This was a bad idea, Stan thinks as he languishes in the driver’s seat. The neon sign above the lot sporadically flickers red light through the windows of his parked car,  as some of its letters struggle to stay lit. This was an extremely bad idea.

From his vantage point, he can see you sitting in the booth at one of the windows, illuminated by the warm overhead light inside. You are scrolling idly on your phone, cheek pillowed in one hand while balancing an elbow on the tabletop, mindlessly chewing on your bottom lip. It is abundantly clear to anyone else who sees you that you are biding your time until someone joins you.

Until he joins you.

You look… nice. Stan struggles to find another word for it. Well, you always look nice, this is just a different brand of nice — not necessarily nicer but definitely easy on the eyes in a new way. Even from this distance, he can see you’ve done your hair differently, lounging with a bored expression in a well-fitted set of clothes, distinct from the uniform he usually sees you in. The fact you aren’t currently under the stressors of your job gives you a newfound, alluring glow.

All in all, the sight trips him up.

This was an awful idea.

Stan can masquerade behind sly smiles and loud laughter all he wants, but he knows in his heart of hearts that he is going to fuck this up, in one way or another — it’s his primary talent, after all. Whatever deity had taken mercy on him and decided to piece his family back together is long gone. Flown the coop. And it’s not like he’s particularly rich in happily-ever-after points to start dolling out when it comes to romance.

Sitting here, watching you, he feels like an idiot that he ever thought otherwise.

His fears now fully rationalized, Stan fumbles to jam the keys back into the ignition to throw the car in reverse. He is, after all, reliably famous for running away from his problems, and he can probably spend the next twenty-to-thirty years avoiding you completely if it means saving face.

But fate has other plans: just as he manages it, you raise your eyes from your phone to look out the window and then perk up, clearly having spotted him. Or, at least spotted his car.

Damn him for having such a hot rod.

Stupidly, stupidly, he just sits there, staring at you. Your warm smile falters after a few endless seconds and then you raise your hand in a small, hesitant half-wave, like you aren’t entirely sure it is him.

Against all greater logic, he waves back, equally hesitant, before he can even think better of the move.

Well, fuck.

Showtime.

The door catches on a soft bell as he enters, the chime soft and unobtrusive to announce his presence. The diner is hardly half-full, stocked almost entirely by indistinguishable customers hunched uncaringly on dingy stools over the U-shaped bar attached to the wall to his left, all intent on minding their own business. The serving window shows off a smidge of kitchen, gated behind the bar, a thick smell of coffee masking stale air. The booths that line the walls have lost most of their color, in a gradient from whichever side has seen the most sun — you’re sitting straight ahead, near the back, facing the door.

All in all, the place is a prototypical diner, fit with a poor paint job and tacky movie posters of half-naked women.

“Hey,” you greet once he’s close enough, your tentative smile still in place.

“Hey, yourself,” Stan replies, unnecessarily gruff, sliding into the booth across from you. It’s a tighter fit than he expects — he’s girdleless for this outing and, from this moment alone, he is beginning to regret going without it.

“I was starting to get worried,” you tell him, hands fidgeting with restless energy, tilting your head to the side slightly. “Thought maybe you’d gotten lost?”

“Yeah, well.” He flips through a myriad of excuses to give you; the truth is just plain embarrassing. I had to fend Mabel off for the better part of an hour so she wouldn’t dress me up like some knock-off Ken doll with a beer gut. The last thing he needs you to know is just how many times he went between two near-identical shirts while his niece tried to bust down his bedroom door with a homemade battering ram.

For the record, he thinks what he settled on is one of his better outfits. A plain blue button up with no pattern, with a few buttons tastefully undone just to prove how casual of a guy he is. Gold chain, obviously — he’s hardly the same man without it. A pair of jeans that had seen the washer recently enough. He hasn’t had the time to get to a barbershop since getting back on land for the summer, so he’s pulled his longer hair back in a loose ponytail to keep it off his shoulders.

