"So are you going to go on that date with Tom?" Toby inquired.

"I said I would." I'm known to change my mind, and flake last minute, so I'm sure Toby is just trying to make sure I didn't do that this time, especially because this was his good friend.

"Just making sure you don't flake this time, he really needs this, after this you can ignore him."

It was at this point that I started to get suspicious. Besides the double dates and possible double wedding what did he get out of this.

"Why would I ignore him after- what's wrong with him?"

He wasn't going to tell me; at least not right away, Toby was the king of beating around the bush especially when he was being sneaky or had something up his sleeve.

"Why can't I just want my friend and cousin to be happy."

"I'm going to ask you again, and if you lie to me again I'm hanging up the phone and I'm not going." I was totally bluffing; good thing Toby couldn't see my face otherwise he would definitely be able to tell.

"Nothings wrong with him, its just his sister is my boss, I promised him I could get him at least one date..."

"What will happen if I change my mind?"

"I'll probably conveniently get fired." As annoying as Toby was I would never want to be the reason he lost his job, he worked extremely hard to get that engineering degree, and it be unfortunate for all of that to go down the drain because he couldn't mind his business.

"Just think of it like a charity date for a worthy cause- my job."

"Great-so you're pimping me out." I stated. "Well just so you know I'm going to get ready at your apartment."

Toby has the best apartment, not because it was so greatly decorated or anything, Toby and Griffin have zero decorating skills, it sort of reminds me of a man cave. it was goals because technically it was a penthouse, and it had the best view that overlooked the city.

"Okay, I won't be there, but Griffin should be there."

Griffin is Toby's long term boyfriend, they've been dating going on six years, the family loves him, of course they would love anyone Toby brought home just because Toby brought him home. Toby is the family favorite. They try to overcompensate for the fact that his mom is a drunk and she hates him.

"Well I'll let you go before you get in trouble."

Hanging up the phone I grabbed my purse and made my way to the boutique down the street and then eventually over to Toby and Griffins. In addition to them having a great home I didn't want Tom knowing where I lived.

"I'm surprise you said yes." Griffin says.

"Yeah, me too." I replied. Truth is the only reason I'm going is not only to save his job, but also because my entire small ass family would not only hate me, but blame me if Toby lost his job, even though no one told Toby to try and find me someone, especially related to his boss.

"So, where are you two going?"

"Toby says we should go to the Rose Grill, so I guess we're going to the Rose Grill." Toby has always been super controlling, he's been like that since we were kids, but since he's my only first cousin, I've always just put up with it.

"Have you ever been there?"

Looking in the mirror as I applied my red lip stick that matched my red heels I said. "Nope, but I did look at their menu online, and the food looked okay." Stepping back from the mirror I run my hand over my black dress, brushing out the wrinkles.

"It's Toby's and I's favorite place to go, you're going to love it."

Saying that the doorbell rung, causing Griffin to get up to answer it. I had told Tom to pick me up from here, so it was either, him or Toby, but I was betting it was Tom.

I was right, it was Tom, hearing his voice I walk out of my cousins room and greet him at the door. Saying goodbye to Griffin, Tom and I made our way to his car, although I probably should have just taken my own car.

The next thing I knew it Tom and I were at the Rose Grill sitting at our booth in the corner, upon Griffin's suggestion. I had ordered breakfast while Tom ordered a burger with a side of fries.

"So, are you and Griffin close?" Tom asked.

"Not really." I answered. Griffin works for an airline company, I forget what exactly he does, but he's away from home all the time, tonight was really the first time I had ever been alone with him.

"Oh, okay, what about you and Toby?"

"Close to Toby?" I asked with a chuckle, truth be told Toby and I aren't as close as one would think, but since I'm an only child, he's an only child, and our only other cousins are my grandma's first cousins and our parents first cousins, in other words they're super older than us. So, by default I had to either play with Toby, or play alone, and since neither of us wanted to play alone, we played with each other .

"Yeah."

