The Housekeeper

Twelve.

"Hi," he simply says and smiles.

"Hi." I say and he looks my up and down.

"You look beautiful."

"Thanks, you look handsome."

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah lemme just grab my stuff. You can come in, Britt's in the living room."

He walks in the apartment and closes the door behind himself. I walk over to the couch and he follows behind me as I grab my stuff.

"Hey Britt."

"Hi Noah."

"Ready." I say and walk over to Noah. "Bye Britt."

"Be safe," she says and smiles at me.

Noah moves to open the door and we walk out to his Tesla. He opens the door for me and shuts it once I'm inside. He goes over to his side and gets in. He starts the car and pulls out of the complex.

He turns on the radio on low and I start laughing.

"What?"

"When are you not listening to this album?"

"Cosmic is a quality album and to be honest it reminds me of you."

"Aww," I say and blush a little. "So where are we headed?"

"Just a little local place you probably know, Arty's."

"Oh um I'm actually allergic to pasta."

Noah pulls up to a stop sign and looks at me, "for real?"

"Yeah sorry."

"Fuck. Um is there somewhere else you wanna go?"

"Noah?"

"Yeah."

"I'm joking, I love Arty's actually."

"What?"

I start giggling.

"You almost gave me a heart attack, Tree."

"Sorry," I say through my giggles.

"You'll pay for that later, missy."

Oh.

"I'm sorry, it was too funny."

"I'll remember that," he says as he starts driving again.

We arrive at Arty's ten minutes later. He turns off the car and gets out. He walks over to my side of the car and opens the door for me, he holds out his hand and helps me up.

He links our fingers together as we start walking towards the door. He opens the door for me and we walk in.

"Hi welcome to Arty's. Do you have a reservation?"

"Yes we do, it's under Centineo."

The hostess looks down at her paper and nods. "A booth for two." She waves a waiter over. "Please sit them in booth thirteen." The waiter nods and we follow him to our booth.

"Here's your menus, did you know what you wanted to drink?"

"A white wine please," Noah says.

I open my menu and start looking, like I've never been here before when I've been here so many times in the past.

"Is that okay? The wine?" Noah asks as the waiter walks away.

"Yeah, it's perfectly fine."

Noah opens the menu and starts looking it over, "so what's good here?"