It gives him a relaxed summertime vibe. Carefree, of a sort.

… Hopefully.

The response he eventually lands on is: “This place is farther from town than I thought.”

“Yeah.” You agree with a small nod, slouching slightly against the back in your seat as if you just got caught in some sort of scheme. “Sorry. I just thought…” You chew on your bottom lip, a habit he’s noticed over time, eyes cast down to the peeling plastic of the table. “I hear this is where cherry pies go when they die.”

“… What?” he asks belatedly, having only half-heard your statement while staring at your mouth. When he finally looks up, you’re giving him a deer-in-the-headlights kind of stare.

Your mouth flattens into a straight line when you realize your joke didn’t land, breaking the brief moment of eye contact to look away again, this time out the streaky window to your left. Your shoulders start to reach for your ears, feeling foolish. “Um… ‘cause the cherry pie here is really good? It’s like heaven?”

“O-oh.” Stan rubs the back of his neck, his own face feeling like someone is forcefully holding it over an open flame. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

The conversation peters out there — if one could even label that exchange a conversation — and you begin to fidget again, leg bouncing hard enough that he feels the small tremors through the table. The bell rings again to announce another set of patrons entering; his back is to the door, but your eyes are immediately drawn by the noise.

The silence affords him time to scour the environment, trying to find something to talk about. Most of what is left in the dessert case is merely crumbs, the jukebox has an OUT OF ORDER sign on it that looks like it’s collected a healthy amount of dust, and, Christ, he’s down to looking at the scuffs of the laminate tile floor trying to find something even vaguely interesting.

The problem is, every other time he’s talked to you, it has always been under some kind of time crunch. Either you’re going somewhere, or he’s going somewhere, or you’re behind the counter working, or he’s being hounded by two teens to get his ass moving, or…

The point is, now, with a true excess of time to fill, he’s floundering. Fish out of water type shit. Stanley Pines doesn’t do casual dates these days — he hardly did casual dates before he took up the mantle of Mr. Mystery, and has hardly had the time since. Claiming he’s out of practice is a thin excuse; he’s never had it in the first place. A steamy flirtation at a seedy, smoky bar and an adequate one-night stand where he sneaks out before the sun rises, that’s his M.O.

But, he can’t do that with you. You live in town. People know you. Even with the impending threat of having to see you again next time he’s on grocery duty, the last thing he wants to do is give you some kind of reputation for having been guileless enough to fall for his sleazy charms.

He is so caught up in all this damn thinking that he only realizes the new customers are nearby when they settle in the booth behind him, with little care to be quiet, the plastic covers squeaky sharply as they are compressed. He frowns a little, not liking the idea of someone being able to overhear the two of you. That is, if there ever manages to be anything to overhear…

Then, you ask: “How’s the family?”

“Huh?” Oh, right, he has one of those. “Those schmucks? They’re fine.”

Behind him, he thinks he hears someone mutter, offended, “Schmucks?”

“Just fine?” you prompt, eyebrows raising with a slight curiosity.

“They’re good,” Stan amends, not sure why you want more information. Isn’t this date supposed to be with him? Who cares how his family is? “Great. Spectacular.”

“What have they been up to, this summer? I’ve hardly seen any of them around, compared to the usual.”

They’re up to no good, is what they are. “We’re, uh, we’re teachin’ the kids to drive,” he tells you, sounding just as put-out about the idea as it makes him feel. Every time one of those two menaces is behind the wheel, he internally waxes a sentimental obituary for the Stanmobile. Not that their teachers are shining examples of following road safety laws, but he’s hardly going to shell out the cash for a legit driving instructor.

When he does not continue on this topic, you ask awkwardly, “And that’s going… well…?”

He grunts, crossing his arms, only serving to make his seat a tighter fit. “It’s going fine.”

“Just fine? Not spectacular?”

The corners of your mouth twitch at your teasing, eyes bright, but the last thing Stan wants to do is talk about the ongoing efforts to keep the kids from careening off the road. If he wasn’t already gray, it would be making him go gray, at an admirably exponential rate.

