Ask Tiffany out

"You saw who just ran into me, right? You have to agree that i have to try my chances with that one." Claire smirks "You'd be a fool not to."

The digits on the back of your hand have smudged slightly, a four that could be a nine, so you spend a ridiculous amount of time deciding which one she meant and finally send the message with the more optimistic reading.

Hi, it's John. The one you collided with. Still alive, in case you were worried.

The reply arrives before you've put the phone away.

OMG you actually texted!!! I was literally just telling myself you wouldn't. Also I think you got my number right, which is impressive, I can barely read my own handwriting. Quick question before drinks, do you know where I can find a MoneyGram?? Google keeps sending me to a place that's apparently a kebab shop.

You stare at the screen for a second. A MoneyGram, on a Tuesday evening, for someone three days into a foreign city, strikes you as a slightly odd thing to need.

There's probably one in a tabak or a post office somewhere. What are you sending money for?

Oh my god, GOOD NEWS. I found an apartment!!! A real one, student housing, no more yoga on the floor. I just have to send the deposit and they'll mail me the keys. I'm so excited I could cry!!!

Something cold settles in your stomach.

Where are you right now? I'll come meet you. Don't send anything yet.

Aww, you're coming to help me find it? You're literally the best. Sending a pin!

Claire is already in the kitchen when you get back to pick up your jacket, pretending, badly, to be absorbed in the contents of the fridge. "So," she says, to the lettuce. "I assume I'm eating alone tonight."

"I'm sorry, I can cook for you tomorrow.{if game:Claire >= 5}...{I'll do dishes shirtless, whatever you want {endif}."

"Tempting, but I'll settle for a full report." She turns around, grinning, and flicks a hand toward the door. "Go. Don't be weird. Or be weird, she seems like she'd like that."

"Reassuring. Also, if my phone rings in an hour asking for bail money, it's not what it sounds like."

"I'm very good at reassurance. Have fun, John."

Tiffany is waiting outside a small corner shop with a faded red-and-yellow sign in the window, and you stop for a moment longer than you intend to.

She's changed since the afternoon: a green dress this time, a little less sundress and a little more intention, her curls pinned half-up so that a few of them keep slipping loose around her neck. And those tits would look slutty in anything, but in that? She's the ultimate swx bomb.

She's turned toward the shop window, phone in one hand, a folded slip of paper in the other, bouncing very slightly on her heels, and she looks so thoroughly happy that you almost wish you didn't have to say anything.

You're attracted to her. That's not a complicated observation. It lands somewhere in your chest, right behind the part of you that's been telling you to be sensible, and it makes you wonder how you're going to get through an entire evening with it. That, and the erection you threaten to sport whenever you look at Tiffany.

"John!" She spots you and waves with the paper, practically glowing. "You came! Okay, this is the place, I'm like ninety percent sure, the sign has the right colors. Eight hundred euros, I wrote it down so I wouldn't mess up."

"Tiffany, before you go in. Can I see the messages?"

"Sure?" She hands over the phone, looking puzzled. "Why?"

You scroll. It's all there, in the cheerful, slightly wrong English of a person who has copied it from a template: a one-bedroom in the third district, absurdly cheap, "exclusive student price." The landlord, apparently a Mr. Hoffmann, is currently abroad for work and cannot show the flat in person, but will gladly post the keys the moment the deposit has arrived. By MoneyGram only, for "legal reasons." There's a note that two other students are very interested, and that the offer expires tomorrow at noon.

"Okay," you say, carefully. "Tiffany. I don't want to ruin your day, but I think this is a scam."

"What? No. He's so nice. He said I was a very responsible tenant."

"You've never spoken to him. He's never met you, and you've never seen the flat." You hand the phone back, trying to find the gentlest way to say it. "Real student housing here goes through the university and waiting lists, which, as we've both discovered, are painfully slow. A landlord who's abroad, wants cash by MoneyGram, and says someone else will take it by noon is pretty much a checklist of every red flag there is."

She's quiet for a long moment. Her mouth opens, closes, and she looks down at the folded slip of paper in her hand as if it had personally betrayed her. "But the pictures were so nice."

"I'd bet the pictures belong to somebody else's flat."

"Oh my god." Her face crumples, then, abruptly, goes pale. "Oh my god. I was going to send him eight hundred euros. That's, like, eitht hundred dollars, right? My dad would have killed me. I would have been so..." She presses her hands over her face. "I'm so stupid."

"You're not stupid. They're good at this. It's literally their job to sound trustworthy." You hesitate, then put a hand on her shoulder. "You can report it, if you want. And you didn't send anything. That's the part that matters."

She peeks at you through her fingers, eyes bright and a little wet. "You stopped me."

"I stopped you."

"John." She lowers her hands and then, without any warning at all, throws her arms around you, folded paper crushed against your back. "Thank you. Seriously. You're, like, a literal rescue mission. Again."

"Again?"

"Whatever, I'm counting the collision." She laughs, shaky, and wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Okay. Okay. I need a drink. Several drinks. And you're buying, because you got to be the hero."

"That's a reasonable invoice."

