// Toriv

The moment the professor left my shop that evening he asked me to go on a date with him, I opened up my phone’s planner app and dutifully typed in: Tuesday, 6PM, date with Prof.

But that felt weird, so after a second I changed it to Tuesday, 6PM, dinner with Prof.

“God, no.” Dinner with Prof. Singh. “Damn it.” Date night with Mahendra. “Goddd.”

“Your mom is going to love this,” Maveliv said from the counter. She gave me the cheekiest smirk her sixteen-year-old part-timer self could muster and lifted up her phone.

“If you text her about this, you are fired,” I told her distractedly, because I was still kind of trying to process what had just happened, and apparently my struggle with the title of my upcoming appointment was the way I had chosen to work it all out. Dinner with Mahendra? That was nice and neutral. Maybe I was just being weird because it was the first time I was using his given name.

Mahendra. Mah-hain-druh. I thought it sounded musical, almost like an elven name. Not like that opinion of mine has any stock in it, considering my own name is just two drab little syllables. Tore-iv. You should hear the French try to say it. Though I guess it’s probably even worse for the musically-named Professor Mahendra Singh.

I guess I was in shock for the whole rest of our encounter that day, because it wasn’t until later, when Mav The Part-Timer and I were closing up shop, that it sank in: “He asked me out.”

“And I’m not allowed to tell Auntie Vani about it, I know,” Mav said grumpily.

I waved at her impatiently with the handle of my mop. “No, I mean–the professor. Asked. Me out.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Like. Me? And him?”

“Are you just going to keep rubbing it in or–”

“Does it sound like I’m trying to rub it in? I’m honestly more confused than anything.”

“Why?” Mav nudged my mop bucket out of the way so she could Windex the next table. “He’s good-looking. You’re good-looking. You’ve already got at least one thing in common.”

“Well, yeah. That’s not the bit I’m surprised about.”

“Sooo…?”

“I don’t know. It’s weird. You’re just a kid, why am I telling you all this?”

She stopped wiping the table to give me a spectacular eyeroll. “Uh, what happened to me ‘having buckets of potential’ and being ‘so much more mature than my years’?”

“You do have buckets of potential! And more maturity than most people, including myself. But it’s different in matters of…going on dates.”

“How, exactly?”

“It just is,” I insisted, really professionally.

She gave me a very teenage “whatever you say” look and went back to cleaning surfaces. I felt a bubble of affection rise up in my throat as I watched her. When I first met her, she was eleven years old, undersized and skittish as a squirrel. Barely said a word when spoken to. Even now, in times of uber stress, she can still shut down, decide to not use her words until the danger is well past. But she’s gotten a lot better over the years. This must be what a proud parent feels like. Or a proud big brother, as it were.

“You know,” I told her, leaning on my mop and gazing at her like how I imagine a mama doe gazes at her fawn, “sometimes I feel like you’re the one who’s the big sister and I’m the little brother.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Mav said, but I could hear the smile in her voice.

We finished cleaning up soon after. I double-checked all the fridges and locked the doors then we went our separate ways.

“Call me up if you need anything,” I told Mav like I always did.

She hugged me quick and tight around the waist, then took off down the bumpy sidewalk on her longboard, waving back at me as she went. Great kid. I might have gotten a little choked up on my way back to my apartment.

It was quiet when I got in. It always is, for I am blessed with quiet neighbours, despite the general rowdiness of this corner of the Elven Quarter. The only noises in the apartment were my pet rats shuffling around in their cage. I went to hold them right away, and as usual they climbed all over me, chittering excitedly like they hadn’t seen me in a million years. That always kind of gets me. I love being a rat daddy.

I made a little salad for dinner, setting aside some pieces of cucumber and carrot for the rats. Traffic passed by outside. A siren blared in the distance. A dog barked hello. City noises, the comforting background noise of my life. I really couldn’t live anywhere else.

Even with the lingering chill in the February air, I opened the window a crack so I could lean out towards the fire escape as I ate my dinner. I like winter just fine when I’m inside, I guess. The whole fluffy sweaters and hot chocolate and warm yellow lights aesthetic is kind of my thing, aging hipster that I am.

And there’s something magical about Montréal in the winter, if I’m being fair and honest. It’s vibrant and fast-paced and brilliant even in the dead of winter. All the main streets are lit up and the Quartier des Spectacles is aglow all night long, right down to the Starbucks on the corner. It’s exciting and breathtaking and romantic when you’re in the moment. There’s no place like it at all.

And then you step in a puddle of freezing cold slush and ruin your favourite pair of boots, so that kind of breaks the spell, but I’ll take the good as long as it’s available, right?

My phone rang as I was fishing the last leaves from the bottom of my salad bowl. I jammed them hurriedly into my mouth and answered, which in retrospect was probably a mistake. “Mmf, hello?”

