Page 24 of Alone With You in the Ether

He’d learned a particular expression on her face that she hadn’t made before.

“When you were talking about the painting, the Nocturne,” he clarified when she arched a brow, waiting. “I learned… something.”

She wasn’t impressed. “I don’t think it counts as learning it if you don’t know what you learned.”

“Well, I observed something that I suspect I’ll understand later. Maybe around conversation number four,” he guessed.

She watched him for a second, contemplating something, and then held out her hand.

“Give me your phone,” she said, and he dug it out of his pocket, settling it in her palm. She glanced down, shaking her head. “No password, huh?”

“Not too many secrets,” he said as she pulled up his contacts.

“Doubt that,” she murmured, and typed in what was ostensibly her phone number. “There,” she said, handing it back to him after calling the number she’d inputted. “This counts, by the way,” she added, glancing at him. He’d noticed that her expressions were more disarming the less thought she seemed to put into them, and this one was more reactionary than most. “This was conversation number two.”

“Right,” he said. That was fair. They’d both learned something, which met the necessary parameters.

“I don’t like surprises,” she told him. “I want to know about the next one in advance.”

That, too, was an understandable impulse.

“Why don’t you pick the next one?” he suggested.

She considered it.

“Tomorrow night,” she said. “Meet me outside? Around eight.”

He mentally rearranged his schedule, forming the usual points of mundanity around a new apex.

“Yes, I can do that,” he said, and she nodded, turning around.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, wandering away from him again.

“You really don’t like crowded places,do you?”Regan asked Aldo, watching him uncomfortably take a seat. He was wearing the usual black jeans with the worn leather jacket, which made slightly more sense now that they were in a cocktail bar in River North instead of the museum. He hadn’t brought his backpack, thankfully, but the curls of his hair were tousled and twisted in complete disarray, helmet-shaped. She guessed he’d ridden over immediately after a shower.

“I don’t love crowds,” he said, “but no one does.” He glanced around before picking up a menu. “What are you drinking?”

She typically liked to be a mirror of whoever she was with. “Not sure. What do you have in mind?”

She figured beer, maybe hard liquor. Or maybe he was the sort of Italian who exclusively drank negronis. “The bottle selection is better than the glasses,” he said, gesturing to the wine list. “Have any interest in splitting one?”

“What did you have in mind?”

He scanned the list, his gaze darting briefly to the side as someone passed his chair, and then he shifted closer to Regan, somewhat unsuccessfully. “The Barbera,” he said, passing the wine list towards her.

Red wine. Interesting.

“Sounds perfect,” she said.

“You’re lying,” he noted. “You prefer white?”

She did.

“The red is fine,” she said, and his mouth twitched slightly.

“We don’t have t-”

“It’s fine,” she repeated. “Besides, maybe I’ll learn something about you by drinking it.”

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