Chapter Text
His plan is failing spectacularly.
He thought it was a great plan. Elegant in its simplicity. Subtle yet effective. In retrospect, perhaps he went a little too far with the subtlety, which would explain why they've been here for nearly two hours already and she still hasn't caught on that he’s not really reading obituaries.
He taps a pencil absently against the desk. Maybe he should call it off. She just stepped out a few moments earlier, muttering something about Vitamin D and fresh air going to waste; maybe when she gets back, he should pretend to have found something and tell her they’re done here.
Except that he’s already dragged her out on a beautiful day -- as she keeps reminding him -- and if he packs it in after only a couple of hours, without even getting to the part where they flirt and he makes her laugh, then her lasting impression is going to be a negative one. He was supposed to charm her, not annoy her so much that the next time he calls her up on a Saturday, she’ll turn him down.
No. No, he can salvage this. He has a whole speech prepared, about box scores and Pythagoras, baseball and actual human emotion, carefully crafted to appeal to both her scientific sensibilities and her romantic ones. He just needs to find an excuse to actually say it all.
