The waiter never brings a check, but he exchanges another covert nod with Tate as the plates are cleared, which seems to be the only form of communication in this place. Tate sits back, too, eyeing me.
I think again how little I know about him, and how much he knows about me. Time to even the score. “Since I don’t have the same resources at my disposal as you do,” I say, repeating his earlier explanation for how he obtained my phone number, “I’ll have to figure out who you are the old-fashioned way.” He looks uneasy for a moment, even though my tone is light and teasing. His gaze narrows, like he’s not sure what I’m getting at. So I ask, “How old are you?” Because it seems like the most basic first question to ask—and an important one.
He squints, folding his napkin carefully and placing it back on the table, then says, “I’m nineteen.”
“So you’ve already graduated high school?”
“Sort of...but not from an actual school. I had tutors.”
Trust-fund kid, I think but don’t say out loud. Now it’s all starting to make sense. “Interesting,” I say instead, tapping a finger against my chin, as if I were a reporter piecing the story together.
“Oh, is it?” he replies with a smirk, eyes igniting on mine. He sees what I’m trying to do: extract whatever information I can out of him.
“How old are you?” he asks in return.
“Just turned eighteen.” But I sense it’s entirely possible he knew the answer to that question already. “Have you always lived in LA?”
“Not always. Only for the last few years.” A woman at a nearby table squeals and Tate flinches briefly, sitting up straight and glancing across the restaurant. But the squeal turns to a drawn-out laugh and Tate settles back in his seat, turning his attention back to me.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Colorado, originally.”
It’s an answer I wasn’t expecting. He seems so LA. So in his element here. I thought he’d say San Francisco or Orange County or even as far away as Seattle. But it’s hard to picture him somewhere like Colorado, especially the way I imagine Colorado in my head—like one big ski commercial: white powdery slopes, small mountain towns, sipping hot cocoa in front of a giant stone fireplace. It’s probably an exaggeration, but I like the idea of it. A wintery, idyllic life.
“I’ve never even seen snow,” I tell him. “It must be strange to live here after that. I can’t imagine.”
“It is,” he admits. “But I...sort of needed to come here for work.”
He’s never mentioned work before, and I tilt my head to examine him, like I’m seeing him again for the first time. He’s wearing one of his basic cotton T-shirts, yet it’s the kind of shirt that looks expensive. The type of thing you buy when you want to look like you don’t care about your wardrobe, but you actually do. “You’re a musician, aren’t you?” I guess.
There’s a beat of silence and his hands tense on the table. “Why do you think that?”
“It’s just what I assumed after I first saw you.” I shrug.
“So you thought about me after we met?” His face glows in the candlelight, accentuating the lines of his cheekbones and the straight slope of his nose. He makes it hard to look away.
“No,” I lie. “You just...looked like a musician. You had that vibe, I guess.” I don’t exactly know how to explain it, but he has that laid-back, artistic, don’t bother me because I’m writing a song in my head attitude.
“I have a vibe?” he asks, a smile returning to his eyes.
“So you are a musician.”
His lips rise into a grin he can’t contain. “Nice detective work.”
“What can I say? Some of us don’t need people to find things out for us. We just use our instincts,” I tease.
He shifts his gaze away and looks uncomfortable for a moment, biting his bottom lip and tapping his fingers on the seat of the booth. I’m about to ask what kind of musician he is—if he plays in a band or if he’s a solo artist, if he’s a lead singer or a drummer—but he leans forward, elbows on the edge of the table, and speaks before I have the chance. “So you have good instincts—noted,” he says, his eyes smiling. “Now it’s my turn.” He peers across the table at me like he’s deciding what personal—and possibly embarrassing—question he’s going to ask. I keep my lips pressed into a tight line, trying not to smile at the way he’s eyeing me.
“I know you’re a senior,” he begins. “But what happens after high school?”
The question is not as cringeworthy as I had expected. “Stanford,” I say, relieved, then add, “if I get accepted. And if I can afford it.”
“What do you want to study?”
“Biology, I guess.”