The problem, then, is… Stan isn’t quite sure what he should be talking to you about.

Since he clearly turned his nose up at the last conversation topic, it’s his turn to pick up the slack. But as he inhales, he hears the foretelling of a server from the click of heels on cheap laminate. The person materializes a second later, in typical diner attire: a baby blue dress with a white cut collar, a stained apron tied around her waist. She’s the shining example of a seasoned waitress, with kind crows feet, a well-practiced smile, and dark blonde hair curling effortlessly over her shoulders.

“Hey, you two,” she greets with a casual familiarity past the veneer of the usual service worker-type cheer. She sets down two cheap plastic cups full of iced water on the table.

“Hey, Norma,” you reply with a poorly hidden sigh of relief, visibly relaxing against the rubbery back of the booth.

“What can I getcha this evening?”

You rattle off an order with an ease that catches him off-guard. Stan has hardly looked at the peeling laminated menu sitting in front of him — truthfully, he had forgotten it was there entirely. He’d been too busy floundering in conversational waters to remember the point of a diner is to, well, eat. The point of a date however, is —

The waitress, Norma, scribbles on her pad, then turns to him. “And you, hun?”

Out of habit, he gives her a quick once over, and then realizes she isn’t sporting any kind of name tag. You must have been here before — enough times that you are on a first-name basis with the servers. Maybe Norma had known you were coming here, tonight. Maybe she knew it was a date. Maybe you’d even briefed her on who he is.

His nerves that have already been using his bones as a xylophone kicks the tempo up a notch.

Stan glances down at the menu and orders the first thing he lays eyes on, and only belatedly realizes that cheesy scrambled eggs this late in the day sounds awful. He hardly has an appetite right now, let alone for greasy breakfast food. Not that he has any moral objection to a night breakfast. It just doesn’t sound that appetizing right now.

Actually, nothing sounds very appetizing right now.

Unaware of his inner turmoil, or at least polite enough not to comment on it if it’s apparent, Norma just jots it down. She clicks her pen three times in quick succession and chirps, “Coming right up!” before turning on a heel and making her way towards the kitchen, flipping up a section of the counter to get there.

“So, you’re a breakfast-all-day kinda guy?” you ask curiously.

Yes. Sometimes. Not right now. “Yeah,” he answers lamely. “I mean. When the mood strikes.”

Behind him, he hears some frantic whispering, and only manages to catch a word or two: “Why is he…” and “loves breakfast foods…” and “totally blowing it!”

Stan strong-arms himself into ignoring it, despite the dawning horror of realization he is now experiencing. “What, uh, what about your order?” he asks, continuing with his conversation-topic floundering streak.

At his back, someone whispers, almost offended: “Talk about anything else, stupid!”

“Oh, I dunno.” You fold your hands atop the table, then seem to think better of it and pull them back down, then decide you actually want a sip of water. “Can’t go wrong with a burger and fries, right?”

As Stan says, “Yeah, I guess…” he hears the sharp sound of Norma’s heels again.

He expects her to be following through on her promise of coming right up! but instead stops at the booth behind him and asks, just as friendly but hardly as cheery as before, “What can I getcha folks?”

“Chocolate chip pancakes,” a bright and unmistaken voice answers. “Extra extra chocolate chips.”

“Mabel,” another familiar teenage voice hisses. “Keep it down!”

“Oh, right!” Mabel then stage-whispers, somehow the exact same volume as before, “Chocolate chip pancakes; extra extra chocolate chips.”

The bone-rattling nerves Stan has been experiencing transforms, rather rapidly, into sheer dread. It sinks deep in his stomach, like lead, taking whatever possibility of this date going well down with it.

You glance over his shoulder briefly, and then, to his absolute mortification, bite back a smile as you turn your eyes back to him with a knowing look.

Stan levels his elbows wide on the table and buries his head in his hands, pushing his glasses up his forehead.