“Mmf, hello to you too,” said the familiar grinning voice on the other end of the line.

I swallowed so I could talk without spraying bits of spinach all over my living room floor. “Red! Home at last?”

“To stay, this time,” my buddy Red answered. “I missed this place like crazy, believe it or not.”

“Just means the ass end of the mountains isn’t your thing. When’d you get in?”

“Like an hour ago.” He exhaled slowly, a smoker’s exhale. I could hear the wind in the background on his end of the line. “Facetime me? I wanna see you.”

“You old romantic. Gimme a sec.”

I ran to drop my bowl in the sink, wiped off my face hurriedly, and made sure the rats were securely sitting in their cage before I flopped onto the couch and flicked open the app. Red’s face popped up a moment later. He was outside in the dark, probably on the roof of his apartment building, where he liked to sit and smoke even when it was cold as balls. Dragonkind have it easier in the winter than most of us, seeing as they generate so much body heat. Something to do with vestigial fire gizzards. I don’t really know the science or anything.

He waved at me with his cigarette hand then took another drag. The end of the cigarette glowed a freaky overbright reddish-gold, like a firework. The light looked weird on the phone screen, like it wasn’t quite capturable. It glinted over the dragon crest that started in the middle of his forehead and ran up into the line of his hair. I noticed he’d had his firetruck red hair shaved on one side, punk-rock style.

“Nice hair, dude. Très cool.”

“Thanks. I needed a change.”

His grin faded and he looked up and away to exhale his cigarette smoke. Even the smoke glinted gold in places. Fire gizzards, man.

“What’s up, Red?” I said. “Something happen in Dragonland?”

He snorted into his cigarette so that it shot a few stray sparks into the air. “Will you quit calling it that? You don’t see me calling the elven homelands Elftown.”

“Sorry, sorry. You know I’m just kidding.” I angled the phone differently, like I could see him better if I changed my perspective. “Seriously, what’s wrong? You look out of it.”

“Eh. Just disappointed, I guess,” he said. He nibbled a bit on the end of his cigarette, which is a thing he does when he’s thinking something over. He was about as depressed as I’d ever seen him. “They told me no.”

“They? Told you no? The other dragonkind?”

“Who do you think?”

“But I mean–why?”

“Dunno. Guess I’m too much of a city slicker for their tastes, or too young or too liberal or what-have-you.” He puffed again, shooting out little gold sparkles as he exhaled hard. “My old granddad tried to vouch for me, but I guess they weren’t taking any newcomers.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry, Red.”

“Thanks. But whatever. It’s not like I had much of a chance anyway. There’s no one left of our clan now but Granddad and my mom and me, so it’s not like we had much sway to begin with.”

“Still!” I said loudly. Righteous anger buzzed in my head. “It’s the Northern Dragon Council. It’s your place.”

Red shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean there’s all that history, right? Clan versus clan bullshit from like six hundred years ago.”

“Yeah, I know the stories. Sort of. But even if the dragon clans were fighting, it’s not like the red dragons were responsible for the Great Silence or anything.”

“Nah, that was you guys,” Red said, smiling ironically around his cigarette. “If the stories are actually true.”

“The stories are so true,” I whined. “My dad’s told them to me like a million times.”

“Old Vinoriev? Like I’d believe a story about the quote unquote legendary hero told by an elf who’s actually descended from him.”

“I thought you didn’t believe him!”

“Yeah, well, I’m not risking it.”

The conversation got more normal after that. Red still looked down, but the nicotine was starting to perk him up, and soon we were laughing and joking around like we always did. It’s kind of funny how you can still feel the current of connection with a person even through a tiny phone screen. I almost felt like he was right in the room with me, chilling on the couch on a Monday night. I might be just a little bit biased when it comes to Red, but we’ve got history that doesn’t really fit in this one paragraph, so I think I’ll leave it for later.

Eventually, after Red had gone through his third cigarette and was shaking a fourth out of the pack, he said, “Hey, Toriv.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I come over for coffee? You wouldn’t believe this, but there isn’t anywhere to get decent coffee for miles around even the outpost to the homelands.”

He had formulated it like a question, but the way he was looking at me over the tip of his fresh cigarette was expectant. “Coming over for coffee” had become almost like a secret code for us, since I’d met him on Saint-Laurent street about five years ago. And in the five years that I’ve known him, I’ve never yet said no.

But I hesitated. I don’t why I did, when before my answer would have been automatic: “Sure, I’d be glad to have you. In all the senses of the word.” Something like that.

I thought back to my planner. Tuesday, 6PM, dinner with Mahendra.

Well, shit, I thought at that moment, while Red was looking at me with bedroom eyes and my rats were grooming and chittering in their cage and being totally oblivious to my predicament. Was I really going to be the kind of guy who’d sleep with someone the day before a date with another person? Who even does that?

