"I'm so sorry, Melanie. It's not the first time I've heard that." She looked at me kindly. "Is it okay that we're here?"

I smiled at her. "Yeah. It's better when I'm with a friend." That caused a smile to spread across her face. I liked that, a lot.

Our waiter snapped me out of my appreciation of Sandy's face, dropping off our gyoza. I smiled up at him and said thank you as he did.

"Okay, now try these." She picked one of the dumplings up and dipped it into the soy sauce that came with. She bit the morsel in half, her eyes closing in pleasure as she...