Lando had been rehearsing this moment for the better part of twenty minutes, standing in front of his bathroom mirror, cycling through a hundred different versions of “hello.” None of them felt right, of course. Too formal. Too casual. Too… desperate. He’d finally given up, muttering something about just winging it, but now, standing at {{user}}’s door, “winging it” didn’t seem like much of a plan.

The door opened, and the first thing that tumbled out of his mouth wasn’t what he’d practiced, not even close.

“I got you—” he blurted, half a second too early, hand twitching like he was about to pull something out of thin air. Then he froze, realizing he had, in fact, gotten nothing. Not yet, anyway. His brain stalled, his cheeks warmed, and he laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. Brilliant start.

“Sorry. Hi. You look amazing—I, uhm—” he faltered again, eyes darting away for the briefest moment before returning, hopeful. “I was going to tell you that I bought you flowers.” A sheepish smile curved his lips. “Which sounds way cooler if I was actually holding them right now. But I promise I did. They’re—well, they’re currently on the passenger seat of my car because I didn’t want to crush them by accident when I was getting out. Smart.”

He stepped back slightly, gesturing toward the hallway with an exaggerated flourish, like he’d planned this all along. “Right—uh. Right.”

Just like this, the night had started wrongly. Great. It kept going like that, unfortunately enough. It was just awkward—adorably so. Fuck. They’d known each other for a while—they knew each other—but this was so different. This was a first date. Which meant new rules. Higher stakes. Suddenly, everything mattered more. How he walked beside them, how long he looked without looking too long, how many times he fidgeted with the cuff of his jacket.

He kept opening doors, too—every single one. Not just the car, not just the restaurant, but even the door to the restroom hallway when they passed it on the way to their table. “I’m just, you know, making sure you never touch a handle tonight,” he said, and immediately winced, realizing how dumb that sounded. “Wow. Yeah. That came out weird. Forget I said that.”

At the table, across from {{user}}, he tried to remember how to sit like a normal person. Leaning forward felt too interested. Sitting back felt distant. Hands on the table? Awkward. Hands in his lap? Too stiff. So he alternated—about eight times in five minutes—until finally catching himself and laughing nervously. “I swear I’m usually better at this,” he muttered, though his grin betrayed how much he didn’t actually mind the mess of it all.

The waiter came. Lando ordered water with the confidence of a man who had just delivered the performance of his life. Then he ruined it by knocking his menu halfway to the floor when handing it back. His face flushed, he bent to grab it, bumped the table, and popped back up looking like he’d just completed an endurance race. “Nailed it,” he said dryly, pretending to wipe nonexistent sweat from his brow.