Most of the guys I know probably would, honestly. Red would. Why should he care? Why should anyone care, when it’s all just in good fun?

That’s when the annoying voice in my head started up. I bet you know the one. That voice most everyone has that will pipe up at the least convenient moments, reminding us about things like common decency and honour and stuff. My Annoying Voice sounds a bit like a cross between Loriev and my dad, which should give you a pretty good idea what it was telling me at that exact moment.

Then the voice in my head, or in my heart or my spleen or whatever, made me say, “Hey. Uh. Sorry.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” I repeated louder. I tried to sound really casual, like it wasn’t a big deal. “I’d love to, but I have to be up at the asscrack of dawn for work, so–”

“That’s fine. The shop’s right across from your place.”

“Yeah, but I’d hate to leave you naked and alone in a strange place.”

He looked at me for a full three seconds like he couldn’t believe his ears, but then he laughed and puffed on the last little nub of his cigarette, sucking so hard the whole thing burst into flame — poof, a tiny fireball on the screen — before crumbling to ash.

“It’s fine, then,” he said dismissively. “You worked today too, right? You must be tired.”

“Yeah, exhausted,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound relieved for the wrong reasons.

“And I didn’t sleep at all on the bus over so I should–I’ll just go to bed.”

“You do that, bro.”

“Even without anyone here to tuck me in.” He flicked his bedroom eyes towards me again and something was different, but I couldn’t really tell if he was upset or not.

“Another time,” I said. “I’m always up for making a cup for you.”

“Yeah. Another time.” He looked up at the sky for a second, like it was still possible to see the stars through the halo of all the city’s streetlights. “Thanks for talking.”

“No problem. Go to bed. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

We hung up. I lay on my couch for a lot longer than necessary, contemplating the nature of the universe and what combination of events had somehow led me to refusing a night with one of my most reliable bedmates.

After a while of thinking about this and making absolutely no headway, I rolled off the couch to go lie in front of the cage, watching the rats as they went about their ratty business.

“Hey, Sys. Hey, Dia. Do you think he’s worth it?”

They didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation, judging from the way they kept on nibbling on their vegetables like nothing was wrong. It must be nice to be a rat.

I went to bed after that, trying not to think about anything much. One thing I’ve learned is tomorrow is usually soon enough to worry about tomorrow.

// Mahendra

It was sort of funny how the day after I had told Anushka that I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been on a date, dates were all I could think about.

I spent the whole of classes on Tuesday doing ridiculous things like almost knocking my first-lecture-of-the-day tea over or accidentally launching a dry-erase marker across the room. My hands just would not behave, as they tend to do when I’m nervous. They become jumpy, like my heart rate isn’t quite right. My lecture notes on the board were near indecipherable. I could have scrawled I have a date tonight and I have no idea what to do across the whiteboard and probably no one would have caught on.

My Tuesday classes are at the college too, the one at the very end of the island of Montréal, so the train ride back into the city gave me plenty of time to agonize over my predicament. The feelings of giddy excitement and triumph from the previous evening had been replaced by a more familiar sort of dread as the film strip of my mind went into neo-realist overdrive to recount, in excruciating detail, all the instances of me embarrassing myself on dates. Mainly this involved long, torturous silences that neither of us could really manage to break. Cinematically artistic, perhaps, but realistically about the worst thing that could happen when one is trying to get to know someone.

Toriv seemed to be a talker, which I thought might be enough to save us for a bit, until my worrying began to turn in another direction. Who was to say he wasn’t just humouring me, being polite and cheerful for the sake of it? After all, it was his job to be polite and cheerful. And I, like a fool, had gone and asked him on a date in the middle of his own workplace.

Then again, he didn’t seem the type to placate someone with soft yeses and an indulgent smile. So had he been sincere? How was I supposed to guess, having only known the man for a scant few weeks?

Anushka and even my sister Charlotte would have said There’s no way you can know, so don’t worry about it. To which I would inevitably reply How am I supposed to not worry about what I don’t know! How, indeed. Sometimes it seems like that question is one my entire life revolves around.

I must have worried myself to oblivion, because when I returned to reality with a snap, I found the train had stopped at the terminus and people were disembarking. I exited into the chill February afternoon, avoiding the icy patches in the pockmarked train platform. Despite it still being full-on winter, the days were lengthening steadily, so there was still a bit of daylight left for me to while away until the time of my dinner appointment rolled around.

Once I had closed the door of my flat behind me and hung up my coat, I found I had made a grave mistake. Now I had nearly two hours to myself, alone in the comfort of my home, to figuratively bite my nails. Brilliant.