"No, not really." Toby would argue we were cousins who were raised like siblings, but It's more like he was the cousin that would never go home. When we were younger Toby's dad, my mom's brother died in a car accident and his mom drank a lot, so he would spend a lot of time bouncing between our grandparents and my house.

"So, you know what I do for a hobby, what exactly do you do for fun?" I inquired.

"I don't really have much time for hobbies." That's actually very sad, everyone should have time for their hobbies at least once a month, and if you don't you're working entirely too hard.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I have a radio show, and sometimes I have to travel for it ." He totally had the voice of someone with a radio show. I wanted to ask him what it was called, but I didn't want to come off as weird, so I didn't.

"What do you do for a living?"

I was almost embarrassed to tell him what I did, just because I was supposed to have some kind of cool career going on by now. I went to school for interior design, but I haven't been able to do anything in that field like I would have liked too.

"I'm a waiter and I work in an art gallery on the weekend."

"I'm sorry for the delay." The waiter says placing our food in front of us. Watching the wrong food go to the wrong person Tom and I waited until she walked away to switch our plates.

"So why are you single?" I asked.

"Things just didn't work out." Tom answered. I was so sure he was going to paint his ex in a very bad light, and tell me she was crazy or something, and conveniently leave out what he did that made her crazy.

"How come?"

Tom picked up his fork and knife and cut his burger in fourths, and then picked up one of the smaller parts and put it in his mouth. He chewed the thing for what felt like forever.

"Why are you single?" Tom questioned.

"Because my ex cheated on me, with his best friend." I explained. Toms eyes grew wide as my face remained in a straight poker face. "So why didn't things work out with your ex?" Tom lets out a deep breath, and then grabs his cup of water and drinks it.

"She died."

"Oh I'm sorry." Things got real awkward, I guess I shouldn't have pressed him so hard, but I thought he was going to say she cheated, or she moved, and he wasn't trying to move with her, so they broke up, I had no idea he was going to say she died.

"Who's Mia?"

Looking up Tom placed his knife and fork down and then stared at me for what felt like forever. That should have been a red flag, not just because he stared at me almost deranged like, but the fact that he was eating his burger with a knife and fork, no sane person does that.

"An ex, she cheated on me."

I was going to kill Toby for introducing me to someone this unhinged, then I'm going to resuscitate him and then kill him again for telling me to ask him about his ex, knowing what she did.

"I am so sorry for bringing her up, Toby..."

"It's okay, Toby has a dark sense of humor." Tom explains. "It still hurts though- I introduced her to my granny." Tom stared off pass me, it wasn't until I looked into the mirror behind him that I notice he wasn't looking at anything or anyone.

"I'm guessing you don't introduce your granny to everyone?"

"Just the people I'm in a relationship with." Makes sense, I wouldn't introduce anyone to my nana, or any of my family not even to Toby's trifling self unless we were serious.

" I know you only agreed to dinner, but do you want to go somewhere else?"

"Depends where." I knew I should probably say yes after forcing him to talk about his dead ex and apparently someone he's still not quite over yet. But if it was somewhere stupid I was definitely going to have to say no.

"There's a bar down the street."

"Sure." Tom and I finished our food and then Tom paid for it, I insisted that we split it, and he insisted that he pay for it. So I let him, he didn't have to ask me again. Paying for our stuff Tom and I made our way down the street to the bar, it was a little too crowded, so we walked two blocks to the art gallery I worked at.

"I can't believe you work here; this place is beautiful."

We hadn't even made it inside before Tom started laying on the compliments. Which in hindsight should have been the first red flag, well not the first red flag but you get what I'm saying.

"Oh, you've been here before?" I asked.

"No, but I've always wanted too." Tom explains. "I use to walk past it all the time, but with my schedule I never had the chance to actually go in." With how busy his schedule was I was surprised he had time to walk past it.

"Oh- well you'll love it."

Opening the door to the place I called my weekend job, I expected no one to be there, being that It was officially closed. So it completely surprised me when my boss greeted me.

"Oh Renee, I didn't expect to see you tonight."

