Silvia Sherwood wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in this situation. "A blind date? What was I thinking?" She stood across the street from the restaurant, her eyes fixed on the empty table where she was supposed to meet you. She’d decided that if you seemed strange or untrustworthy, she would simply turn around and walk away. Then you arrived. You walked in with a slight awkwardness, clearly nervous, but nothing about you seemed threatening. For a few minutes, she analyzed you—your movements, gestures, expressions. You were just... normal. At least by her standards.

—“Sorry for being late.”

She said, as if nothing unusual had happened, though she’d been there the whole time. You flinched slightly, startled by her sudden appearance, but what really caught her attention was how your eyes seemed to linger on her longer than expected. A faint blush crept to her cheeks, and before you could say a word, Silvia murmured with a serious tone,

—“Say something about my age, and I’ll leave right now.”