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Nina followed the manager and Sam and did her best to ignore the wet, hot pain on the tender backs of her heels and how it felt like the blisters there had probably burst, and were possibly even bleeding.

There was a little bit of
squishing.

This restaurant had low, white-leather-covered stools set around little stands that held the huge round trays of food, which served as tables when they were brought out and set up.

She suddenly felt every place that her dress was a little tight and was pulling across her ass, and she eyed the low-slung stool doubtfully.

Joder.

“Here we are, may I bring you both drinks from the bar? On the house.”

Sam looked at Nina and she nodded at the manager. “I’ll have a glass of
tej.
”

The manager turned to Sam, who hadn’t looked away from Nina. “Sir?” she said.

“A beer?”

“Of course, what kind?”

“I’m not sure, do you have something, um.”

“Do you want an Ethiopian beer?” Nina asked him.

“Yeah, I just wanted this to be all authentic, maybe.”

Nina barely kept her hand from pressing on her chest, where Sam was breaking her heart with his careful hopes for this date. God. She looked at the manager. “You have Bedele?”

“Of course, I’ll be right back.”

“You’ve been here before?” Sam sounded wistful.

“No, I really haven’t. It’s just that Ethiopian is one of my favorites.”

“Oh.” Sam looked down at his extremely pointy shoes. “That’s good. Because we’re at an Ethiopian restaurant. You’ll have to let me know if it’s good.”

Nina suddenly felt uncomfortable, more than the heat and her sore feet and her clinging dress could account for. He had wanted to make something special for her, and she had ruined that, a little. No fault of hers, but still.

It was the way he looked at her in a dress the same way he did when she was in Carhartts, covered in mud, stinking. It was how when he ate the food in her café, he leaned over his plate and sometimes closed his eyes when he was chewing, and asked Rachel a million questions about what he was eating. It was that Tay said he’d called her and told her exactly what unit she’d be in after her surgery and which nurses on that unit he liked the best and to remember to ask for heated blankets.

He was special because when she looked into his gray eyes she saw what he wanted, and it made her feel things she thought had died with Russ. Sam made her want to pick up the phone and call her parents for no reason, instead of because it was a holiday, or because she had a technical question she couldn’t find the answer to.

She would ruin this.

She didn’t know if she had what she needed to keep Paz Farms together and make sure Tay was okay and fill in for her during harvest. She wasn’t
done
with so many things; she hadn’t, she didn’t think, made it clear to Sam he had to go even slower.

She had to catch up to everything.

She wanted this to grow, not be planted and ripped out like some pretty annual, only good for one season.

“It’s perfect, Sam. Should we sit down?”

Sam rushed to awkwardly pull out the stool and she did her best to lower herself into a squat and then rest the side of one hip on the seat, her knees together and resting at an angle.

When she looked down, her toes through the peephole of her shoes were purple from the pressure of the
high heels, and her feet were swollen over the sharp edges of the shoe. She wanted to discreetly slip them off, almost in tears from the half relief of sitting down, but she didn’t dare until their tray of food was put on its stand to keep her mangled feet from view.

“The seats are pretty fuckin’ low,” Sam said, and he seemed to be in a similar predicament, trying to sit comfortably in his tight jeans, figuring out where to put his legs.

They looked at each other, hunched in uncomfortable squats on their stools.

They laughed until their drinks came.

* * *

Sam’s ears and throat were completely red, almost purple.

“Nah, it’s good spicy, not that hot at all.” His voice was hoarse, and Nina swore there were tears in the corners of his eyes. She leaned forward to get another scoop of
wat
with her sour piece of
teff
, piling on condiments arranged around the perimeter of the tray with her fingers.

“It’s very spicy here, actually. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, fine. It’s good.” He cleared his throat for what had to be the tenth time, and she watched his flush eat through his russet stubble in rapidly blooming and uneven splotches. He took a long swallow of his third beer, set it down, and then contemplated the communal tray of chopped, spiced meat and flatbread like he was going into battle.

