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"What did you want to be when you grew up, when you were a kid and before you had to think about practical things?" I asked him

"I wanted to be a professor, likeabout the research in school What about you?"

"I wanted to work in a business I didn’t really knohat thatwhere I would wear a nice suit and carry a briefcase to work in an office with a view in the city I wasn’t sure what people like that did all day, other than talk on the phone and sound important, but that hat I wanted"

"Wasn’t there anything you liked doing, though?"

"I don’t know" This was getting as uncomfortable as it would be on a real date, but if I couldn’t talk about it with Owen, I ht about it that way I was so busy, I didn’t have ti my parents with the store I was in the band in school, but I never wanted to be athat Ia business run well This ing" That was true in both this reality and in the real world My real-world struggles may even have provided the fake world’s situation Ro exactly what they’d alanted to do

"But you did have soround What do you like to listen to?"

I groaned "This is so e Yeah, I played the flute, but I don’t really listen to music I’ll have the radio on in the car, but since I don’t drive here, I don’t listen to , based on what you play in the store, that you like jazz"

"Yeah, when I listen to music I usually prefer silence, but jazz can be restful and complicated at the same time I don’t playout to listen to jazz"

"Then we should go do that soot back home Or did this world have jazz clubs?

"We should It’s a date" His smile made my heart flutter I was so used to hiet how cute he was He was just Owen Hiain of the first tiht" This conversation was also showing me how little we knew each other I kneho he was as a person, having seen hih all kinds of dire situations, but I didn’t know any of these basic things about hiht a ether before our first date, whichpresence was forcing us to go through the "getting to know you" phase

I took a sip of wine and asked, "What’s the best vacation you’ve ever taken?"

"My parents were very big on educational travel We went to historical sites and museums in the area and around the world"

"That sounds like your idea of fun"

"It was But the best one hen land when I was about ten, and he took me with hih we didn’t see much outside the workroom in the bowels of the museum on that trip, it was probably the rinned "I bet your vacations were a lot more normal than that"

"We didn’t take a lot of vacations when I was a kid When your family has a business, there isn’t much time off, and the su Christain during college" There hadn’t been ic, but otherwise round had been a lot like s for the gray guy

Owen didn’t say anything about taking a vacation together, since supposedly he and I had only just met and that would be rather premature for a first dinner date, but he looked intoabout the way he’d been pro settled down, only it never seemed to

He drank soe and asked, "Have you ever been in love before?"

That was a biggie Being with hi e," I finally answered after taking a big swig of wine "At least, I thought it was for real Now, I don’t know But it was really serious at the tiraduated And then heChristed hisse him to propose"