“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, like my dad. I thought that meant reading books all day and talking about them. I was the weird kid who liked doing research in school. What about you?”
“I wanted to work in a business. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I wanted to do something where 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 was what 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 might never work out my career issues. “I never thought about it that way. I was so busy, I didn’t have time for things other than school, chores, and helping my parents with the store. I was in the band in school, but I never wanted to be a musician. I liked reading books and seeing movies, but I couldn’t think of any jobs doing that. I mostly just liked helping a business run well. This may be why finding the right job for me has been so challenging.” 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. Romantic comedy heroines were seldom on top of the world, doing exactly what they’d always wanted to do.
“But you did have some music in your background. What do you like to listen to?”
I groaned. “This is so embarrassing. 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 music all that much. I’m guessing, 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 play music at home very often, but I sometimes like going out to listen to jazz.”
“Then we should go do that sometime.” That was, if we ever got 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 him that it was easy to forget how cute he was. He was just Owen. Him smiling at me that way reminded me all over again of the first time I’d noticed him, when I’d mentally called him “Mr. Right.” This conversation was also showing me how little we knew each other. I knew who he was as a person, having seen him through all kinds of dire situations, but I didn’t know any of these basic things about him that usually came out in early dates. We’d already fought a magical battle together before our first date, which made small talk seem beside the point. Now, Mr. Gray’s lurking presence 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 was when my dad was doing research at a museum in England when I was about ten, and he took me with him as his assistant. He treated me like a peer, and though we didn’t see much outside the workroom in the bowels of the museum on that trip, it was probably the most fun I’ve had on a vacation.” He grinned. “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 summer break was our busy season. We went to San Antonio during Christmas break a few times, and my friends and I did it again during college.” There hadn’t been many details, and of course no magic, but otherwise my romantic comedy character’s background had been a lot like my real one, so I hoped nothing we said raised any red flags 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 into my eyes and gave me a slight smile, and I knew he was thinking about the way he’d been promising that we’d go on vacation when everything settled down, only it never seemed to.
He drank some wine, then seemed to pull together his courage and asked, “Have you ever been in love before?”
That was a biggie. Being with him had eclipsed everything else I’d experienced, making me reevaluate my past. “Once, when I was in college,” 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 time. We were talking about getting married when we graduated. And then he met someone else during Christmas break our senior year and changed his mind. He told me when we got back to school for the spring semester, right when I was expecting him to propose.”
