Quentin wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that she wanted to do it another night. Waiting would give him time to clean and actually have the groceries needed to cook, but it would also give her the opportunity to change her mind. That thought was immediately followed by Quentin wondering why he even cared. He barely knew Tessa. She could leave any day now and was only messing with him because she was bored. But she was right—he was rarely impulsive and being so in this case wouldn’t really hurt anything, except maybe his ego. “Whenever you want then,” he said. “Though if you’re thinking my place is exciting, you’re going to be sorely mistaken. All I can promise is that it’s better than Juniper.”
She was messing with him, but she still wanted to see where he lived. And despite how inconvenient the whole mind-meld thing was, she was amused that he seemed to have conflicting feelings about her. Hopefully he'd be serious about cooking her dinner. Tessa couldn't help but want to see him in his own personal space. "That promise is more than enough for me," she told him. "Juniper is beautiful but I miss having space. And my own kitchen and privacy... listening to people having sex in the room next to me gets a bit weird after a while." Tessa raised a brow. "Pick a night next week when you're not working. We'll plan for dinner then."
“Yeah, I think that would get weird the first time,” Quentin said, scrunching up his nose before laughing softly. “I guess that’s one of the perks of having your own place. I haven’t had to deal with that since college and I don’t miss it.” His house was nothing grand, not compared to Tessa’s father’s and her brother’s, but Quentin thought he’d done fine for himself. “How about next Wednesday or Thursday? That’ll give me time to hide all the whips and chains and go grocery shopping.” The nice thing about being a manager was that he could alter his schedule if he needed to. Quentin almost never worked late, but the early mornings were never ending.
There were a lot of interesting characters that came through Juniper. Even the front desk clerk was a bit odd. But a roof over her head was a roof over her head. Thank god for Caius. He hadn't inherited their father's cold demeanor, at least. "Wednesday sounds good," Tessa said, smiling now that they had nailed down a date. "I'll bring wine or something. It'll have alcohol in it, at least. You want another?" she asked, motioning to his glass. "Or we can go find some more kitchy art stuff to buy." Yes, she was glomping onto Quentin for a bit and he would just have to deal with it.
Did they just arrange a dinner date? Quentin wasn’t sure if that was what it technically was, but he was kind of looking forward to it anyways. He did so little socially that it felt like kind of a big deal in his head, except that it was Tessa and he was pretty sure she’d talked him into it. This was enjoyable though, having a drink with her, so dinner should be as well. “Uh, no more kitchy art stuff, thanks,” he said with a little laugh. “Yeah, I could have another. Got nothing else to do today.” He had the afternoon off, so he might as well enjoy it, and Tessa was a much better distraction than anything in the art show, that was certain.