"This is Olivia, my boss, Olivia this is...." I began to say only to be cut off by Olivia, who's known for cutting people off, her annoyingly bubbly personality and talking really fast. Looking at Tom from the corner of my eye he looked really uncomfortable.

"Tom- is that you, what has it been three years?" Olivia asked.

"Oooh, you two know each other?" I inquired. I already thought this was a small world, but it just got even smaller. Especially for Tom who was looking like he wanted to toss his body through the window, into ongoing traffic.

"You must have me confused for someone else." Tom states

Tom tried his hardest not to seem nervous, but to be honest he's been sweating uncontrollably and fidgeting with his thumbs, from the moment he saw Olivia, another thing that should have been a red flag.

"Yeah, maybe I have the wrong person." Olivia states.

"You definitely do." Tom replied with a dull expression. At this point I was side eyeing him, why was he lying, and why didn't he want her to know he was who she thought he was. Whatever the reason was I was not going to try and get it out of him.

"Lock up when you're done Nae?"

"Sure." The way Olivia sped walked out of there should have been another red flag. But I just wrote it off as she was tired and in a hurry to get home. A long shift will do that to a person.

"So, are you going to show me around?"

The once dull blank expression Tom had plastered across his face quickly swapped with a much happier brighter expression. For some strange reason watching his face turn so quickly made the hair on the back of my neck stand, as my heart raced, and my stomach turned.

"Right this way."

We quietly walked out of the empty foyer and over to the paintings. I purposely walked to one of my favorite ones, although I love everything Vincent Van Gogh did 'The starry night' was the first one I seen so I stopped there.

"Don't you love the colors?"

"They're alright." Alright, he's great, he's the inspiration behind all of my pictures, and probably one of the many reasons I'm even interested in art or at least looking at it. My nana use to have his paintings hung all over her house when Toby and I were younger.

"Not a fan of a lot of colors?"

"Not really, they remind me of kindergarten paintings." I gasped and clutched my invisible pearls internally. He wasn't just insulting his paintings, but many other people who took inspiration from him like myself.

"But you like my paintings?"

"I know, liking your pictures caught me off guard." Tom says. "Your paintings are different though; they make you feel things." Feel things, I'm just going to have to take his word on that one.

"Right."

"You know what would look better here?" He was going to say my paintings, I already knew it. But just so I won't be annoying, I pretended like I didn't see this coming.

"What?"

"Your paintings."

"Well they used to be, during certain exhibits she use to let me hang some of my paintings." Of course that stopped when I stopped painting, but when I was still painting, people liked them so much they actually offered to pay for them, which says a lot because they don't normally sale any of their paintings mostly because no one ever asked.

"No way, why didn't you tell me!"

"It was a long time ago." Thus not really important anymore. Sure this museum is the top highly ranked museum in this country, artist are willing to fight their mama's to be able to get their art into this museum, but it's not like I earned it, they just gave me a spot because I work here and saying no and having to see me regularly would be awkward.

"It's still impressive."

"Well if I ever go back to painting and the offers still on the table then I'll let you know." Translation I'm never going to get back into painting, but I'll act like I will to get off this topic.

"You know who would love you?"

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head as I stood there in silence, I began to think of anyone he would even suggest that he wants me to meet. Before I even opened my mouth to speak Tom answered for me.

"My granny."

"Really?" His granny was the last person I ever expected for him to say especially because of what he said earlier, about not introducing her to everyone, only the people he's in a relationship with, which like I said earlier was really understandable.

"Yeah you should meet her one day."

"Yeah, I would love that." I love grannies, so I was honestly ecstatic that he would even want me to meet his granny. I was already clearing my schedule in my head and picking out the perfect outfit one that would give the best first impression.

"So, are we going to continue this- tour?"

"Oh right." I toss my hand out encouraging him to walk in front of me. Just as he walked in front of me my phone begin to ring, it was Olivia, she probably wanted to know if I left yet or something.

"Are you coming?"

I debated whether or not I was going to answer it or not. By the time I decided It be rude for me to answer the call during a date the phone call had ended, problem solved, so I slide my phone back into my purse.

"Uh- yeah."