I showered to get the nervous sweat off, then had a light snack and a cup of tea, minty and herbal to ease the stomach and keep the caffeine jitters to a minimum. These practical tasks done, I proceeded to stand in front of my closet for a quarter of an hour, staring at all of my clothes and finding absolutely none of them satisfactory.

“What am I doing,” I muttered, quite uselessly, to the closetful of work-appropriate attire.

I finally chose a pair of slacks like every other pair of slacks I owned, then closed my eyes and picked three dress shirts from the rack at random to narrow my range of choices. Navy blue, white, and lilac. The blue seemed depressing, like a stormy sky, and the white too plain, so lilac it was. More of a spring colour, but I wasn’t about to argue with fate when it was the clear the power of choice was getting me nowhere.

I was debating over whether to wear it with the matching tie when my mobile phone buzzed on the dresser, scaring me nearly out of my skin. There was a text message from Toriv: hey, Prof. Rendez-vous at my shop in 45 mins?

I messaged back, Of course. What are you hungry for?

hmmm I’m thinkin thai P: was his answer. I puzzled over the last couple of characters for a whole minute before realizing it was probably a hungry face. I would have to remember that one, seeing as my nieces had begun to drill me in emojis. To keep me current, they said, like I was a hundred years old instead of forty. I suppose to a nine and twelve year old, it’s all the same.

Sounds good, see you soon, I dashed off, then hastily set down my mobile and returned to the harrowing task of getting myself dressed.

Twenty minutes later, I was out the door again. I had to force myself to walk slowly instead of at my usual brisk pace, lest I arrive at the shop door much too early. Who knew that leisurely strolling could be so difficult? It was all I could do to not do a couple of turns around the block, just to burn off this sudden surge of energy.

I was still at the door of the café Vanellas earlier than I would have liked, but now that I was here it was silly to move on past, so I pushed into the cheerful evening warmth of the shop. The two elves I had met before were there behind the counter, the boy and girl who looked so alike they were most likely brother and sister.

“Hey there, Professor!” said the girl at once. It felt strange to be recognized in a place like this. I didn’t think I had yet frequented the shop enough to be considered a regular. “Lookin’ good.”

“Thank you,” I said bashfully. “Is, erm, your boss here?”

“Toriv just left to get ready. He should be back in a bit. He said if you got here early, you could just wait in here.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“No prob,” she said easily. “I’m Daecianis, by the way. And this is my twin brother, Kivariev.”

“It’s just Kiv,” the boy said. He was leaning casually against the counter, his hands lifted and positioned in front of him as though he were strumming an invisible guitar.

“And I’m just Daeci,” the girl rejoined, flipping her lush and wildly curly red hair over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, officially.”

“Nice to meet you both. You can call me Mahendra.”

“Professor Mahendra,” said the twins in unison, before breaking into identical grins.

“Just Mahendra is fine. It’s not like I’m your teacher or anything.”

“It’s got a nice ring to it, though,” said Daeci.

“Very professorial,” said Kiv.

“Totally hot,” they concluded together, with such eerie synchronicity that I wondered if they’d ever had to practice it, or it was just a thing twins knew how to do from the womb.

To avoid the impulse to say “thank you” a third time, I smiled at them both and went to sit at one of the café’s little tables. I did my very best to keep from fidgeting, though I could feel Daeci and Kiv’s eyes on my back throughout my entire wait, even as evening customers were coming and going by the counter.

Finally, at the stroke of six oh five, the chime above the door sounded and the owner of the establishment glided in amid a gust of winter wind, grinning past a huge fluffy scarf and cold-reddened cheeks.

“Well, look what the catfish brought in,” Toriv said to me, his eyes twinkling.

Before I could reply, Daeci interjected from the counter. “Boss!” She said imperiously. “He’s been here for ages. Who do you think you are, to keep a guy waiting like this?”

“Uh, fashionably late?”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “I’m the one who was early. It’s no trouble.”

“You heard the man.” Toriv gestured grandiosely in my direction, then beckoned me to my feet. “Now if you’ll excuse us, kids, we’ve got a town to paint red.”

“Have fun,” the café employees called, before returning diligently to their tasks.

Toriv held the door open for me and followed me out and suddenly we were alone together, standing under the streetlamps bright as spotlights. Toriv turned to me, smiling his cat-like smile. “So, were we agreed on Thai for dinner?”

I said, “I believe we were. Unless you’ve changed your mind in the past–” I checked my watch. “–forty-nine minutes.”

Toriv laughed. “No way. I’ve been craving pad thai since like last week. Going out with you finally gave me an excuse to indulge.”

I fell into step with him as he started down the street. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his rugged, well-loved leather jacket and walked with a kind of swagger I could never replicate, especially since most of my motor control was currently going towards not slipping on the spots of sidewalk that had iced over again after sunset.

“Is it your cheat day, then?” I asked, which for some reason made him laugh even harder.

