“This is Emma,” she said with a practiced smile. “Emma, Adam.”
Emma smiled politely.
“HI.”
“Hello,” I replied.
Mark then added:
“We thought you two might… you know… get along well.”
An eerie silence settled over the table.
That’s it.
It wasn’t a date.
It was a test.
Perhaps even a joke.
I didn’t know what reaction they expected from me. Embarrassment, perhaps. A forced laugh, perhaps. Or an excuse to leave.
Instead, I pulled up the chair next to Emma and sat down.
“Perfect,” I said. “I was hoping there would be at least one person here who hadn’t already heard the same three stories.”
Emma looked at me.
He really looked at me.
And for the first time that evening, he cracked a smile.
For the next few minutes, everyone tried to act as if it were a normal dinner.
They failed.
Conversations came and went between us, as if everyone was waiting for an embarrassing incident to occur.
Emma spoke calmly. An art teacher, she loved antique bookstores, hated coriander, and had a theory: you could tell a first date was going to be a disaster just by the way a man treated the waiter for the first ten minutes.
I burst out laughing, I really did.
And that seemed to bother Mark.
But the most tense moment came when Brad, one of the men sitting at the table, leaned back in his chair, smiled, and said:
“So, Adam… be honest. Is Emma your type?”
Everyone at the table froze.
Emma simply lowered her eyes.
And at that moment, everyone was waiting for my answer.
Thank you for following along. This is just an excerpt from the story; you can find the rest and the thrilling conclusion by clicking the link below. Don’t forget to like the post and leave a comment to let us know what you think.
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