Fifteen minutes. She was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago, but now it's 7.15, and the sun's starting to go down, and I'm stood outside a stupid hipster café with one leg up and my headphones in but not playing anything and trying not to look like someone who just got stood up. I ran through the timings in my head. If she got here within the next five minutes and wasn't wearing heels we could maybe make it to the pedalos before they shut down. And, if that all went well, and we made it back before 8, we could make the reservation in time.

I really hope we make the reservation in time.

I scroll back onto her profile just to make sure I haven't lost my mind. She stares back at me in HD from my small phone screen Paula, 24, profile picture smiling back with long blonde hair and round red-lensed sunglasses. I lean back again, trying to calm my nerves, trying to--

"Alex?"

My eyes snap open, brushing my hands on my black jeans. "Oh, shit. Hi," I say, looking her in the eyes, or at least best I can. Her eyes are still cloaked in crimson glass, affixed to her face and framing a perfectly sculpted jawline.

She only smiles back. "Hi. Shall we?"

I stumble over myself trying to pull out a metal garden chair. "Yeah. After you."

She sits, and I sit across her, watching her wave over a server with practiced grace, ordering herself a single ice water. Her head is crowned by a large, black floppy sunhat, rim extending shadows across her face the table in front of her. She drums her fingers on the metal mesh table, red fingernails long enough to tap lightly against the mason jar in the middle of the table, half full with stagnant water and a single pink carnation.

"Sorry," she says, smiling again with her too-sharp teeth and pink rosy lips. "Did you want anything?"

I shake my head. "No" I say, throat suddenly dry. "I'm not hungry." The answer comes from me naturally, even though ten minutes ago I would have killed for one of those cute strawberry pastries in the glass case up front.

"That's what i thought. So, Alexandria: tell me about yourself."