Asher puts his work bag on the couch as he makes his way to the kitchen. It was a very long day for him and he wanted something to drink. Asher grabs a beer from the refrigerator. He opens the beer and takes a drink of it. The bitter goodness slides down his throat. He makes his way back into the living room and sits down in his recliner. He kicks off his shoes and groans in delight. He always wore dress shoes to work to look as professional as he could but they made his feet hurt by the end of the day. It didn't help that he had flat feet. It felt good to take them off and let his feet breathe. He turns on the TV to a baseball game. Oh, look. His favorite team were getting their asses kicked, as always. One of the main reasons why he stopped going to the games personally. It never fun watching the game in person and your team lose. He looks at his smartwatch: it reads 6:15pm. He scratched the side of his cheek. There was something nagging at him like he was forgetting something.

  “Was there something I was supposed to do?”

  Time goes by, and Asher finishes his beer with one last gulp. He gets up to get another one when he accidentally hits the remote and changes it to a cowboy movie. He turns around to see what movie it was. It was about a dirty old cowboy in a poncho. He was in a "Mexican Standoff" with two other people.

  “That's a good cowboy movie... Oh shit! Magan!"

  Asher's eyes widen to saucers as he ran into his bedroom and rummage through his walk-in closet. He looks at his smartwatch to see it was 6:50pm. He quickly changes into something nice. He didn't have time to restyle his hair or anything like that. He rushes out of the bedroom into the living room to put his shoes on and runs out the door. He locks his door, mission the keyhole a few times before he finally slides the key into the hole. He slides on the hood of his car, unlocks it, and gets into his car. He starts his car and peels out of his driveway. He heads to Luigi's like a bat out of hell. Magan sighs and looks at her smartwatch that Asher gave her on one of her birthdays. She smiles a little seeing the image she chose as the background of it. It was a picture of a little girl. Her mind refocused on the time to see that it was 6:55pm as a waitress comes up beside Magan. The waitress felt a little bad for Magan. She had seen countless times of girls being stood up by guys, boyfriends, and even husbands.

  “He forgot. Again...”

  Waitress asks Magan carefully, trying not to offend her. She didn't want Magan to feel worse than she is now. She knew how it feels to be stood up and didn't want things to go any worse than it already is.

  “Can I get you another glass of wine, ma’am?”

  “No, that’s-“

  She hears tires squealing in the distance. Magan smiled a little before she rolled her eyes. Yes, Asher forgot but at least he knew better than to keep Magan waiting. He always hated being late to their "date nights". Well, Asher never thought of them being date nights after what she did to him that one fateful night. She regretted what she did so she always treated nights like these as date nights to make herself feel a little better and hope that maybe one day, he would treat these as date nights once again.

  “And there he is making a scene. As usual.”

  Magan turns back to the waitress with the sweetest of smiles at her. She knew what she needed to do. If Asher was going to keep her waiting for this long, he can at least buy her a bottle of wine. Her favorite wine.

  “Actually, let me get a bottle of that wine. “

  The waitress’ eyes widen at Magan’s request. No one hardly ever buys the whole bottle because of how expensive it is to buy it. The waitress asks Magan to make sure that she heard her correctly

  “The… the whole bottle, ma’am?”

  “Yes, the whole bottle. My date will pay for it.”

  The waitress bows at Magan. So she did hear her correctly.

  “As you wish.”

  The waitress leaves with a little skip in her step. This restaurant had a small commission base bonus for anyone getting the customers to buy a bottle of their freshly made wine. This waitress is going to get a pretty good tip from this table for sure. Magan looks back out the window waiting to see if Asher would actually come on time or not. Asher speeds past the restaurant and does a drifting parallel park gracefully like he practiced this move countless times. Magan cannot believe that he would practice some childish thing. Was he doing it to impress her, or to save time? Asher rushes up to Luigi's. Magan looks at her smartwatch as Asher catches his breath. The watch reads 7:00pm on the dot.

  “See..? 7:00pm... I'm not late...!”

  “You made it this time, Cowboy.”

  Asher throws his hands in the air in frustration. Why does she constantly call him that? He looks nothing like a cowboy.

  “Would you stop calling me Cowboy!”