The minutes pass by tortuously from there, as you clearly try to lead him gently through any kind of mediocre small talk, not unlike how one might handle a skittish horse from an inspirational derby movie. Although he mostly feels like the horse in a very sad inspirational derby movie: one where the horse still doesn’t make it to the podium, despite all the hopes and dreams of its upstart teen-girl owner. Maybe even one where the horse is ‘sent to a farm upstate’ at the end, to pull the wool over the eyes of the young-but-hopeful teen-girl owner that her precious pet was actually taken out back, and the act was done mercifully.

He wishes someone would send him to a farm upstate, right about now.

“So,” you try for the fourth (or maybe fifth?) time. “How was being on the boat this time around?”

“Fine,” he answers gruffly, arms crossed over his chest so tightly it is starting to restrict his breathing, while sitting ramrod straight. He doesn’t want to say anything further that will spark another round of hushed criticism from his audience. “Just, y’know. The usual.”

“What’s the usual?” you ask, swirling the ice in your glass, having the decency to at least try looking interested in what he is saying.

“Spendin’ most of the time trying not to throw each other overboard,” Stan answers through his teeth, wishing he could throw a certain set of someones overboard right about now.

Behind him, he hears a very recognizable and very condescending scoff.

The worst part is, Stan can tell he’s losing you the longer this drags on. Every answer he gives has its own running commentary from the fucking peanut gallery at his back, which you can obviously hear because no one in the Pines family has ever been good at whispering, and it’s harshing his vibe. Shooting dead every possible topic — not even with the grace to send the topics to a farm upstate. Rather than an intimate date between the two of you, it has become a conversation between five people, one where Stan is vastly outnumbered.

Your expressions have gone from amused to sympathetic to resigned in a matter of minutes.

He knows he’s officially lost you when you abruptly say, “I’ll be right back,” while swiftly scooting out of the booth and presumably heading towards the bathrooms. As a consolation prize, he admires your ass as you walk away, tuning out the new round of hushed, overlapping words at his back.

He assumes you are about to make some kind of dine-and-dash escape effort, maybe out a window if you have to. As indignant as he is at the thought of being left with two full plates of yet-to-be delivered food and, more importantly, the bill, he can’t exactly fault you for it. Maybe this is you pulling the wool over his eyes, before taking him out back and making it merciful.

Stan likes you — a lot. He likes looking at you, he likes talking to you, he likes that you actively fight off smiles at his cheesy pickup lines and he likes that you give as good as you can get. He likes that he can sometimes persuade you into punching in fake coupon codes behind the counter to give him a discount as petty as thirty cents. He likes that you humor the kids when their shenanigans cross your path, and he likes that you are generally-wary-but-ultimately-unbothered by Ford acting as his inscrutable shadow most of the time.

He originally thought he liked the idea that you even gave this date a chance, especially since asking you had been entirely unplanned. The words had spilled out of his mouth like gross word vomit on his most recent visit while he was buying Mabel’s sugary cereal of the week. 

Now, he’s not so sure about all that. Maybe everything between you two is just surface level. Maybe it always has been. Maybe you act that way with every customer. Maybe you’re just humoring him for a free meal. His confidence has sustained some heavy bruising and he’d rather go home and lick his wounds before letting this drag out even more.

Before he can wallow any further, you slide back into the booth with something in hand.

“I —” he starts, unsure what he is about to say but knowing he needs to say something, but you raise your finger to your lips in a universal gesture. So he shuts up.

Once settled, you gingerly place a waiter’s wallet pad on the table, procure a pen from thin air, then scribble something on it. It makes a soft ssshhhwww noise as you slide it across the table.

Your handwriting isn’t stellar but it’s at least legible: Wanna get out of here?

Stan blinks at it a few times, stomach doing somersaults and convinced he is hallucinating… but then he glances up at you.

You make a clear show of looking behind his shoulder again with a nod of your head, then back to him. You shrug.

He shrugs back.

Maybe you’re being generous and giving you both the chance to dine-and-dash.

Stan knew he liked you for a reason.

