Chapter 33. Date Night

Amy paced across the bedroom.

Seventeen steps to the window, pivot, fifteen steps back to the mirror. Her new sundress swished around her knees – impulse purchase, one size too optimistic. Twenty-seven minutes until he arrived. Twenty-six, actually. The clock on her microwave was fast.

“You are a grown woman,” she told her reflection, which stared back with unconvinced eyes. “You’ve been on dates before.”

“Why am I so nervous?” she asked herself in the mirror. “It’s just Asa, your nice neighbor.

The sundress was yellow – “Daffodil Dream” according to the tag – with tiny white flowers scattered across the fabric like stars on a summer night.

She’d spent forty-three minutes and all her remaining dignity in the fitting room deciding between this one and a blue number that made her look like a corporate retreat brochure. The yellow won because it didn’t take itself too seriously. Amy wasn’t sure she could say the same about herself right now.

Amy paused at t