Asher grabs a beer from the refrigerator and sits down in his chair. He kicks off his shoes and turns on the TV to a baseball game. He looks at his watch: it reads 6:15pm.

“Was there something I was supposed to do?”

Time goes by, and Asher finishes his beer. He gets up to get another one when he accidentally hits the remote and changes it to a cowboy movie. He turns around to see what movie it was.

“That's a good cowboy movie... Oh shit! Magan!”

He looks at the clock to see it was 6:50pm. He rushes to put his shoes on and runs out the door. He locks his door and gets into his car. He peels out of his driveway and heads to Luigi's. Magan sighs and looks at her watch to see that it was 6:55pm as a waitress comes up beside Magan.

“He forgot. Again...”

Waitress asks Magan

“Can I get you another glass of wine, ma’am?”

“No, that’s-“

She hears tires squealing in the distance.

“And there he is making a scene. As usual.”

Magan turns back to the waitress.

“Actually, let me get a bottle of that wine. “

The waitress’ eyes widen at Magan’s request.

“The… the whole bottle, ma’am?”

“Yes, the whole bottle. My date will pay for it.”

The waitress bows at Magan.

“As you wish.”

The waitress leaves as Magan looks back out the window. Asher speeds past the restaurant and does a drifting parallel park and rushes up to Luigi's. Magan looks at her watch as Asher catches his breath. The watch reads 7:00pm.

“See..? 7:00pm... I'm not late...!”

“You made it this time, cowboy.”

Asher throws his hands in the air.

“Would you stop calling me cowboy!”

Asher sits at the table. The waitress takes their drink order. Asher looks down at Magan’s wine and then back to her.

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“Already drinking without me?”

Magan gives Asher a cheeky smile and bats her eyes at him.

“You know it, darling.”

Magan looks at Asher impatiently. She already wanting to talk business with Asher.

“Well...?”

“’Well’, what?”

Asher asks Magan in confusion for a second. Magan just rolled her eyes at Asher.

“What did you find out about the project?”

Asher nods at Magan finally remembering what she wanted to talk about.

“There was a formula problem in the math.”

“There was? I thought one of the pipe designs was off. That's what I was talking about.”

Asher nodded again agreeing with what Magan was talking about, but he added.

“I noticed that as well, but a simple copper wall would fix that. Here, look at my notes.”

Asher pulls out his notes and shows them to Magan.

“The formula would completely destroy this company's reputation. It’s all wrong. It's unstable.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. They’ll need a stronger molecule than what they have here.

It's not strong enough to support the formula. Nice find!”

Magan sees another pile of notes. She smirks seeing that there is more to talk about than just the one folder she had earlier. She grabs the other folder.

“What's this?”

“I found another project on my desk after lunch and that's my notes on it. It has a similar blueprint as the other but with different equipment.”

Magan reads the name of the project. She dislikes the name of it. Her nose scrunches up as she looks at it.

“’BLACK ROSE’? What are they doing? Making their own ‘Power Rangers’?’

“I was thinking along the lines of superheroes even though I said the same thing.”

Magan gave Asher a warm smile. She knew he loved superhero movies especially the “merc with the mouth” one.

“Of course, you would think that it was a superhero team.”

The waitress comes back with their drinks. She sets them down and Asher looks over to Magan. He didn’t order a drink, but he suspects that Magan ordered it for him because she knows that he likes to drink. Magan eyes the bottle of wine that was brought but waited until Asher was distracted before making her move.

“What can I get for you, ma’am?”

Magan tapped the menu at what she wanted to eat.

“I’ll have cashew crusted salmon with steamed veggies.”

The waitress nodded and wrote down Magan’s order.

“Excellent choice, ma’am. And you sir?”

Magan slides the bottle of wine out of Asher’s view when his focus was on the waitress.

“I’ll have the chicken Alfredo and an ‘Old Fashion’ to drink.”

The waitress leaves them and comes back with Asher’s drink. Asher takes a sip of his alcohol beverage as Magan asks.

“When are we going to get married?”

Asher holds in his drink and coughs violently. He wasn’t going to waste such an expensive drink.

“What!?”

Magan asks Asher again.

“When are we going to get married?”

Asher started to explain his reasoning with Magan.

“We're not even going out. What makes you think that we're going to get married?”

“I mean, we have sex.”

Magan tells Asher. Asher starts to dig himself a hole when he replies to her.

“Yeah, because you wanted to.”

Asher hushes her before she could argue with him. He knew it before Magan could get onto him about what he just said to her.

“I don't mean it as a bad thing. I'm saying you're the one that just wanted sex and nothing more, right?”

“Yeah, that's what I said. I didn't think that this would happen though...”

Magan gave Asher an innocent look. Asher says.

“I understand, Magan. I really do, but let's just keep what we got now, okay? I don't want to ruin a friendship because we couldn't work things out as a couple. Understand, Magan?”

Magan gave a mock disappointed look at Asher.

“Yeah... I understand...”

The waitress comes by and places their food in front of them. She says to them.

“Please enjoy your food.”

They eat their food. Magan finishes first and places her plate to the side and smiles at Asher. Asher stares her down. He knows what is going on this wasn’t the first time she’s done this.

“Let me guess... I'm paying the bill?”

Magan squeals in delight at Asher like she’s always does.

“Aw, darling! You are the best! See you tomorrow, cowboy!”

“Don't call me...”

Asher was too late; Magan had already left the building. The waitress walks up to him and gives him the bill.

“Here’s your bill, sir.”

“$152.52!? What the hell did she order!?”

The waitress flinches a little, but her eyes shifted to the bottle of wine. Asher slowly follows the gaze of the waitress and leans over to his side. He sees the bottle of wine and grabs the bottle to look at it.

“Of course... She would order the most expensive wine on the menu...”

A sudden realization came over Asher. He then shook his head.

“That's why she asked me that question! She wanted to distract me from realizing what wine she ordered! That little tease!”

Asher hands the bill back to the waitress with his card. The waitress comes back to him and gives him the receipt.

“Here’s your receipt, sir. Have a good night. “

“You too, um…”

Asher swints at her name plate.

“…Andrea. You have a good night as well.”

The waitress smiles and bows to him. Asher gets up and exits the restaurant. Asher gets into his car and starts it up. He yawns as he drives off. He makes a u-turn and heads home. Asher strips and takes a shower. He brushes his teeth and then he climbs into his bed only in his boxers. He thinks about what it would be like to be married to Magan. He shook his head.

“No, it wouldn’t work out between us anyways. It didn’t in the past, it won’t now.”

Asher turns to his side and slowly falls asleep.