His hope, still bruised, starts creeping back. Deciding to hand over the reins, he nods with a resolute expression.

You reach forward and snatch the pad back, flipping to a new page. You quickly write something else down.

This time, he has the initiative to take it back from you.

Follow my lead.

“Where the hell is our food?” you ask aloud, and Stan admires just how genuinely peeved you sound. “Usually doesn’t take this long.”

“Let me check on it,” he replies smoothly, with a wink.

“Yeah, you do that,” you say, sounding sour, even as you wink back. “I’m gonna go for a smoke break real quick.”

He scoots out and reaches the curve of the counter as the chime announces your exit. He doesn’t even have to wave down Norma, who is punching something into the register at its crest; when she hears the bell, she glances up and spots him. There is a coy look in her eye when she approaches him.

Before he can get a word in to tell her that, sorry, they’re actually headed out, no need for the food — intending to lay it on thick, in case he ever wants to return to this place — she pulls a brown paper bag from under the counter, sliding it to him.

“Already paid for,” she tells him, with her own wink.

Damn. You paid for dinner and got the staff in our your escape? You’re more of a fucking catch than he thought.

“Is that all, hun?” Norma prompts as he continues to stare at the to-go bag.

Even knowing he’s on a bit of a time crunch, Stan eyes what is left in the paltry dessert display case as he reaches for his wallet.

You are leaning against the passenger-side door of the Stanmobile when he emerges a few moments later, glancing up when you hear the bell go off. Once he is within hearing range, you grin a familiar grin, putting him more at ease than he has been the rest of the evening. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Even though he is carrying two peoples’ worth of food, and is in the middle of fishing his keys from his pocket, and you have just expressed wanting to leave with him, Stan still stammers through asking, “Are you sure, um, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t think…?”

“Stan,” you say, with no real urgency. “Your family’s just spotted us.”

That kicks his ass into gear.

He is cruising down the highway in record time, white-knuckling the steer wheel while he waits for his heart to return to its normal beats-per-minute while you take the liberty to crank down the window to enjoy the summer breeze. It whips fiercely while the scenery flies by in one great green blur, stark against the smeared pink hues of the sky. He has to raise his voice to say, “Guess I should be saying thanks, huh?”

“Aw, don’t mention it,” you reply, readjusting in your seat to get more comfortable with the bagged food in your lap. “You seemed…” You trail off to chew on your words, then clear your throat and try again. “I wouldn’t want my family eavesdropping on my date either, y’know?”

“Absolute menaces,” he mutters under his breath, which you apparently manage to catch through the buffeting wind, because you chortle. Louder, he asks, “So, where should I drop ya’?”

You glance at him, eyebrows pinched, and ask, “What do you mean?”

“Like, should I take you back home, do you have somewhere else you wanna be, or…”

“I don’t —” Your mouth snaps shut, eyes widening. “I didn’t realizes, um…” You start to shrink back into your seat. “I guess, I just figured, uh, I mean, if you’re saying the date is already over…”

His heart picks up the pace again, solid like a drumbeat, at hearing the sullen tone of your voice at that prospect. Trying to keep his cool, eyes still on the road flying under his headlights as the twilight sets in, he gives you a one-shouldered shrug. “Doesn’t have to be, if you don’t want it to be. Over, I mean.”

“I… I don’t want it to be over,” you confirm quietly, although it is hard to hear your exact tone through the roar outside the open window. “But if you do, then I won’t stop you…”

Stan shakes his head so violently he almost gives himself whiplash. “Never said that.”

“Cool. Good. Great.” You fidget while you speak, eyes on your lap while you finger the edges of the seatbelt.

Still, that doesn’t answer his question. “But, where do ya’ wanna go?”

You shrug, lifting your head to look out the windshield. “Where’s the last place you think your family will look?”

At the mention of said family, who are probably on the search this very moment, he checks the rearview mirror for the millionth time to make sure he isn’t being followed. To his immense relief, his car seems to be the only one on this stretch of highway. “You planning on murdering me or something?” he asks, throwing you a cheeky grin. It feels like the first normal thing he’s said all evening.