  Asher sits at the table with a groan. The waitress takes their drink order. If Magan was being this ridiculous, he was going to have an Old Fashion. Asher looks down at Magan’s wine and then back to her. She started drinking already. Asher guessed he was cutting it too close. He looked at the corner of his eye to see a guy that was eying Magan. If he wouldn't have came, he bet that guy would've tried his luck with Magan. Oh boy, he would would have a wild ride with her. Wild ride as in Magan throwing insults and belittling him for even trying to take advantage of her. She wasn't some weak girl that would just throw herself to a guy that was going to take advantage of her loneliness. Nope, she rather be alone than to let some Chad come and sweep her off her feet.

  “Already drinking without me?”

  Magan gives Asher a cheeky smile and bats her eyes at him. She looked at him through her lashes.

  “You know it, darling.”

  Magan looks at Asher impatiently. She already wanting to talk business with Asher. She's waited all day to hear his input about the projects and she did not want to beat around the bush any longer. She's waited long enough.

  “Well...?”

  “’Well’, what?”

  Asher asks Magan in confusion for a second. Magan just rolled her eyes at Asher. Of course he turned off his "work mode". He always did when he left work. Asher claims it's for a "healthy lifestyle". He always tried to separate work and home from each other but Magan couldn't help herself.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “What did you find out about the project?”

  Asher nods at Magan finally remembering what she wanted to talk about. He didn't want to talk about it but he knew Magan would keep nagging until he gave in. Last time, it took three bottles of wine before he finally gave it. That was one expensive dinner with Magan. No, she didn't drink three bottles at the restaurant. She just drank one bottle and took two home with her.

  “There was a formula problem in the math.”

  “There was? I thought one of the pipe designs was off. That's what I was talking about.”

  Asher nodded again agreeing with what Magan was talking about, but he added.

  “I noticed that as well, but a simple copper wall would fix that. Here, look at my notes.”

  Asher pulls out his notes and shows them to Magan. Asher knew that he would have to show Magan or she would scold him for not bringing his notes with him.

  “The formula would completely destroy this company's reputation. It’s all wrong. It's unstable.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. They’ll need a stronger molecule than what they have here.

  It's not strong enough to support the formula. Nice find!”

  Magan sees another pile of notes. She smirks seeing that there is more to talk about than just the one folder she had earlier. This was going to be a good date night for the both of them. She grabs the other folder.

  “What's this?”

  “I found another project on my desk after lunch and that's my notes on it. It has a similar blueprint as the other but with different equipment.”

  Magan reads the name of the project. She dislikes the name of it. Her nose scrunches up as she looks at it. The name was uncreative. "TWILIGHT SPARKLE" sounded way better than this "BLACK ROSE" that was on the folder.

  “’BLACK ROSE’? What are they doing? Making their own ‘Power Rangers’?’

  “I was thinking along the lines of superheroes even though I said the same thing.”

  Magan gave Asher a warm smile. Of course his mind would think superheroes. She knew he loved superhero movies especially the “merc with the mouth” one. She has never heard him laugh so hard on a movie. That superhero always made him laugh. She tried to get Asher to dance to the music that was used during the title sequence but he refused. Maybe if she would get him drunk...

  “Of course, you would think that it was a superhero team.”

  The waitress comes back with their drinks. She sets the Old Fashion by Asher. He takes a swig of his hard beverage. Magan eyes the bottle of wine that was brought but waited until Asher was distracted before making her move. Asher was a little too preoccupied with his drink.

  “What can I get for you, ma’am?”

  The waitress asked. Magan tapped the menu at what she wanted to eat. She saw something new on the menu and she wanted to try it out. It sounded delightful.

  “I’ll have cashew crusted salmon with steamed veggies.”

  The waitress nodded and wrote down Magan’s order. The waitress turned her attention to Asher as she tapped her pen on her paper.

  “Excellent choice, ma’am. And you sir?”

  Magan slides the bottle of wine out of Asher’s view when his focus was on the waitress. She knew the perfect spot to hide the bottle from his view, right behind the vase of flowers. Asher never really pay attention to flowers. He was never the type of guy who would by flowers for his girl even though he bought her a rose one time but only one time. It made her feel special because she was the first girl that he gave a flower to.

  “I’ll have the chicken Alfredo.”

  Magan wanted to make things interesting tonight. She wanted to throw a wrench into their conversation. She always loved his reactions.

  “When are we going to get married?”

