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"You\'re late."

With my spot both finally vanquished with the stench and presence of embodied pretentiousness, I gave it a second or two to air out, before I sat myself down, pulled in the seat, and laid both hands atop the velvet cloth.

"Good evening to you too," I said, greeting first and foremost with a polite smile, as a true gentleman would and should.

Irene batted her shadowed eyes, tapping a painted fingernail on the rim of her filled wine glass, obviously waiting for that sorry excuse of an explanation that surely would come. 

And came it did.

"There were some setbacks, I got held up," Her little tappity-taps was getting slightly unnerving. "I texted you… didn\'t you get it?"

"Oh, I did."

"Then…?" 

"They didn\'t really specify what those setbacks were, unfortunately," She batted her eyelids once more, a stare rigid, a finger hovering frozen. "Just as you aren\'t now."

Okay… I guess this was just one of those caveats dating a sleuther with a badge. You can pretty much kiss confidentiality bye-bye and toss it out the window, and even then I\'m pretty sure she\'ll just go jumping after it.

"Forget it, I shouldn\'t be pressing you, what am I doing?" Then just like that, her piercing eyes left mine well alone with a vigorous shake of the head. "It\'s none of my business… you were late, twenty minutes… plenty of time to think, and when I think I get concern, and I start having these thoughts and I - I\'m rambling, I\'m sorry, I\'m just - "

"Nervous?" I offered another gentlemanly smile. "Well, I do suppose this isn\'t exactly your usual undercover op routine, ey detective?"

Finally, a little levity, a little chuckle. "I\'ve had worse." 

"Worse than him?" I said, peeking a little back at the far end of the restaurant, where a furious, fuming, peculiar mustached-individual sat all by his lonesome. "Who the hell is he, anyway?"

Irene pinched the spine of her wine glass, watching the red within swirl around as she swayed it between her fingers. "Ferdinand Bronte, some… wine guy. Apparently, he supplies this fine establishment with his own brand." 

"Wow," I whistled out, admittedly impressed. "Bigshot, huh?"

"He even bought me this wine here," She said, taking a sip a moment after, then grimacing a moment later. "I hate wine. Ugh." 

"Certainly must be good company, though, " I said, trailing my eyes back at her. "Considering he was sitting in the place where I was supposed to be sitting… when he wasn\'t supposed to be sitting."

"I was going to tell him to shoo once I saw you arrive."

"Funny," I squinted my eyes. "Don\'t really remember that happening."

"That\'s because you went ahead and did it for me," She explained, staring at me with mild intrigue. "Saying what you said, acting the way you did… I didn\'t expect you to do the things you did, and by then I was curious how far you\'ll take it." 

"He was in my seat."

"In your seat," She leaned in closer. "Talking to me, smiling at me, who knows for how long too, hmm? " 

"He was in my seat," I said again, firmer this time. "I\'m just wondering why is that is all." 

"Jealous type, I see," Irene gave me a taunting smirk. "Consider this then - a single girl, sitting by her lonesome at a table for two for twenty minutes too long already. Now I ask you, what lonely wealthy bachelor would dare pass up on such a golden opportunity, hm?"

Now that she\'s mentioned it, I noticed that there were indeed plenty of those aforementioned lonely bachelors around the place, but that still didn\'t answer the original question.

"So what was one of them doing with you?" 

She blew a breath cumbersome. "You really believe that Mr. Ferdinand there was the only one here bold enough to approach me?" 

It clicked then. "Who else?"

"Who else, let\'s see here," She gestured left, nudged right, whirled her neck all around. "Mr. Harold. Sir Benedict. I think I heard a Frank too. I quickly got tired of having to turn one of them away every few minutes, so I decided to keep one here to keep the others at bay. Enter Mr. Ferdinand."

"Lucky guy."

"Unlucky me, however. I had to endure a ten-minute lecture on the best vineyards in the world, and how he insisted I must accompany him one day to see the wine-making process for myself… and another thing, he - "

Venting. The oh-so-precious remedy of frustration. I don\'t think it was deliberate, hard to tell if she was even aware of it, but once prompted, Irene simply couldn\'t stop. 

She talked my ear off, venting… and I just sat there, and listened… apparently I made for very good ventilation. Not that I minded it at the least, lending her an ear to her woes was my pleasure. 

