I got a text message that read, "Drink what you want, and love like you've never been hurt before."
We're texting all night, and I'm trying to get him to ask me out to dinner. I'm 2nd on at the bar and it's dead, so I decide to leave early, and mention this to him and he asks if I'm going to go home and get some sleep finally. I say I'm thinking of taking myself out for dinner to celebrate my fucking 12 hour work day being over.
He asks who I'm gonna go with, and I say no one, so he asks if he can take me out to dinner, just like I wanted, and he says, "It'll be like our first date. But more of a pre-date."
We meet at Roy, the only decent restaurant open late and even then it closes at midnight -- Santa Barbara does food pretty well, but how I long for San Francisco's restaurant scene -- and collapse into a booth and are immediately all over each other.
Our server wearily walks up and is having a rough night, especially when we can't stop talking or touching long enough to look at the menu. We mention this to him, and decide immediately to make his night amazing. We're overly enthusiastic with everything he does for us, telling him he's doing a great job when he delivers our wine, leaving him a massive tip. He's a character in our lives now. He regards us with a delicious ennui all night long.
He pays for everything, by the way, but he knows he doesn't have to.