“Try a piece of
teff
plain, clear your palate.”

“I like it. Don’t worry about me.” He reached toward the tray to make himself another bite.
Wat
was eaten without utensils, and it took practice using the flat
teff
as a vehicle for the piles of stews and minces. Sam had been a little fumbling with it, which was completely fine, except when she saw his hand reach for the flatbread, she stopped chewing, horrified.

“
Sam.
Look at your fingers.”

He looked down and winced. His fingers were a deep red, the backs of his hands erupting in pink hivelike welts. When she looked at his face, she could see that the edges of his lips were irritated, too, puffy.

“Sam, you have to stop. Just, stop. I’m worried that you’re allergic to something. You don’t have a peanut allergy, do you? This cuisine uses peanuts and legumes.”

Sam put his hands in his lap and looked at Nina, miserable. Pink and sweating.

“No. I’m not allergic. But the thing is, I could never handle really spicy food. I want to, I like it, but …” He held up his hands.

“Oh, Sam.”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You like it.”

“The food?”

“Yeah. You’re just sitting there, plowing through it like it’s mashed potatoes and gravy. I didn’t want to ruin your fun.”

“I’m making a pig of myself, huh?”

He looked at her for a few beats, obviously getting his brain on the same track as his mouth. She made sure her face looked upset, even though she wanted to laugh. “No, no, Nina. I mean, you know. You like it. A lot. I can tell you like it and I didn’t want to interrupt your concentration on eating, and good goddamn there’s a lot of food on this tray to get through.”

“I guess my conversation isn’t that great either?”

He paused again, managed to turn redder. “It’s really fucking hot in here. I’m not thinking straight.”

“Poor baby.” She let herself grin and then leaned forward to take his hand. Someone needed to rescue him from his well-meaning misery. Except when she leaned over …

She heard a cottony, growling
rip.

From her dress.

From the seam traveling up the
ass
of her dress.

She went still, and then, of course, he took the initiative and grabbed her hand to lean her in closer, and before she could lean away, he tugged her close and …

Ri-i-ip.

“Shit, Sam, let go.”

He did. “Damnit, Nina, what did I do?”

She leaned back. Slowly. Felt more of the leather seat than she should, high up on her thighs. Way high up. The kick slit in the back of the dress must have given way and ripped farther upward under the strain of the dress being a size or so too small and her position in the stool putting pressure on it.

And she
had
eaten a lot of
wat.

“My dress ripped.” No way around it. She would just have to confess.

“Like?”

“Like the seam, right up the back. It ripped. I’m not sure how high up.”

“Are you done? I mean with dinner?”

“Yeah, I think once you’ve busted out of your clothes, dinner’s over.”

Sam winced at her tone, which she hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but she was trying to slip back into her shoes under the table.

They didn’t fit.

Her feet, out of the confines of the painful high heels rubbing against the tender skin from her pedicure, had swollen. She tried to slip the shoes back on, but unless she really shoved, and shoved hard, the very idea of which made her nauseated, they were not going on.

Sam stood up, his knees popping. “Jesus.”

Then he swayed in place.

Shit.
“You okay?” He somehow looked both pink and green at the same time.

“Yeah, I—” He put his hand to his head, revealing dark sweat stains in the pits of his shirt. “I think I’m a little drunk.”

“You had what, three beers?”

“Yeah, but I don’t usually drink that much. Carbs.”

“Dios mio.”

“You need help up, though, and I want to stand behind you in case your dress is totally split open.”

Nina pressed her fingers to her eyes.

“Just give me a minute, Nina.”

She pressed harder.

She felt him reach her side, and she opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Sam’s white leather stool.

Which was now white with a deep blue impression of a man’s butt.

“Hey Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you wash your new jeans PJ talked you into? I mean before you wore them?”

“Hell no. I was afraid if I did, they’d shrink and I’d never get into them.”

“Look.” She gestured toward his stool.

“Motherfucker.”

