My first date with Rhys is off to a shaky start. I forgot to ask Mrs. Stuyvesant if she was free and only realized about halfway through the day. Unfortunately, she wasn’t, and my sister is at work, which leaves me with a baby and a date. I text Rhys to ask him to reschedule but he insist on my bringing Nyla along.

“I’m so sorry.” I say, for the thousandth time. Rhys rises from the picnic blanket he’s spread in a clearing under a tree, and I wrap one arm around him in a hug (I keep my other arm firmly on the bar of Nyla’s stroller, because I have a weird fear of someone running up and wheeling her away while I’m hugging Rhys). “It was a long weekend and I was tired…”

He smiles kindly, drawing away. “It’s okay really.”

“Did I mess up your plans?”

“Well,” he glances at me, too kind to say it outright. “Let’s just say I’m good at improvising.”

“We could reschedule.” I supply. “Who brings their baby to their date?”

“DA!” Nyla squeals, pointedly, as I move to unbuckle her from the stroller anyway. She kicks her plump little legs excitedly “DAdadadadadada!”

I throw him another apologetic look.

“No, no. I’m not rescheduling.” He says firmly. “We’ll just have to have a make-up date. I’ll hold you to it, okay?”

“Okay.” I sink to the blanket with Nyla, making sure her hat is on properly even though we’re in the shade.

I’m wearing a pair of high-waisted ripped jeans and a thin brown cropped top with long sleeves. It’s not my sexiest outfit, but it’s definitely park-friendly and cute.

Nyla pulls herself closer to me when she sees Rhys, but I put her down beside me. Rhys smiles kindly at her, but she leans reproachfully away from him.

“Look Ny,” I say, distracting her, “What’s this?” I guide her hand over the blades of grass at the edge of the blanket.

“AH!” she looks up at me, an openmouthed smile of wonder taking over her features. I smile and nod back.

“Yeah, that’s grass,” I say carefully.

She looks back at the grass and her palm opens; her hand becoming a perfect star over a patch of green. She slaps her hand at the blades a couple of times and then closes her fist over a few tips and pulls, bringing her hand up to her face to inspect her prize for a moment, only she’s directing the movement towards her mouth.

“No,” I pull her hand away and open her fat little fist gently, letting the blades fall. Nyla turns away to study Rhys again, her features furious with concentration.

“Rhys.” I say, pointing at him. I straighten up and feel my cheeks warm with embarrassment. We should reschedule. I’m on a date with my baby. I knew dating after having one was hard but I didn’t think I’d literally be bringing Nyla on my dates.

“I’m sorry,” I start. He’s never going to call me again, I think. But Rhys’s face is unreadable.

“No, don’t.” he shakes his head. “Look we’re in the park… um. Maybe we could skip the awkwardness and just try and lie down or something,”

I take a deep breath, smiling on the exhale. “Skip the awkwardness. I’d love that.”

He lies down, his head towards the middle of the blanket and his legs crossed at the knees, in one long line. After a moment, I lie down with my head next to his, my legs falling the opposite way and Nyla sitting on my tummy. I look up through the trees at the afternoon autumn sky.

“This is better,” I admit. “But it was so much easier on the phone.”

He chuckles. We talked for hours on Sunday night rang off.

“I know.” He says, and I turn to look at him. “We’ll get there in person too.”

Turning away, I give Nyla a jiggle, and she releases a peal of bubbly laughter.

“You’re quite good with her,” he says, after a moment.

“Thanks,”

“Is her dad in the picture?”

My smile wavers. This was bound to come up. I remember Anya saying something like, “If you can talk about it without crying it means you’re healing,” but now I’m not sure if she was talking about dating or losing a loved one.

How do I tell him about Neil?

“No.” I say, carefully.

“Okay.”

I bite my lip. It’s a short answer but I don’t know how to tell him anything else without telling him everything, and I don’t want him to know it all anyway.

“So… um,” I look for something to talk about. Are all first dates this awkward? Or is it because I haven’t dated in forever? I look at Nyla. The baby definitely isn’t helping.

I suddenly find myself wishing I could craft some excuse to leave. This isn’t how this date is supposed to go. If Nyla was at home, I’d pretend to get a text from the sitter saying she was ill, but Nyla’s suffering through this date too.

I bet it hasn’t even been twenty minutes.

“What are you studying?” I ask, finally, sitting up.

“Engineering,” he says.

I don’t know much about it. “That’s really cool! That’s like physics and math and stuff, right?”

He laughs. “Yeah it is.”

“Is that what you’d be studying if you could do anything at all? Like in an ideal world, if you knew you wouldn’t fail, I mean.”

“Hmm…” he sits up too. “I’d probably keep it rolling with my cover band.”

“You’re in a band?” I ask, surprised. Nyla squirms restlessly, so I put her down, but she scrunches up her face and crawls back to me.

“Yeah. We perform at this bar just off campus every other Friday; Blank Logik.”

“Is that the name of the bar or the band?”

“That’s the bar,” he laughs. “The band is called Fool the World. You should come see us perform sometime,” he suggests. “Actually, come this Friday if you’re free. It’s a lot of fun, and you can meet more people.”

“I’d love to,”

“Are you studying?” he asks.

I explain to him about taking a gap year to work and save up a little, but in a distracted way, trying to quell Nyla’s fussing.

“Rhys, I’m so sorry,” I start, “But we might have to cut this short. Nyla’s getting fussy; I think she wants to take a nap. And I’ll have to get home and get dinner started.”

“Let me walk you back,” he offers.

There is something about his voice just then that puts me at ease. Almost bitterly, the thought occurs to me that he is everything Neil had wanted for me. I resent the feeling, because it makes being with Rhys seem terribly flat, like something I should be doing, rather than something I genuinely want to do. Lane will be disappointed tomorrow.

He tells me about his family on the way back, and as I listen, I think about how we must look from the outside. Do we look like a little family to the casual watcher? Rhys is walking a next to me, but there is a tiny bit of distance between us that screams “platonic”. I don’t know if this is on my part alone or if its mutual, but the thought simply crosses my mind and then dissipates with apathy.

I just want to be the new me, someone free from everything that had tied me down last summer - all the secrets and the lies - and to revel in it. But his eyes don’t light up when they met mine and I know mine don’t either, except with friendly interest. I invite him upstairs and put Nyla down for a nap, and we have an indoor picnic out of the basket.

We fall into a better dynamic as we eat; he’s fun and silly, and there are barely any serious moments. When there are, one of us says something and it’s over, we're teasing each other again. We try to keep our voices down to a whisper because Nyla is asleep and I’ve left the door to her little closet-room ajar.

Rhys gives me a chaste hug before he leaves.

“Don’t forget to come to the bar on Friday.”

“I won’t!” I say brightly, meaning it.

And that’s where I meet Adam.