She tears the slip of paper into small, vengeful pieces and drops them in the nearest bin, then loops her arm through yours. "Lead the way. And I swear, if you say the word 'scam' again tonight, I'm going to cry."

The bar turns out to be a narrow, low-ceilinged place in a side street she found earlier, all dark wood and candles in old wine bottles. A patient-looking man with a grey beard stands behind the counter, and Tiffany is somehow already explaining something to him with both hands before you've even sat down, and he's nodding with the polite bewilderment of someone who understands none of it and is enjoying it anyway.

"I'm ordering for you," she announces, turning to you. "The guy says it's called a Radler. It's basically a beer for people who don't like beer, and I felt like that was a you thing."

"That's an uncomfortably accurate read."

"I have good instincts." She slides onto a stool and pats the one beside her. "Sit. I've been here five minutes and I've already learned four German words, and one of them was just 'cheers,' so don't get too excited."

You sit. Close enough that your knee brushes hers, and neither of you moves away from it.

The conversation, once it starts, doesn't stop. She tells you about the hostel, in detail, about the roommate who does yoga at five in the morning ("on the floor, John, two feet from my face") and the one who labels her yoghurt with her initials and a threat. You tell her about Geneva, and about being the anglophone who never had to learn anything, and she listens with her whole face, interrupting only to say things like "no way" and "that's so sad, oh my god, but also kind of funny."

"What made you pick Vienna?" you ask. "Of all the places an exchange program could send you."

"Honestly? The pictures." She laughs at herself before you can. "I looked at, like, three options, and this one had the best architecture. I'm a shallow person, it's fine." She tilts her head. "And my dad wanted me somewhere serious. Somewhere that looked good on a resume. I figured, what's more serious than a place with eleven palaces?"

"That's a surprisingly sound argument."

"See? I contain multitudes. And a business degree." She rests her chin in her hand, studying you with open, unguarded interest. "What about you? Why political science?"

"I like understanding why things go wrong. I'm told it's a very cheerful hobby."

"It sounds exhausting. But kind of hot, honestly." She says it so matter-of-factly that you have to take a drink of Radler to cover how fast you've lost your composure. She clocks it immediately and grins, delighted. "Oh, you're blushing. That's so cute."

"I'm not blushing. It's the candles."

"It's definitely the candles." She leans a little closer, her shoulder against yours now. "Tell me something you've never told anyone on a first date."

"Is this a first date?"

"I mean, I'm treating it like one. If you want to be a coward and call it 'drinks,' go ahead." She smiles at you, bright and teasing, and doesn't look away. You realize you've forgotten, somewhere in the last hour, that there are other people in the bar.

You tell her the true thing, which is that you've spent most of your life feeling like a guest, in languages, in cities, in other people's conversations, and that she's the first person in a while who's made it feel like he might be allowed to stay. It sounds heavier out loud than it did in your head. She doesn't joke about it. She just covers your hand on the counter with hers and says, quietly, "I'm glad you're here," and for once you believe someone who says that.

The bar empties around you without either of you noticing. It's only when the grey-bearded bartender starts stacking chairs, with an exaggerated lack of subtlety, that you check the time and realize it's almost midnight.

Outside, the street is cool and nearly empty, the cobblestones dark and shining from a shower you both missed. Tiffany slips her arm through yours as you walk, steering without really looking where she's going, and you end up outside her hostel, a tall narrow building with a crooked neon sign and a window on the second floor where someone, presumably the yoga roommate, has left a light on.

"This is me," she says, with theatrical gloom. "Home sweet bunk bed."

"At least it's clean."

"It's fine." She turns to face you, close enough that you can see the small details of her face under the streetlight, a faint scatter of freckles across her nose, a curl stuck to her cheek. She hesitates, then smiles, a little crooked. "I had a really good time, John. Like, a really good time. I want to do this again. If you do."

"I do."

"Good." She exhales, relieved, then narrows her eyes at you with sudden, playful suspicion. "Although. I have to point out that you haven't touched me. At all. Not once. Hands, face, nothing. I'm a very touchable person, I have it on good authority, and you've been a perfect gentleman all night. It's honestly kind of insulting."

You laugh. It's an awkward, helpless laugh, and she tilts her head, waiting.

"I want to get to know you first," you say. "Properly. Before I kiss you." You're not sure where the sentence came from, only that it's true, and that saying it out loud makes something settle in your chest. "I don't want it to be a thing I did because of the candles."

For a moment she says nothing, and you think you've misjudged it. Then her whole face softens, and she steps in and wraps her arms around you in a hug that's much too tight and goes on slightly too long, her cheek against your shoulder.

"That's the nicest thing a guy's ever said to me," she mumbles into your jacket. "I'm going to pretend I'm not a little bit swooning right now."

"I won't tell anyone."

"You'd better not." She pulls back, grinning, eyes bright. "Text me tomorrow. I mean it. You owe me."

"I'll text you tomorrow."

She bounces up the steps, turns once at the door to wave with both hands like she's flagging down a ship, and disappears inside.

You walk home slowly, hands in your pockets, the smudged ink on the back of your hand almost gone. The streets are quiet. Somewhere between the third corner and the fourth, you notice you're smiling at nothing at all, and you don't bother to stop.