  Asher holds in his drink and coughs violently. He wasn’t going to waste such an expensive drink. Magan smiled seeing the reaction she was hoping for. She knew he still had feelings for her. No one acted like that if they were still interested in the girl, right?

  “What!?”

  Asher exclaimed loudly. She didn't ask what he thought she asked. Magan asks Asher again with a little more flare to it.

  “When are we going to get married?”

  Asher sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was she asking this again? Asher started to explain his reasoning with Magan.

  “We're not even going out. What makes you think that we're going to get married?”

  “I mean, we have sex.”

  Magan tells Asher. Asher starts to dig himself a hole when he replies to her.

  “Yeah, because you wanted to.”

  Asher hushes her before she could argue with him. He knew it before Magan could get onto him about what he just said to her. He almost put himself in the dog house, again.

  “I don't mean it as a bad thing. I'm saying you're the one that just wanted sex and nothing more, right?”

  “Yeah, that's what I said. I didn't think that this would happen though...”

  Magan gave Asher an innocent look through her lashes. She was being genuine. She started to want more from Asher in the past year or so. Asher says.

  “I understand, Magan. I really do, but let's just keep what we got now, okay? I don't want to ruin a friendship because we couldn't work things out as a couple. Understand, Magan?”

  Magan gave a mock disappointed look at Asher. He recovered faster than she thought. He was getting too good at this now. Maybe she should ease off for a few months before doing this again to him to throw him off her game.

  “Yeah... I understand...”

  The waitress comes by and places their food in front of them. She says to them.

  “Please enjoy your food.”

  Asher could smell how delicious his meal was. Luigi's always made some delectable Italian food, especially their pasta. The chicken was cooled to perfection and the Alfredo sauce was so creamy. They eat their food. Magan finishes first and places her plate to the side and smiles at Asher with the sweetest of smiles. Asher stares her down. He knows what is going on this wasn’t the first time she’s done this. She wanted him to pay the bill like they were on a date but this wasn't a date to him. This was just hanging out with a friend and nothing more.

  “Let me guess... I'm paying the bill?”

  Magan squeals in delight at Asher like she’s always does playing the giddy girlfriend.

  “Aw, darling! You are the best! See you tomorrow, Cowboy!”

  “Don't call me...”

  Asher was too late; Magan had already left the building. How was she so fast at leaving him with the bill he couldn't fully grasp. The waitress walks up to him and gives him the bill.

  “Here’s your bill, sir.”

  “$352.52!? What the hell did she order!?”

  The waitress flinches a little, but her eyes shifted to the bottle of wine. Asher slowly follows the gaze of the waitress and leans over to his side. He sees the bottle of wine and grabs the bottle to look at it.

  “Of course... She would order the most expensive wine on the menu...”

  A sudden realization came over Asher. He then shook his head. Of course there was a reason why she dropped the marriage question on him.

  “That's why she asked me that question! She wanted to distract me from realizing what wine she ordered! That little minx!”

  Asher hands the bill back to the waitress with his card. He holds onto the pamphlet that had the bill and his card for a second as the waitress waits for him to let it go. She understood that the bill was steep and wanted him to come to terms with the bill. He finally lets go of the pamphlet and let the waitress use his card to pay the bill. The waitress comes back to him and gives him the receipt and his card.

  “Here’s your receipt, sir. Have a good night. “

  “You too, um…”

  Asher squints at her name plate. It looked new. Was this one of her first days here?

  “…Andrea. You have a good night as well.”

  The waitress smiles and bows to him. He signed the receipt and gave her a good tip even though he paid an arm and a leg for Magan's little stunt. Asher gets up and exits the restaurant. Asher gets into his car and starts it up. He yawns as he drives off. He makes a u-turn and heads home. He gets out of his car and unlocks the door to his home. He goes into his bedroom to strip naked. He needed a shower after today. He turns on the shower and had the water temperature almost all the way to the hottest setting. He always enjoyed a really hot shower. He brushes his teeth and then he climbs into his king size bed only in his boxers. He thinks about what it would be like to be married to Magan. He shook his head. That ship was sailed. He already tried once and that didn't end so well.

  “No, it wouldn’t work out between us anyways. It didn’t in the past, it won’t now.”

  Asher turns to his side and slowly falls asleep dreaming of a night that would change his life forever, even though he doesn't even know it yet. The night that he had forgotten about until the dream remind him of that particular night.