Jake looked at the gift without taking it, bemused. He was fairly certain he’d told Angie that he didn’t like chocolate. On their first date. Yesterday.

He wasn’t exactly sure why he’d asked her out again. There were no sparks, beyond the tiny one that lit up his groin at the sight of her behind in tight jeans. Yes, he supposed, that was it. She did bear more than a passing resemblance to Scarlett Johansen, now that he thought about it.

He stuffed a fourth hazlenut whirl into his mouth as he watched Angie prepare to bowl another strike. Shapely, round, satisfying, he wasn’t sure why he’d avoided the delicious morsels for so long.

Everyone in the alley winced as Angie celebrated her fifth strike in a row. Jake opened his second peppermint cream, popped it into his mouth and savoured the velvety, soothing flavour. He didn’t know what everyone else’s problem was; he thought Angie’s laugh had a lilting quality.

As Angie recounted her employment history over dinner, loudly enough to turn heads, Jake overheard a few of his fellow diners making assessments of her character. Flake was the general term being bandied about. 

Fuck these assholes, Jake thought as he bit into a hard milk chocolate, she’s more solid than all them put together.

While he had swerved to avoid a kiss on their first date, tonight Jake found himself pushing Angie up against a nearby wall as soon as he finished his fourth Turkish delight, driven by his desire to taste her mouth as soon as possible. 

He vaguely recalled thinking she’d had bad breath, but all he could taste tonight was a faint hint of rosewater. So pleasant was the experience that Jake could have sworn once it was over that his pallet had been cleansed of the garlic clams he’d only finished a half hour before.

His passions were reignited once they arrived at Angie’s and he ate the last three chocolates in the box. He apologized later for not offering Angie a strawberry cream.

‘That’s okay. You enjoyed it a lot more than I would have.’

‘I loved them…and I think I love you.’

‘Aw, aren’t you just the sweetest man?’