“Cheat day!” he repeated, like I’d just uttered some sort of blasphemy and it delighted him thoroughly. “I founded and work in a place that sells sugary drinks and pastries. Every day is a cheat day, as far as I’m concerned, and I think that’s beautiful.”

I grinned. “How decadent.”

“It’s the truth. I mean, I still try to be as good as I can, for my figure. You know how it is.”

“Actually, I can’t imagine it. Being surrounded by chocolately goodness all day and not constantly succumbing?”

Toriv bumped my arm with his in a playful manner. “So he’s a chocoholic. That is valuable information. Next I just need to find out when your birthday is so I can give you the gift of chocolate and totally make your day.” He bounced a bit on his next step. “So when’s your birthday?”

If he noticed the flush that had risen to my face, I hoped he would put it down to the cold. “I may tell you, depending on how dinner goes.”

He bumped me again and said plaintively, “Seriously? Am I being evaluated without my knowledge here? I thought surprise quizzes were illegal.”

I nudged him in return with my shoulder. Not as hard as he had bumped me, but even just that little bit of daring almost took my breath away. “You are being evaluated. Enough notice?”

“No! I didn’t get to study!”

“It’s a practical exam. Understanding is key, not memorization.”

“Wow,” Toriv said, in one long drawn-out syllable. “You are teacher-ing me right now. I demand you stop.”

The film strip passed in my mind again. Talking too much about work, the classic plot turn. “Sorry. Sorry.”

He did a little half-turn as he walked so that he was now proceeding backwards along the treacherous sidewalk. His expression was bemused as he said, “You didn’t have to say sorry twice. I was just kidding.”

“Sorry,” I said again.

“And a third time, just for good measure?”

“Oh, no. I am so–”

“Stop.”

Toriv halted mid-moonwalk and grabbed me by the arm to stop me. A few people filtered past us, hurrying on to their destinations in the cold.

Toriv exhaled a slow breath that misted in the evening air, his hand still on my arm. “Look. Mahendra. You can relax a bit. I don’t bite. And don’t!” He cut me off the moment I opened my mouth to speak. “Don’t apologize again. You haven’t done anything wrong, as far as I can tell.”

The first thing I thought to reply was “sorry”, but I swallowed that down and said instead, “Oh.”

“Better already.” He released my arm and smiled again, gentler this time. “We’re just two guys having dinner and getting to know each other, right? No big deal.”

I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. Then I smiled my very best smile in answer to his, which seemed to please him.

“Better already,” Toriv said cheerfully. “Come on, the place I’m thinking of is just a couple of blocks down.”

We continued our walk in the cold, side by side with our shoulders nearly brushing. Within a few steps, we had reached the heart of the Elven Quarter, with its northern style garlands and hangings and brick wall graffiti. When I confessed to never really venturing this far down the street, Toriv took it upon himself to point out all his favourite places to me, proclaiming this tiny bakery to have “the best damn croissants in the city” while this hole-in-the-wall boasted “a dimsum menu to absolutely die for”.

“The best coffee is ours, though,” he added, like he couldn’t resist throwing in the little sales pitch.

The Thai restaurant Toriv led me to was small, like most of the establishments lining this particular street in the Elven Quarter. He waved me in with all the grace of a fancy French restaurant’s maître d. The restaurant was narrow almost to the point of being cramped, but there was no denying the warmth of the atmosphere. More importantly, the fragrant smells emanating from the kitchen were impossible to ignore, even from the street.

Toriv greeted the single waitress and gave me a little push in the small of the back to get me to move into the restaurant. It was hard to think for just a second as he touched me like that, but I managed to remain proper and adult-like about it as I squeezed myself next to the tiny table. Toriv sat across from me and promptly ordered a beer. When I ordered a ginger ale, Toriv leaned his chin in his palm and asked, “Don’t drink?”

“I do. On occasion.”

“Well, invite me over next time you do.” He winked. “I wanna see you gettin’ lush. Bet you do a complete one eighty.”

I waved the notion away with my hand. “It’s nothing much. I just get a little giggly, like my sister.”

“You have a sister? Tell me about her.”

So I did. Broad details, like where Charlotte worked and how many children she had. Toriv was interested in them, for some reason, and asked after their names  (“Celeste and Anastasia! Those are Disney princess names.”) and ages and interests. His eyes went wide when I told him about Celeste’s talent at violin and Anastasia’s love of gymnastics. When prompted, I pulled out my mobile and showed him a couple of videos: Cel’s latest recital, Annie’s medal-winning floor performance.

“These kids,” Toriv said emphatically, “have more skill in their little fingers than I have in my entire body. I mean I work out, but that doesn’t even blip on the radar compared to this.”

