"Hmmmm okay." She plops herself down and closes her eyes and opens wide.

The surprise is: possibly one of the tastiest vegetable pies she has ever tasted, with some blue cheese and peppers.

"Oooh."

He giggles. "I take it you like it, then? I also made a chicken one."

"It's really good. I demand to also try the chicken one."

"Your wish is my command," he says, fetching a slice of the pie in his basket and offering it to her on a small paper plate.

Nom nom nom. "You made this? It's amazing."

"I did! Thank you! It's sort of a specialty, my mum and I invented the recipe over many many trials until we got it perfect."

"Mmm, science food."

He giggles. "I suppose it was! We did make up hypotheses about what'd work well together and then test them."

"Do you have a lot of science food in your repertoire?"

"The pies are my most scienced food but yeah it was a bonding activity."

"Cuuuute."

He beams widely. "Should I bring more science surprises to our future dates?"

"Yes. You should."

He giggles. "Should I also make them be a surprise?"

"Sure, that sounds like fun."

"So how've you been? I'm gonna tell you all about my date, promise, I just want him to arrive here so we can tell it together."

"That makes sense. I've been good, the property manager redid all our floors so we had to clear out for a couple days - Sofa crashed with a friend, I went to the beach and got a hostel bed and swam in the ocean, my parents stayed with my neighbors. The new floors are really nice but the whole apartment smells like wood stain now."

"Wood stain? I think I'd get a headache in there."

"We have the windows open and fans running, but it's dissipated enough that it's not giving us a problem. Sofa's extending her stay though, she doesn't like it."

He nods. "So how was the beach?"

"Beachy! I saw a shark, a little one."

"How little?"

She holds her hands about two feet apart. "Little. It was cute."