You laugh with a newfound, relieved ease, sticking your hand out the window, letting it surf the wind. “Or something.”

Despite the sun having sunk behind the tree line when Stan finally pulls into the parking lot of one of the local parks, the evening summer air has hardly cooled. It remains oppressively muggy and uncomfortably warm, sticking to his skin as even the occasional breeze hardly offers any relief.

The trees cast long shadows across the space, filled with splintering picnic tables and bouts of random litter and a playground — thankfully — not in use. That’s been marked by various, rebellious teens, random pieces of equipment tagged with graffiti and a few crushed cans rolling lazily in the ebbing breeze. There is even a takeout box or two, upturned or on their sides, from others who have had similar ideas of how to use the space. Still, the place is otherwise devoid of human life.

He doesn’t need it to be on par with a five-star joint; he just needs it to be good enough.

“This place okay?” he asks, perhaps redundantly for having already exited the car.

“Yeah,” you assure, surveying the scene. “It’s great.”

The table you both settle at is obviously aged, the wood already crumbling from years and years of being exposed to rainfall; he has to readjust on his side of the bench a few times before finding a spot that doesn’t leave something sharp poking his ass. Whether you have the same problem is hard to tell, as you immediately start doling out the cheap styrofoam boxes, briefly flipping open each lid to see which is —

“Oh!” you gasp, surprised. “You got pie.”

Stan aims for nonchalant as he says, “Yeah. Heard it was pretty damn good,” but he ends up left field of it entirely, instead sounding like he had practiced the line in the mirror a thousand times before. 

When you smile at him, eyes sparkling in the waning sunlight, he has to look away before he says something stupid. Instead, he focuses on the sole piece of cherry pie in the styrofoam container. The crimson filling has lost its shape and it gives the slice a sad kind of slouch.

It had looked better in the display case.

“There was only one piece left, though,” he says. “Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” you reassure. “I don’t mind sharing.”

Next, it’s his turn to be surprised as you pull two sweating cans of Pitt Cola from the bag, reaching across the table to place one in front of him.

Stan gawks at it slightly. “How’d you know?”

“You buy it from the store by the pack,” you laugh lightly. “How could I not?”

He grunts, the tab puncturing the top with a sharp crack! as he opens it. “I guess I do,” he mutters, feeling red in the face.

While the atmosphere is certainly much more lax than before, he still feels the obvious threat of awkward silence; it hangs overhead as you both begin to dig into your food. Well, you do — Stan picks at his eggs with poorly-disguised disinterest, still hardly having an appetite.

Damn his nerves.

So, he asks, apropos of nothing: “You go there often?”

Of course, you have just taken a large bite. “Mmph?”

“The diner,” he clarifies. “You seemed pretty familiar.”

You swallow. “Oh. Yeah, I guess,” you say simply. “Well, Norma buys some of her stuff form us, sometimes. Likes to stick around and chat; she’s real nice.”

“Nice enough to let you bounce like that?”

You laugh again, which makes him smile, easing some of the tension in his shoulders. “Oh, yeah, I borrowed her pad and pen for that, too. She’s seen her fair share of horrible first dates,” you say. “I’m sure it’s par for the course.”

Some kind of expression must cross his face when you say horrible — disappointment, maybe? — because you scramble to rectify, “Not that that was horrible. Or, I mean, it kind of was, but that’s not a reflection on the date. It’s just the circumstance the date existed in. Erm…” You shake your head, scrunching your nose. “Sorry. I’m making it worse, aren’t I?”

“It’s fine,” Stan tells you, trying to sound impartial despite the feeling of something strangling his heart in his chest. “You can say it was horrible.”

“It wasn’t horrible,” you insist, leaning forward a little, reaching across and putting your hand atop his, the one lazily holding a fork. He startles at the contact, surprised, but you seem unaffected. “I would’ve stuck it out,” you tell him, emphatically, before pulling back. “You just seemed… uncomfortable.”

