The little black folder had barely touched our table when Bryce grabbed it.
I was already reaching for my purse.
Dinner had cost far more than I normally spent on a first date, but I hadn’t expected him to pay for everything. In fact, I was already preparing to offer my card for half of the roughly $200 bill.
Then Bryce opened the folder.
He glanced at the total.
And pushed the check across the table toward me.
“You’ve got this, Jessie.”
I looked at him.
“This?”
Bryce leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“I don’t pay for foodie calls.”
He said it just loudly enough for the couple at the next table to hear.
Their conversation stopped.
For a second, I genuinely thought I had misunderstood him.
“A what?”
“A foodie call.”
His mouth curled into a smug little smile.
“I’m not paying for someone to use me for a nice meal.”
I could feel the old reflex kicking in.
I wanted to defend myself.
I had suggested coffee.
He had chosen the restaurant.
He had insisted on dinner.
He had ordered the seafood tower.
I had ordered one drink.
I wasn’t using him.
Every defense lined itself up in my head.
But instead of giving him any of them, I slowly closed my purse.
“What exactly did I do?”
His smile slipped.
“What?”
“You said I used you for dinner. What did I do?”
Bryce blinked.
He clearly hadn’t expected a question.
“You accepted a date here.”
“You invited me here.”
“And you were pretty comfortable with it.”
“You invited me.”
He stared at me.
And suddenly, all the strange questions he’d asked earlier that night began making sense.
Two hours earlier, I had genuinely thought the date might go well.
Bryce and I had matched on a dating app a few weeks earlier.
His profile looked normal.
Our messages had been funny.
He seemed confident without being obnoxious.
At twenty-five, I was tired of first dates that felt like job interviews, so I suggested coffee.
Bryce insisted on dinner.
“I know a great seafood place downtown,” he’d written.
“Let me take you somewhere nice.”
I told him it sounded expensive.
He replied:
