R A N D O M || OS

151. (MCU) Steven Grant - Red Flags *

When he sees you, he lights up just the way he did on the first date. Pure unbridled excitement, as if he can't believe you actually showed.

This time, when you ask about the museum, he proceeds to word-vomit an encyclopaedia's worth of knowledge about ancient Egyptian history. His passion and zeal for the subject are incapable of being contained until it spreads and lights up the entire restaurant with it. And even though the extent of your interest and knowledge of ancient Egyptian history had started and ended with watching Brendan Fraser in the Mummy, you find yourself captivated by the conversation.

Once he relaxes a bit, you find him to be disarmingly sweet and harmless, things the men in your past have not been. It's why you find yourself letting down your guard, and despite the poor first impression, you genuinely enjoy yourself as you work your way through an otherwise unimpressive meal.

It's also why you end up saying yes to a third date.

He beats you to the appointed location again, and when you show up, there's a black shopping bag in his lap. He holds it out to you as an offering when you approach the table, watching you like an eager puppy waiting for approval as you unwrap the content. At the sight of the gold-gilded purple hardcover, the limited edition of 'The Prince and the Pauper', your stomach flutters, and it's like being a child at Christmas all over again.

"How on earth did you get a hold of this? It's sold out everywhere."

"There was a store in Peterborough that still had one," he answers, sounding quietly chuffed with himself.

"Steven, that's hours by train. Did you go all the way up there just for this?"

"Nono— I was passing by for a work thing."

It's a transparent lie.

You almost ask him why on earth a gift shop vendor for a museum would need to go all the way to Peterborough for work, but you don't.

"I'm just really happy I gathered up the courage to ask you on a date that first time," he confesses with an open-mouthed smile, his joy so contagious that it almost makes you miss what he said.

Then you stop and consider it, and your smile turns wooden.

Because that's not right.

He didn't ask you out. You were the one who approached him and initiated things.

That's the second red flag. But you ignore it despite every dating rule in the book that has been ingrained into your skull since you were a little girl.

Instead, your mind turns to Peterborough and what a miserable journey that must have been on National Rail. You can't help but google it. Two hours on crowded trains, at least half an hour walk to get to the bookstore, plus the return journey.

Who goes to such lengths for a throwaway comment on a first date? You only mentioned it to begin with as a way to fill the unbearable awkward silence.

The gesture is so sweet it warms you from inside out, making your cheeks tingle with heat, even against the February cold.

Later, with the benefit of hindsight, it will be easy to see the idiocy of your actions. But as you sit here now in front of this sweet, eager man, it's simpler to turn a blind eye to the things that don't quite add up. What's that thing your friend always says?

When you're looking at someone through rose-tinted glasses, all the red flags are just going to look like flags.

-

After that, it's lunch dates at the Great Court under the Museum rooftop and breakfast at Cafe Babka before work almost every day of the week. Steven dates you like he is trying to court you, flowers and chocolates and wide adoring eyes.