That remark launched us into a discussion about sports, or an attempt at one considering Toriv thought about as well of sports as he did about saving one’s sweet indulgences for cheat days. To that man, football was akin to “a bunch of dudes in shiny shorts kicking a hot potato around”, while rugby was dubbed “that game where everyone tries to climb all over each other and grab each other’s nuts”. Tennis was pronounced “cardio hell”, while cricket received the verdict of “more violent baseball” (baseball was “boring as shit” and merited not another word).

“There has to be at least one sport you enjoy,” I said in exasperation. “Luging? Archery? Race-walking?”

He answered after taking a gulp of his yellow ale. “Wrestling?”

I could tell from the tilt of his smile that he meant it lasciviously. When I rolled my eyes, he laughed then seemed to seriously think about it before he said, “I guess MMA is kind of cool. It’s technical.”

“There we go. Finally a not-stupid sport.”

“I mean it is kind of stupid because it’s two people trying to beat each other up for points. But it’s kind of sexy too.”

“Really,” I couldn’t help myself from replying.

I must have thought too hard about modulating my tone because Toriv looked at me strangely, and I was forced to hide my embarrassment by taking a quick sip of water.

“What,” he said after I had resurfaced.

“Nothing,” I said, then admitted, “It’s just that I used to box.”

“You? Used to box? Really?”

I was considering in which manner to be insulted by those five little words when Toriv added, “What do you mean ‘used to’?”

“Well…I did, and now I don’t anymore.”

“How long?”

“Erm…since university, I suppose.”

“Which waaas?” He had a way of extending vowels in a way that was equal parts needling and endearing.

“In two thousand two, so…fourteen years ago.”

He sat back in his chair and just looked at me for a while. Then he put a hand to his forehead and exclaimed, “Man, I told you not to make me do any math!”

I smothered a nervous laugh and another extraneous apology. “I turned forty years old on my last birthday, in case that’s what you were trying to calculate.”

“Forty,” Toriv repeated. He began to count on his fingers. “So…nineteen seventy-six. Are you going to tell me when your birthday is now? Because you totally owe me for making me do arithmetic.”

“I do not,” I said, with perhaps more glee than necessary.

His reaction of dismay was rewardingly extravagant. He seemed about to ask me more questions about it, but then our food arrived, steaming attractively in plates much larger than I had expected. Toriv dug into his much-coveted pad thai with relish, profusely thanking the waitress — and the chef, peeking out from the window to the kitchen — even as the first forkful was on its way to his mouth. I tried my pad sew and found it to be excellent, and for the next few minutes we were both focused on our dishes. It seemed the conversation had given us both a healthy appetite.

Some small, strange part of me still had trouble believing I was there, sitting across from a man so attractive I sometimes had trouble looking right at him. The setting, the street, even the day of the week — Tuesday! — seemed so mundane that it made the event all the more extraordinary. A simple dinner date with Toriv Vanellas, CEO of Café Vanellas, Mathless Wonder, was already seeming too good to be true.

And yet there he was, close enough to touch. Did someone like me even have a chance with such a person?

“So, Mahendra,” Toriv said suddenly, after drinking deeply from his warmly-coloured ale. “Tell me about this boxing thing. Were you any good?”

“Oh. I was all right.”

“You were ‘all right’?”

“Actually, I was rather good, I think.”

He grinned widely. “That’s awesome. I never would have pegged you for a jock.”

“I wasn’t, really,” I said. “There was a club for it at Oxford, but for me, the training itself was mostly a solitary thing. Except for when the coaches were involved, of course–”

“Wait, wait, back up.” Toriv waved his fork at me, coming perilously close to stabbing me in the wrist. “Did you say Oxford? As in the Oxford? As in often paired with Cambridge?”

“The very same?”

“Don’t look at me like you don’t know how big a deal that is! Just getting accepted at a place like that automatically makes you at least five times smarter than me.”

“That isn’t true–”

“Don’t even. So what did you study at Oxford University while also studying punching other guys in the face?”

“I didn’t–anthropology. I was in the department of physical anthropology.”

He took another pull of his beer then said, “You’re going to have to explain that to me.”

“It’s the study of people, simply put. Cultures, traditions, social mores. Physical anthropology deals more with the, well, physical aspects of this. The way their bodies are shaped by their activities, and all the things they leave behind.”

“So, like archeology?”

“Sort of. It depends on one’s field of research.”

“So do you do any digging?”

“Oh, no. I changed fields after my undergrad. To cultural anthropology. That’s what I teach. Specifically, medical anthropology.”

He thought about all this for a few seconds, holding another forkful of food poised before his mouth. The waitress drifted by to replenish our water glasses.

“So,” Toriv said eventually. “This means you’re actually about ten times smarter than me.”

I frowned. “Stop that. An advanced degree isn’t an indication of overall intelligence.”

