Harry stood nervously in front of his bathroom mirror. He had been running his hand through his hair in a futile attempt to tame its splayed and tangled mess, but this had proved to be much more difficult than usual. Every time he guided a lock of hair to either side of the part down the center of his head, it seemed to maintain its new position for no more than a few seconds before creeping back to the old.

It figures, he had been thinking to himself, of course everything was going to go wrong now. He should not have taken the nap after returning from work, but failing to set an alarm was an even worse decision. By the time he woke up he only had ten minutes before his date was going to arrive.

After a few more panicked swipes at his head, he decided that he was not going to do any better. He had succeeded in transforming it from a completely untamed lion’s mane to more of a loosely packed bird’s nest. It was progress of a kind, anyways. He gave an awkward smile to the mirror in an attempt to bolster his confidence in his work before he heard a knock on the door below. It must have been Fiona.

Running down the stairs to his condo, he practically threw the door open to greet her.

“Fiona!” he exclaimed, before lowering his voice a few decibels, “Great to see you.”

“I’m happy to see you too!” she responded joyfully.

Harry knew he must have been blushing because he could feel a hot pang of heat that stretched to both his ears. Contrary to his own sloth, it was obvious that she had indeed taken the time to dress up for their date. Clinging tightly to her thin frame was a beautiful, albeit unseasonably bare dress for the middle of winter. The white fabric matched her pale skin and ended just short of her knees before opening up like the flowers that adorned it, a beautiful pattern of petals from blood red roses.

“You look…” Harry started to speak.

“Great?” she interrupted before striking a side-pose. Harry was amazed that even in the yellowing, anemic light of the apartment her skin managed to look radiant.

“Actually I was going to say cold,” Harry mumbled.

“Well maybe just a little bit. You had better invite me in before I get a cold.”

“Right! Yes, please, come in.”

Harry beckoned her inside before ushering her to the kitchen where a family meal from Popeyes had been sitting since he picked it up from after work.

“You always talk about keto at work and – well, I don’t really know what that means, but I know it has something to do with meat. So I went and bought this for us to eat together.”

Fiona paused for a moment, briefly moving from a vacant smile to a vacant stare and then back again.

“Oh wow, this looks great,” she finally stuttered.

“Trust me, you’ll love Popeyes. Have you ever had it before?”

“The thing is, I think I might have left myself something in the car – do I have your permission to just run and get that real quick?”

“You don’t want to try the chicken first? It’s freshly cooked from earlier, don’t want it getting too cold,” Harry insisted, honoring the dating tip his father had told him: always be closing. There was no chance he was letting this fish off the hook, not when he was already so close.

“No, it – it looks great, seriously. It’s just something in my car that I need.”

“What could you need? A coat? You’re already here so no need. Let’s have delicious Louisiana-style chicken together!”

As Harry spoke he watched a fly buzz out from the dining room behind him. The two of them watched it dance around his head and then Fiona’s before flying out the still open door behind her.

“Right. Look Harry, you’re freaking me out a little bit here. It will only take me a minute to get this from my car.”

Too much Harry, he thought to himself. He needed to be a little less strong or he might scare her off. It was then he remembered his father’s other pillar of dating: if you seem eager, then you seem meager. Yes, it was a fine dance he needed to maintain, an impossible thin line to toe, and it was of course complicated by the fact that he was really jonesing for the chicken. Seriously, though: priorities.

“Sure, fine, no problem at all. It would be weird if I did not let you go to your car, so yeah, please – go to your car real quick and come back up so we can eat together.”

“So I can leave?”

“No don’t leave – No!” Harry spouted, nearly lunging at her before restraining himself. He scratched his head for a moment, kicking a tuft of hair back up into the air.

“No, see, what I meant is go to your car but don’t leave.”

Harry paused for another second.

“That works, right?”

“Well – no, not really. You need to let me leave here first for me to do that.”

This was uncharted territory now. I mean his dad did not say anything about this and, frankly, he had never gotten this far with anybody else.

Always be meager – no – eager to be always closing – no! – damn it, he wanted to hit himself as he fumbled around with the ideas in his head.

“Yes,” he finally sputtered after a few more seconds.

“Yes? Yes, what?” Fiona chirped, her expression returning to a smile.

“You can leave to go to your car,” he announced again, happy to see that he made her smile again.

And she was happy! Yes, very much so. So happy in fact she lunged on top of him almost as quickly as the words left his lips and buried her lips against the nape of his neck. It was a surprise to him, but a welcome one. He could feel the cold touch of her lips against his neck quickly turning to a pleasant warmth.

“I thought you needed to leave for your car,” he mumbled weakly.

“Just a little something I want to take care of first,” she replied while her lips smacked.

“Always be closing,” he whispered into her ear as the room slowly turned dark, his mind still enraptured in intense ecstasy.

“It’s always the key,” she smiled from on top of him.