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afraid that if I fell asleep I would wake up the next day and find out that it had all been a hallucination caused by some bad bean dip. So I laid there staring at my ceiling and not sleeping until about 3a.m. when my body finally told my brain to shut the fuck up if it didn't want me to look like an extra in Zombie Apocalypse tomorrow. Today. Whenever.
    I crawled out of bed again at ten o'clock and staggered toward the smell of coffee in the kitchen.
    “You look like hell,” Jess said, glancing up from the paper.
    “Thanks,” I croaked. “You have no idea how much that doesn't help.”
    “Do us both a favor and have some coffee,” she said taking a sip of her own. “So, where do you plan to go to dinner?”
    “That little Middle Eastern place on Sansom.” The coffee maker looked like an oasis sitting there on the counter as I staggered toward it.
    “That little hole-in-the wall place? He would take you anywhere you wanted. Why not someplace fancy?”
    “That place is really good and the people who own it are sweet. Besides, it's close by. Maybe afterward we can go down to Suburban Station and see if Stan's playing.” I filled my mug and just as I was about to reach for the creamer I stopped myself. This was a black coffee kind of morning.
    “Stan? You want your first date with a senator’s son to include a trip to a railway station to listen to a street musician?”
    “Stan’s really talented. He’s credited on albums put out by some real blues giants.” I collapsed ungracefully into a seat across from her. Amazingly, I wasn’t hung-over, but it felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck and dragged for a couple of miles.
    “Yeah Gab, thirty years ago, but he's a street musician now.”
    “I think that if Braden doesn't like Stan and the Middle Eastern place, he's not going to like me much. Besides, I’m going to game night with him!” She smiled and shook her head like she thought that I was crazy but she loved me anyway. Then she got up and went over to the sink to rinse out her mug and put away the dishes in the drying rack.
    I quickly finished my coffee and had just started to feel semi-human again when I heard my cell phone start ringing. I froze. Jess swung around and gave me an expectant look.
    “Gabrielle! Answer your phone!” she ordered, diving at my purse. She grabbed it and threw a Hail Mary pass across our kitchen that would have had NFL scouts interested. I caught it… and fumbled… but Jess was on it. She threw her body on the bag and thrust her hand in just in time to click answer and pant into the phone like an obscene caller.
    “Give me that!” I grabbed it away from her. “Hello?”
    “Gabrielle? Are you okay? Was that a dog?”
    “Braden? No, that was Jessica. She exerted herself a bit on the way to the phone.” I gave her a “what the hell is wrong with you?” look.
    “I see. I think. Uh, anyway, I hope it's not too early…”
    “No. I've had my coffee and I'm not even hung-over this morning.” I started straightening my pajamas like he could see me. And like it would matter that Betty Boop's ass looked crooked on my nightshirt.
    “Are you usually hung-over on Saturday mornings?”
    “No! I just meant that I might have gotten a hangover from last night because I don't usually drink a lot. I would have stopped after two beers and a shot but Mark pawned his shot off on me too.”
    “You do remember that we’re supposed to go out tonight?” he teased.
    “I wasn’t drunk!”
    “So you remember hooking up?”
    “What?” I heard him start laughing. He was kidding. Whew.
    “Where did you want to go tonight?” He still sounded amused.
    “It's not fancy,” I said hesitantly.
    “Good. I wear a tie five days a week.”
    “It's not that far from my apartment and we could walk there if you didn't mind.”
    “Great, the weather's beautiful.”
    “It's Middle Eastern food. Is that okay?”
    “That's fine.”
    “You're very easy to get along with outside of