Since I took my place across from her, it was as if she was forcing herself to act her usual self. Her aloofness, her cool demeanor, had this peculiar tense edge to it, and talking about all the unsolicited offers she\'s been offered helped take that edge off.

Now she was looking, and sounding, more like herself again… and our appetizers haven\'t even arrived. No water served either, what kind of service is this?

"Not like it\'s their fault, anyway. The less I wear, the more they stare, I know that," She said, a weary gaze a million miles away. "It also certainly doesn\'t help that my choice of attire shows plenty of cleavage too."

I couldn\'t agree any more with that assessment there. More than twice, thrice, I caught my gaze wandering at its own volition, staring at more of her than a gentleman really ought to… I really needed that water, you see… I was getting very, very thirsty.

"Then why… why wear it in the first place?" I asked, feigning innocence in the matter, gluing my eyes to the shimmer of my plate instead. "No other dresses?"

Irene leered at me again, like I was being an idiot again, asking another idiotic question again. But as opposed to exercising her right to remain silent, and letting me figure it out for myself like she\'s always done, she chose to answer me instead… leaning heavily on my idiocy.

"Gee, I\'m not so sure, who knows? Might be the occasion, perhaps I just felt like it. Or hell, maybe I did want to be seen, after all. Desired non-stop by ogling eyes, you know?" Then, clamping her lips to the rims of her glass again, sipping, she quietly muttered finish. "Just not their eyes..." 

When she placed her glass back down, there was faint red on her face, and it wasn\'t from her lipstick, or the wine either, I\'ll tell you that.

"And besides..." She continued on, smacking her lips… her gaze suddenly a piercing one again. "I\'d have been saved from all that trouble had only a certain somebody actually arrived on time… as we\'ve agreed on." 

"Okay, alright, Honestly, Irene, it\'s my bad, I\'m sorry," I said, clasping my hands firmly at her in repentance. "But hey, for what it\'s worth, at least I made an effort to look nice. You don\'t wanna know how long I spend looking at myself in the mirror just getting things right." 

I genuinely thought I was gonna score a few brownie points on that front, maybe just a nod of approval, a throwaway compliment that I\'ll certainly look too much into… but apparently I was barking up the wrong tree.

Irene took just a second to assess my appearance, and suffice it to say that what she saw clearly did not impress.

"Not enough, apparently." 

I gaped shocked, affronted, crying genuine tears of bitter sadness, hidden beneath a frown, and a small, "Aww…"

"That\'s not to say you don\'t look nice, you do, I like the look… even if you do look like you\'re a part of the mob or something." 

See? You see? I knew I wasn\'t the only one that got those vibes.

"It\'s my dad\'s..." I said, offering my only limp explanation. 

"Yeah, I can tell," She snorted. "It\'s wearing you more than you\'re wearing it." 

"It\'ll acclimatize," I assured her. "Just give it a year or two." 

"Like I said, I don\'t mind how you look, you\'re fine, really," For the third time already, she reached for her wine glass, this time swirling almost empty. "It\'s the smell mostly…"

"What smell?" I asked.

For someone who doesn\'t like wine, she sure can drink… tilting her glass a sharp angle upwards, downing the rest of the contents with a swig, and with a single, faint, quiet mutter, "That Elf smell…" 

I didn\'t know if she expected me to say anything after. When she finished her glass, pushed it far to the middle of the table, I was still quiet… and she had her gaze shifting upwards.

"Your hair\'s a little ruffled too, you know?" She said, her tense edge emerging again.

I tried to flatten it, straighten it, doing so with a smile, "Yeah…"

Like I\'ve said. Dating a sleuther… you\'ve got nothing to hide, nowhere to even do so either.

"I won\'t ask, alright?" She quietly said, her tone as blank as her expression. "Those twenty minutes, whatever happened in that timeframe, as I said, it\'s none of my business. We won\'t go there." 

And suddenly we were back at square one, a full lap returning to those same twenty minutes, back to that forced aloofness, that stare rigid, it was like the past five minutes never happened.

"Let\'s just… let\'s just enjoy our dinner now, alright?" She said, raising her hand to a passing waitress. "I told them to hold off the course until you arrived… and well, you\'re here now, so - "

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded, striding away from the moment. "I\'m starving anyway, already. So let\'s just… yeah, let\'s just…" 

"Enjoy ourselves." 

"Yeah," I nodded again, my stiff smile mirroring hers.. "Enjoy ourselves."