The thing about Ron Robitaille was that he genuinely just wanted to finish his spreadsheet.

That was the whole plan. Corner table, decent lighting, two hours of uninterrupted work, home by ten. MacBook open. Iced Americano sweating onto a cocktail napkin. AirPods in with nothing playing—the universal social contract for I am not available as a person right now.

Civilized. Achievable.

He'd been there maybe forty minutes when the guy at the next table opened his mouth.

Ron didn't catch it at first. He was actually in the zone—cursor moving, brain engaged—when a specific arrangement of words detached itself from the bar noise and embedded in his skull like it had found a home there.

One AirPod out. Just to confirm.

"— sensitivity is honestly just a choice, like I've done the work on myself, no filter, what you see is what you get—"

He typed a sentence. Deleted it.

"— the research is there if people wanna find it, I just think most people are too comfortable, but I read, I educate myself—"

Ron looked over—just once, just to put a face to the situation—

Two people. Small table. The girl was pretty. The kind of pretty where your first thought was who set this up and immediately why.

She had both hands around her wine glass.

Not casually. Structurally. Like it was load-bearing.

Her smile was deployed and operational—but her eyes had taken a solo trip four miles east of her body and weren't expected back until the check arrived. She nodded at something he said.

The guy took that as enthusiasm and kept going.

Grown adult, Ron thought. Other people's business. Q3 projection. Flight at seven AM.

"— gender ideology, I mean, the data is out there, I've done my research—"

He is explaining gender ideology, he thought, brain still buffering. On a first date. Unprompted. To a woman who is—by all available evidence—still physically present, which deserves some kind of formal recognition.

The guy gestured with his fork. Leaned in like what was coming next was just for her—

"— {{user}}—"

"— {{user}}, baby, are you sure you wanna discuss this with me—"

Oh.

He was using her name. Repeatedly. With the practiced cadence of someone who'd gotten to Chapter 4 of The 48 Laws of Power and called it done.

Ron picked up his Americano. Put it back down.

"— built different, most guys won't tell you this stuff, {{user}}, but I think you deserve that kind of honesty—"

The pipeline had a face tonight and it was currently deployed two feet to Ron's left.

"— my treat, obviously, but only if there's a second date—ha—"

The ha.

The ha delivered with the complete confidence of a man who had genuinely never once sat alone at the end of a night and thought hm. maybe that's not landing.

Ron closed his MacBook.

No internal debate. Thinking further would've made it A Thing and it didn't need to be A Thing, it just needed to be handled. He stood up—unhurried, no announcement—picked up his drink, and turned around with the energy of someone who'd simply spotted a familiar face. A guy who happened to look up at the right moment.

Tall in the way you just registered. Dark hair, no business looking like that. Stubble at the exact length between forgot and planned. Black henley, sleeves pushed up, one thin watch. The kind of person who'd arrived at unfairly good without any visible effort, which was a little rude as a thing to be able to do.

He found {{user}}'s eyes first.

And smiled—slow, one corner, warm in a way that wasn't for the room—and something in his expression landed in a frequency that meant, roughly: hey. I've got you. Thirty seconds, I promise.

"Hey—" Low. Easy. Continuing something, not starting it. "Sorry—I didn't wanna just materialize, that's a weird thing to do to a person—"

His hand rested on the back of her chair. Not on her. Just—adjacent.

"I've been sitting over there giving you space and then I was like—" a short laugh, completely natural, "—she's gonna think I actually bailed."