This time, Alistair was late, because he was dithering.
All right, so it'd been a date. He hadn't meant it to be a date. He hadn't even known it was a date until people pointed it out afterwards. But it couldn't have been a date really, whatever they said. Except that now he wanted it to have been a date. And they were meeting for what was emphatically not a date, just coffee, almost certainly to discuss the thing that hadn't been a date...
Alistair groaned, pulled himself together, and made himself walk around the corner and into the coffee-shop. He managed a weak smile for Aveline, ordered himself an extra-large mocha--if there was ever a time when he needed a caffeine and sugar overdose, this was it--and sat down opposite her. "Hi," he said, with his usual complete lack of suavity. Terrific.