Couple's Counseling

Chapter Two

Jane, as it turns out, did need to bribe her roommate, Maria. Noon was one of their busiest times but she had made it work. And all Jane needed to do was make dinner, for a month. Hooray! The table she had secured was close to both the exit and counter. If there was a problem Jane could either run outside and lose him in the crowd of the city, or get Maria, who would swoop in and save her. 

Theo and her had messaged back and forth to determine what date and time worked for them. Aside from that, Jane hadn't really been able to figure out much about him. The only thing she knew was that he texted with nice punctuation and often used keyboard smiley faces :) instead of emojis. 

He was late, not too late but still. It was 12:15 and they were supposed to have met at 12. He was probably busy with his job, or maybe he had trouble finding this place. But they couldn't waste too much time. Jane only had an hour lunch break and every second counted. If worst came to worst and he didn't show, she could just eat lunch alone, but it was busy and it felt odd to be the only person dining by themselves. Especially at a table designed for two. 

The bells on the door chimed and Jane immediately perked up. He was here. 

Theo Johnson looked nice? His hair had been styled off to one side and he wasn't wearing a graphic tee like he did in the yearbook club photo. His shirt was a light lilac, with a black jacket, and he was wearing dark grey pants. His shoes were white tennis shoes but they didn't have the dirt or debris that normally accumulated on light colored things so they looked nice. Overall, the color scheme was very pleasing. He was about as short as the yearbook photo had suggested but seemed to have grown since then. Overall, he was a solid one to two inches taller than her 5'4.  

Jane on the other hand was wearing high waisted pants, black Doc Martins, and a striped T-shirt. Her hair was shoulder length, with half of it pulled back into a miniature ponytail. Her jacket was draped on the back of her chair along with a grey messenger bag which contained things from both work and her personal life.  

Jane waved at Theo who smiled back. Her profile picture for her account was a photo of her cat, but she did have other photos of herself posted as well. He probably recognized her from there. 

"Hey!" he exclaimed as he sat down. "I am so sorry I'm late. My client was a bit later, I guess that's what happens when you have a newborn, so we started a bit late. And traffic coming here is a pain. And I couldn't find that good of a place to park." 

"It's fine!" she smiled back. "I wasn't waiting here for long!" 

"I'm glad," he let out a sigh of relief. "Did you already order?" He picked up one of the two menus, on the table. 

Jane nodded, "Yeah sorry, there's just a lot of people and I wanted to make sure the food came out with time to spare." 

"No need to apologize," Theo gave her a smile. "I'm glad you didn't wait for me. I thought I would be a lot later than fifteen minutes." 

Maria noticing that Theo had arrived came over to take his order. He got a cappuccino and one of the cafe's most famous turkey sandwiches. Jane had never tried them, because she was vegetarian, but based on how everything else at the cafe tasted, she imagined it was magical. 

"So, what do you do?" she asked Theo. 

He beamed at her question. "I'm a photographer. The studio I work at does a lot of different kinds of photo shoots, but today we did a newborn shoot. The baby was so adorable." 

That explained the photos on his account, and his odd explanation of his job.

"What about you?" 

"I'm an interior designer at a local firm. I work mostly with private clients, although sometimes our company builds houses that are not commissioned. I work with a lot of other people to design the rooms and we all bounce ideas off of each other and things like that. I really love the vibe." 

"It's cool that we're both artists!" 

"Yeah!" 

About five minutes later both of their orders had come out. Jane hadn't placed her order that much before Theo had, but she was still surprised that they had come out around the same time. Jane stirred her iced coffee and took a sip. It was like cold liquid magic, and also the caffeine she needed after staying up late playing video games. 

Theo took a bite of his turkey sandwich and it almost looked like he melted. "This is so delicious," he exclaimed with a very satisfied look on his face. 

Jane couldn't help but smile. She took a bite of her scone, which also had her feel like melting inside. 

"So, about Couple's Counseling?" he asked. 

Jane finished chewing and then answered: "I think it could be fun to do. If you're willing to do it." 

Theo nodded. "I think it could be interesting too." 

She pulled out a list of sites from her backpack. "These are the couple's counseling services around us. Some of them seem high end and the prices sure match that. I don't think we should go to those. It might be for a joke, but I don't particularly want to spend that much money on it."

Theo nodded. "What about this one?" he pointed to the cheapest one on the list. 

"River City Couple's Counseling" 

Jane typed the name into her phone and smiled. She turned it around to show Theo, who smiled as well. 

"Perfect."