Public place. And I’m sending the address to my friend.

D: Good.

There’s that word again. This time it feels different. Less like approval, more like he expected me to be careful.

Me: You’re very calm about this.

D: I asked.

Me: That explains nothing.

D: It explains enough.

I look up from the phone. The city is still moving. Cars pass. Someone laughs near the entrance. Marco is arguing with another classmate near the steps. Everything around me is ordinary.