“Ah, yes. Right this way, Mr. Kensington.”
The host didn’t seem to think the name was odd at all, and was apparently buying this charade. Oh well, might as well go along with it.
“Oh, Walter, this place is lovely,” I said as he pulled my chair out for me. “Much better than that other place we went last week. Might as well dine in the alley,” I said, smiling at the host. He smiled down at me and handed me a menu, pointed out the wine list, and then started rattling off the specials. Fortunately for me, being a cooking aficionado, I knew what they all were even though some of them were in foreign languages.
“Thank you very much,” Ryder said. “Do you know what you’d like to get for wine, Margie?” Oh, I had a nickname now? He must have planned this out. The only problem was that I didn’t know how much money Ryder had to indulge on this little outing.
“There are so many to choose from. Can we take a moment to decide?” I said, smiling sweetly at the host.
He bowed.
“Absolutely. I’ll come back in a few minutes.”
I waited until he was out of earshot to talk to Ryder.
“How much money do you have? I mean, can you even afford this place?” I made sure to keep my voice as low as possible so no one would hear me. Most of the other diners were using their inside-fancy-restaurant voices. Plus, there was actually a dude playing the piano in the corner.
“Don’t worry about it, Margie. I’ve got this. Get whatever you want. Well, maybe with the exception of that bottle of wine that’s about six hundred dollars. But anything else, go for it.”
I definitely wasn’t going to do that. I’d feel like I was taking advantage. This wasn’t dating, this was Slydering, and I wasn’t going to let him pay for everything.
But I didn’t want Ryder to know that, so I just smiled at him.
“Thanks, Walter. I will.” I scanned the wine menu and found a Prosecco that wasn’t too cheap but wasn’t too fancy either. Our waiter soon arrived to take our dinner orders. For my meal, I had duck a l’Orange, and Ryder got the filet mignon. We kept up with our characters the whole time, having a pretend conversation about various friends from the country club and how Muffy was leaving Carter and taking the children. Ryder talked about a fictitious office and I talked about picking out new curtains. The whole evening was fun, and I loved pretending to be someone else with him.
We both ate fast, and Ryder motioned for the check without even looking at the dessert menu.
“What’s he going to say when he sees the name on your credit card?” I asked, leaning in.
“He’s not going to see a card.” Ryder pulled out his wallet and showed me the bills inside it.
“Put that away, do you want to get robbed?” I hissed at him.
“In here?” He motioned around us. Yeah, okay, so the likelihood of us being robbed in here was slim, but still. You should never wave a bunch of cash around.
The check arrived and Ryder wouldn’t even let me see it. He just gave it a glance, threw in some bills, and held it up.
“Keep the rest,” he said. The waiter thanked him.
“Ready to go, my love?” Ryder said, rising from his seat then stepping over to pull out my chair.
“Yes, I am. Dear.” It sounded ironic when I said it. Or like I was mocking him.
We left the restaurant and headed back to the car.
“Home?” I asked. “I mean, my apartment?”
“As much as I would love to take you home and remove that dress, I’m really craving something.” This was a change from what he’d said earlier.
“Okay, what are you in the mood for?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said, and started driving. Okay then.
~*~*~
I was beyond curious, but I didn’t want Ryder to know how much, so I stayed quiet and tried to figure out where we were going. Finally, he pulled the car over and parked next to Gil’s gallery. The lights were off and it was clearly closed.
“Um, Ryder? I don’t think anyone is here,” I said as he got out and then held the door open for me.