They were quiet for a long minute, the noise of the restaurant intense, their date battered into defeat.

He turned to her and reached out his hand. “Come on, haul up. We’re gonna have to make a run for it.”

He didn’t let her think; she touched his arm, then he grabbed hers and yanked her up, holding her upright until he was sure she was steady. Then he reached into his wallet and pulled out a big wad of cash and tucked it under the tray.

She took a deep breath and forced her feet into her shoes, seeing stars.

Then he came behind her and started walking her forward, fast. She pulled down the skirt of her dress and tentatively felt behind her. Small mercies, the rip hadn’t made it farther than maybe the top of her thigh, but Sam pressed close and nearly pushed them through the crowd, out the door, and onto the sidewalk, which was now filled with people waiting to get in.

He pushed her along, and she hobbled, but he didn’t seem to notice. When they were a block away from the crowd he stepped back and ran his hands over her ass.

“Not so bad, actually.”

“I figured that out when we were doing the dine and dash.”

“I left money.”

She sighed. “I know.” She turned around. “You still dying of chile poisoning?”

“It’s better. Now that we’re in the fresh air, I don’t feel so wasted, either.”

“You ready to go home?”

He yanked down on his hopelessly wrinkled shirt, revealing cross-hatches of sweat stains where it had been bunched against his skin. “Fuck no.”

“No?”

“No. You’re still decent, I’m not dead or too drunk, and anyway, we’re here. For the second half of our date. Look.”

He was pointing at a small brick building with a smoked plate-glass window.

Painted on the window in gold script was
Two Left Feet Dance Studio.

Baby Jesus have mercy.

“We’re going to dance?”

“That’s right.”

“Right now?”

“I made us an appointment. This guy, he’s supposed to be great. Him and his wife spend half an hour giving lessons to the couples, then they play old records for the next hour to let couples practice and dance. Also …” He put his hand on the back of his neck. “My folks, they used to go here. For dates. They even did the teaching part, after a while.”

“Oh, Sam.”

“Yeah.” He looked so worried, she was afraid he’d die from it.

“I don’t know, it’s just—” She took a step in her shoes and had to breathe through her nose from the pain.

“It’s stupid, right? I mean, it’s probably just a bunch of old people and I don’t even know what kind of music you like. Probably not old-fashioned music like this. It’s cool.”

This time she did press her hand to her heart. “I want to.”

He grinned at his shoes. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Let’s do it.”

“So, you don’t know how to dance, do you?”

“What?”

“I just mean, I tried to do the thing, with the new food experience, and you totally outclassed me. Not that I mind if you’re classier. Obviously, you are. In everything. It’s only that, because of my parents, I’ve taken a few lessons myself and it would be nice to, you know. Show you some things.”

He would do so much better if he didn’t say more than half of what ran through his head.

“I don’t dance.”

He grinned again, but then schooled it, which made Nina want to laugh. “No? Okay. That’s
not
 … awesome. I mean …”

She reached up and put her fingers to his lips, traced around where they were still overwarm and rosy from the chiles. “I know what you mean.”

“Yeah. You do. It’s what I like about you, Nina.”

“I’m too heavy.”

“Not at all.”

She wasn’t, for the first three blocks. The last four, it was possible she was just a little heavy.

“I’m so sorry.” She buried her face into his neck and he readjusted his arm under her ass and told himself he would never cut his count short on the triceps presses ever again.

“You can’t help it that your feet are bloody stumps.”

“I shouldn’t have worn these stupid shoes.”

“They made your legs look fucking edible.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten that stupid pedicure.”

“That why your toenails are painted red? Sexy.”

He dipped down and grabbed the handle of her lobby door and used his shoulder to wedge them in. The air-conditioning hit them with a blast, and they both moaned.

“Sweet fuck, that feels good.”

“Here, you can put me down.” She wiggled and if his arms and back weren’t screaming, and his toes weren’t pinched, and his ass crack wasn’t chafed raw from sweat in these tiny pants, he’d have appreciated it more.