#onehourstories

Alice's Butler had mentioned her date would probably be late, based on the data.

 Samuel was right, not quite to the minute, but pretty close.

Jose arrived a bit flustered, apologizing, kissing her hand with dry lips as they resettled themselves at the small table she'd gotten them against the wall. Alice liked it there -- throughout the evening she'd touch the exposed brick from time to time, reminding herself it wasn't inworld. Very few inworld bars had walls at all -- that was a meat thing, the limited space.

Jose was explaining something about his driver's GPS and taking off his flickering scarf, then his big winter coat, and Alice got her first view of his physique under all that gear... and liked what she saw. She nodded at the right places but didn't really tune in until he sat down.

"Oh man, I am pretty happy it is Friday," he said with an adorable Spanish lilt.

He flagged down a waiter and ordered a beer. Alice already had a pint in front of her, and she gave it a half turn and enjoyed the smell -- it was a dyed vanilla stout.

"Long week?" she said.

He shook his head. "So crasy."

"Mine was pretty slow," Alice said.

"You have a government job, yes? I remember from your profile. 'Boring, but stable.'"

Alice nodded. "You?"

"Just tech stuff," he said. "I'm a computer nerd."

His beer came before she could press for more details, and he toasted. "TGIF!"

She toasted.

"First when I came here I saw TGIF written somewhere and thought it was like, the animated file format, a new kind."

Alice smiled. "Like a Turbo GIF?"

"Yes," he said. "Embarrassing. So bad."

They talked for a while about his childhood in Mexico City, then about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. He felt like Rivera was underrated.

"Rivera has these really gory murals of capitalists being disemboweled. My mother -- my mother was a civil servant too," he said, and Alice wasn't sure if that was a point in her favour or not. "Her office had one of these murals, this radical violent overthrow murals, and they can't get rid of it because it's a mural and because he's a national treasure." Jose's mischievous grin was contagious, flashing white teeth under a moustache that was growing on Alice by the second. "So all these very moderate conservative bureaucrats had to walk by these... hellscapes every day."

"Beats the decor we have at our office," Alice said, and then excused herself to use the downstairs washroom.

While peeing she took an incognito refresher on Jose's profile. He was way cuter than his avatar, and his jokes worked better in person. She headed up the stairs with a smile on her face, flicking away the open apps as she did so he didn't see she'd been reading up.

But of course, when she got to the top of the stairs, he too was looking online, but closed it down as soon as he registered her. But not soon enough, because his Follower app was open... and it was a six digit number.

Alice felt a little queasy, but tried to joke it off. "You have quite a few Followers."

Jose shrugged, looked a bit guilty. "Ah, well... yeah. I work in tech, so it's kind of a big thing for my job."

"You work in tech, but not like IT."

He rubbed his moustache. "More long-term strategy, kind of thing. For North America. But it's kind of boring."

Alice nodded, thinking: no, I'm kind of boring. You work at one of the new kingmakers, with hordes of people at your beck and call. I'm a normal person like your mom and you're slumming.

Alice finished up her beer and made some noises about being tired, and he offered to call a car for her.

She declined, but let him pick up the cheque.