A restless shiver runs up his spine, and needing something to do, he snatches a crinkle fry from your own makeshift platter; you make a vaguely dissenting noise but do not stop him. “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you have a small group of nosy busybodies for family,” he complains.

“Aww,” you coo affectionately, wiping your greasy fingers with a crinkled paper napkin. “I think their hearts were in the right place.”

“I don’t care where their stupid hearts are,” he grumbles, not quite looking anywhere in particular. The waning light means the cicadas are starting to report for duty now, doing shrill warmups. His eyes are gradually adjusting to the darkness as well, the shadows between the trees knitting together. “I don’t even know how Ford got the kids there, I’m the one with the car — in fact, I don’t even want to know how he got ‘em there.”

You think for a moment, head rocking back and forth with consideration. “Teleportation magic?”

Stan is unsure whether your suggestion is serious or not, but he says flatly, “Don’t even joke.”

You snicker; it makes him grin. “Well, I know that sucked for you, but I like your family.”

He hopes the nighttime somewhat covers how red his face gets when you say that. “Yeah. I like ‘em, too.” 

But this isn’t a date about them, this is a date about you. He’s done talking about his family. Still, he just needs to know — “So, date before: horrible. Date now…?”

You give him a shy but earnest smile. “Date now: pretty damn good.”

Conversation flows easily after that, while both of you pick away at your fries; it becomes well-established that although Stan is not going to eat the eggs, he is hungry, but like you said, you’re willing to share. Bugs steadily begin to descend the longer the food is out, until you are slapping at mosquitos and waving away gnats nonstop.

Eventually, you ask: “Hey, would eating in the backseat of your car be offensive to you?”

Stan raises his eyebrows, not exactly pleased at the thought of potentially-spilled food on the leather seats. “… Why?” he asks warily.

“’Cause I’m getting eaten alive out here,” you complain, slapping at your arm, presumably to defeat another mosquito. “And I’d kinda like to enjoy my cherry pie in peace.”

When he continues to hesitate, you bring out the big guns: you look at him through your lashes and give him a slightly pouty look — it lasts barely two seconds before it breaks, and you are trying to wave flies away again.

What’s he supposed to do with that? Say no?

“Just, be careful not to spill anything,” he grumbles, climbing in after you as you scoot down the leather seats in the back.

“As if I would do anything to harm your precious car,” you say, sarcastic but in good humor, as you settle in.

Stan keeps a reasonable distance, intending to keep the entire middle seat between you two, leave room for Jesus and all that jazz. You set the to-go container on your thigh, and are about to flip it open, when you seem to realize how much space he has left. 

You make a soft noise and scoot closer to him, nowhere near close enough to touch but certainly in his personal bubble. Not that he minds, of course, he just thought —

You finally flip open the container. The slice looks just as sad as it had before, with a deep depression in the top of the golden crust, cherry filling still oozing out the sides, and…

“I forgot a fork,” he realizes aloud. It’s too late to grab his used one; he’d already bundled it with the rest of the food and tossed it in the trash on the way to the car.

You huff, slightly incredulous, but shake your head and repeat your earlier sentiment. “We can share.”

“Nah,” he says, fidgeting, pressing closer to the door to his left. “You don’t want my germs…”

“Stan.” You catch his eye with an uncharacteristic serious expression. “It is of the utmost importance that you try this pie.” You offer him the plastic fork, prong-side down. “Here.”

Realizing there is no way to be demure about this, he tries to get more comfortable. Stan takes it with his far hand, swinging the arm closest to you across the back of the seats. From the proximity, his fingertips just graze the top of your shoulder. He settles himself at an angle, hardly having to reach across to get a decent-sized piece. You watch him so intently that, right as he is about to take the bite, he briefly worries what happens if he doesn’t like it. Would you call off the date entirely?

“Hot damn,” he says with his mouth full instead, glancing down at the slice still in your lap. “What the hell do they put in that thing?”