“Uh, says the Oxford man to the almost high school dropout. The only reason I have a diploma is because everyone kicked my ass so hard I had no choice but to do otherwise.”

“But obviously you’ve been successful in other departments,” I insisted. “You have a flourishing business and a close family and plenty of interesting friends.”

Toriv laughed a little into his water glass. “I guess so. Not too shabby for the class loser, huh?”

I couldn’t find anything to say to that, so we continued to eat in silence. Was the evening about to be ruined because I was overeducated? The thought sent me into a wild panic for about half a second, before I made a supreme effort to pull myself together in between sips of ginger ale. Calm down, Mahendra, no one has ever broken up with anyone over an Oxford education. I hoped.

“So why boxing?” Toriv asked abruptly.

His mood didn’t really seem affected in one way or another, so I thought it safe to resume the conversation as though nothing had happened. “Oh, you know. It was a high pressure environment, very competitive. So I needed a way to blow off steam.”

He looked up at me through his lashes, showing the little bit of his crooked eyetooth. “And you chose boxing?”

“Well, one of the members was a young man from my department whom I dearly wished to punch in the face, so that was a plus.”

Toriv laughed so loudly that the waitress’ head whipped around in surprise, and just like that, the tension of our previous bit of conversation had dissolved, and we went back to talking about trivial things. We finished up our meals soon after that, politely declined dessert (“We’re trying to be good,” Toriv told the waitress, with a conspiratory glance in my direction), and paid our separate bills. Then we set out into the street again, with Toriv calling enthusiastic thanks back into the little Thai restaurant as we exited.

It had gotten colder, so our steps were quick as we headed back the way we had come. It was with a strange, surprising pang that I realized we had already returned to the door of the Café Vanellas. I paused awkwardly under the streetlamp by the door, wondering what to do now, whether I was meant to invite him to go somewhere else or whether we were meant to part ways.

Toriv walked right past his own place of business, however, and headed for the next street crossing. When he realized I had stopped, he looked back and waved with fingertips already going reddish from the cold. “Uh, are you coming?”

I remained stupidly rooted by the lamppost. “That…depends?”

“I was just gonna invite you up to my place for coffee or something. Wouldn’t want to send you back into the cold without something warm in your belly.”

An invitation. My heart almost stopped, before I reminded myself it probably didn’t mean anything one way or the other. Or perhaps that it did, but that it wouldn’t do to think too far ahead.

“Unless, uh…” Toriv dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. “You’d rather just go into the shop? The coffee’s just as good in there.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved despite the knot of anticipation that had settled in my stomach. “The shop is fine. If you don’t mind.”

We entered into a lovely coffee-scented warmth, fielding exclamations from the twin baristas at being back so early. Toriv slipped up to the counter to order something — I had given him permission to “surprise me”, statement to which his only response was a devilish grin — while I settled at a table by the bay window to watch the streetlamps flicker in the gloom. Although it was the last week of February, it was still too early to anticipate the end of winter by Montréal standards, so at least one last heavy snowfall was to be expected. As I gazed upwards into the purplish dark of the night sky, I thought I saw a couple of snowflakes glinting by the light of the skyscrapers, but it might have been only illusion.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Toriv said as he returned. He placed two stout little mugs on the table, both of them steaming with something that smelled wonderfully sweet and chocolately.

He stepped away for just another second to grab a bowl of minuscule pastel-coloured marshmallows and another of what looked like freshly whipped cream, then sat across from me, his knees almost touching mine under the tiny table.

“Nothing, really,” I replied. “Daydreams.”

He nudged the bowls of marshmallows and cream towards me and sat looking at me expectantly, so I picked up the serving spoon and piled a few generous dollops of both atop my drink. When I was finished, he gave me a very serious, satisfied nod, then held his hand out for the spoon.

I drank tentatively. It was a far cry from the plain and simple hot cocoa I had been expecting; unlike the powdered chocolate variety I had stashed in my pantry at home, this cocoa was rich and velvety in texture, and filled with so many different flavours I didn’t know where to begin.

“Chocolate,” I said slowly. “Then coconut, and…chili? Almonds, too. Dear me.”

“That’s the whipped cream. It’s a work in progress,” Toriv said modestly. His cup of hot cocoa was all dressed up but he hadn’t yet touched it. “I’m still trying to come up with a signature Café Vanellas drink. What do you think?”

“It’s very good.”

He watched me as I took another sip, and then another. Then he laughed as I tipped the mug a little so I could slurp up the mound of whipped cream floating atop the drink like a fluffy, delicious crown.

“It’ll all melt away if I don’t hurry,” I protested.

“I see you are well-versed in the ways of the hot chocolate.”

“It’s the best drink on Earth. Besides tea, of course.”

“Of course.”