“Right?” Greedy, you snatch the fork from his grasp and immediately take a bite. “I dunno. Love? Blood sacrifice? Methamphetamine? No clue.”

Then, you have the audacity to not hand the fork back, instead going for a second bite.

“Hey,” Stan says, incredulous. “Thought you were sharing?”

“Well…” you say, with a playful tone. There is already another forkful halfway to your mouth. “I never said how much I’d share.”

“You cheeky little —” He reaches his hand forward, intending to grab it back from you.

You shriek, tilting back from him, holding the forkful as far out of reach as you possibly can. He follows, using his considerably larger size to bridge the gap, leaning over you. The container in your lap wobbles precariously.

“Stan!” you laugh, sounding scandalized and delighted all at once. “Stop! You’re gonna make me drop it!”

“If you’d just let me —”

“You’re gonna get cherry pie all over your nice car — hey!”

In a show of dexterity and utilizing the hand that had been across the back seat, he uses his sticky fingers to grab the fork from behind you, drawing it back quickly and popping the bite in his mouth before anything can spill anywhere. You continue laughing brightly, as you both settle into upright positions again. Stan swings his arm above your shoulders again, and having been brought closer from the keep-away game, you are  now practically tucked under his arm.

“I can’t believe you would risk the pristine interior of your car just for a bite,” you tease.

He shrugs with an easy grin. “Damn good pie.” Ever the gentleman, he flips the fork back to you.

You beam and go to take it back — but he yanks it out of your reach, at the last second. You make a sound somewhere between a scoff and a whine, which is downright adorable.

“You gonna give it back?” he prods.

You roll your eyes and say in an unconvincing tone, “Yeah, yeah. Sharing is caring and all that.”

He pretends to hesitate, but lowers his arm back to hand it back after you give him another pout. You eye him warily as you reach for it this time, your movements controlled and measured, snatching it away at the last second. But he lets you take it, this time.

As you carve off another bite, you say, “I’ve always really liked this car.”

Stan raises his eyebrows, not quite surprised at the sentiment but interested that you would mention it. “Yeah?”

“Must be a real chick magnet,” you continue, passing back the fork, not quite meeting his eye.

He can’t remember the last time someone other than him used the phrase chick magnet. “Well, it got you in here, didn’t it, sweetheart?” He takes a moment to give you a sly grin before going for the pie.

You roll your eyes, turning your head away shyly, affording him a nice view of your profile.

It only takes two more passes of fork sharing before the heavenly dessert is fully devoured. All that is left are crumbs and the smeared remnants of the filing; even that, you had taken the time to scrape up.

“Damn good pie,” you murmur to yourself, closing the container. You tilt your head up to him with bright eyes. “Thanks for getting that. Really thoughtful.”

Stan rubs the back of his neck.. “Ah, it’s really nothin’…” he postures, distracted as he notices a leftover bit of crimson at the corner of your mouth. 

“You, uh, you got a lil’ something,” he says, voice lower than he anticipated, and points to his own mouth to indicate where. “Right here.”

You look surprised and try to mirror his actions, but don’t quite hit the mark. “Here?”

“No, no, c’mere, let me…” Without too much thought, he reaches out and swipes his thumb over the edge of your lips, smearing away the glob of thick cherry filing. The rest of his fingertips tickle the underside of your jaw in the process. 

Unintentionally, but undeniably indulgent, his touch lingers. Your breath catches, lips parted as you are clearly caught off-guard by the intimate contact. It’s far past the casual touches either of you ever initiate. If he moves his thumb just a few centimeters to the right then he would be able to press his finger into your mouth, fully.

The thought is so insanely tempting he gets a head rush.

While trying to wade through his muddled common sense to pull away, laugh it off, say it’s no big deal, you take matters into your own hands: you turn your head to the side, letting his thumb drag across the plush of your bottom lip. Maintaining the rapidly heating eye contact between you, your tongue darts out and licks at the pad his thumb, almost ticklishly but undeniably coquettish, to clean off whatever is left there.