He gave his cocoa and cream a quick little mix with the spoon and then held it back to me. I knew he hadn’t put his mug or the spoon to his mouth, but I still felt self-conscious as I used our shared spoon to scoop up the last of the almond whipped cream and marshmallows from the top of my drink. The taste of the cocoa and its sweet additions soon overrode my inhibitions, however, and for a minute I was all bliss. We sat in comfortable silence, two grown men with their cups of cocoa, as the gentle noise of the shop went on around us and cars shushed past in the street. The baristas hummed in harmony behind us as they went about their washing-up and last-minute orders. Every time I happened to catch Toriv’s gaze, he smiled a little with his eyes, an almost imperceptible gesture so unlike and yet so similar to his open, cat-like smiles that it made me want to laugh or reach across the table and touch my fingertips to the soft crease at the corner of his eye.

That gentle, drifting moment might have gone on forever if Kiv hadn’t suddenly appeared next to our table. I startled, sloshing the last drops of my cocoa onto the tabletop.

“All ready to close, boss,” Kiv said.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Toriv said distractedly. He reached out with one of the napkins he had brought and blotted out the cocoa I had spilled on the table. Then he met my eyes and smiled.

“No sorries,” he said. “Tables are made to be spilled on.”

We stood to allow Kiv to grab our used dishes and carry them to the back. Daeci interceded in a seamless manner that had to have been practiced, I decided, and made a shooing gesture towards us both as she wiped down the table.

“Go on, boss. We can handle the rest of it. Go home.” She gave me a significant look, which I hope I didn’t gratify by blushing too hard.

“Fine!” Toriv sighed dramatically. “Kicked out of my own establishment. I see how it is.”

We said our goodnights to the twins and stepped back out into the cold. Toriv fluffed his scarf up around his neck then looked up at me through his lashes. “I’m guessing you have an early start tomorrow. Can I walk you home?”

The knot of anticipation returned the pit of my stomach, even filled as it was with hot cocoa. Somehow I had the sense not to hesitate and led him in the direction of my flat. The air was brisk but not intolerably so; on a slightly warmer night I might have lingered, slowed my pace to a meander just to extend the walk by a few moments. Toriv chatted easily the whole way about this and that, requiring no more input from me than a few sounds of encouragement, which was fortunate considering I was already beginning to be overwhelmed with the events of the evening.

All too soon, we arrived by the doors of my apartment building. Toriv spent a moment gazing up the façade like he was counting the windows.

“These are some swanky-ass condos,” he said finally. “And this close to the Elven Quarter. It’s like a whole different world.”

“It isn’t really,” I said, embarrassed. “The inside is rather modest.”

“Is that so?” he mused. “Show me in sometime, then.”

“I–I will.”

“Yeah?”

“No reason not to.”

“Good to know.” He turned towards me and pushed his hands into his pockets. “I had a good time tonight.”

“Me too,” I replied with complete and utter sincerity. “Erm, can I see you again?”

“Sure you can,” he grinned. “Anytime you walk into the Café Vanellas.”

“I mean–you know what I mean.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then you mustn’t tease so,” I reprimanded.

He laughed, exuding a puff of smoky warm air into the night. “Why, Professor? Are you going to punish me?”

I felt the heat rush to my face for what was probably the hundredth time that night. “And stop that, too. I’m not…easy, you know. Not–whatever you want to call it.”

“I don’t think you’re easy, Prof,” Toriv said. “I just think you need to relax a bit. And besides, I made you hot chocolate. That’s a grade A woo-ing tactic right there, used only on the definitely not-easy.”

“You mean you got your employees to make me hot chocolate. Woo-ing deferred.”

“Same difference!” he exclaimed. “Are you wanting to be wooed or not?”

“Yes,” I said. “Please.”

That stopped him for a good few seconds. When he lifted his face to look at me, his expression was strange but his eyes were very bright.

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. I mean, I’ll take a crack at it.”

I felt a grin slowly creeping onto my face and fought to keep it at respectable levels. “I don’t crack easy, either.”

“Good. I like a challenge.” Toriv took one step forward and held his arms out. “So, hug? No funny business, I promise.”

So I pressed forward into his arms and felt them tighten around my waist. He stood at just the right height for me to drape my arms over his shoulders. I gave him a little squeeze, hardly believing my good fortune. His windswept hair tickled my cheek and his body was very solid, lean, and warm.

“God, you’re tall,” he declared, his voice muffled against my shoulder.

I laughed and he gave me a final quick squeeze before letting go and stepping back, grinning all over his face.

“Nice hug,” he said. “Well, goodnight, Mahendra. I’ll see you soon.”

“Definitely. Goodnight.”

And he walked away, hands back in pockets, steps sure and quick over the crusted-over snow. He didn’t look back. He walked like he never did.

So I decided to follow suit, and stepped into my apartment building without glancing back once, though the urge was almost unbearably strong.