That would be the point. Zoe just looked at Dante as he spoke. His entire reason for using his mutation was to get attention. That was so different from what she did, what she thought about her ability. She didn't exactly hide what she was able to do, but she definitely did not go out of her way to show people.

Though, Zoe realized, Dante's ability was a lot showier than hers was, so it made sense that he would think about getting attention for it, like he had earlier whole playing his guitar.

”I think it would be considered smoking,” Zoe replied. ”It's more about the smoke than whether you have a cigarette in your mouth.”

Dante was looking mischievous, probably the closest Zoe had seen him actually look to bring happy, and she just shook her head as they reached their table,a small smile on her face. It was only then that Dante pulled his arm away from hers so Zoe followed suit and sat, that was why they were there in the first place.

”Though, it would be interesting to see the reactions,” Zoe finally said after the hostess had walked away. ”I'm not sure how I'd do with that kind of attention myself, but…” Zoe shrugged, then smiled a little wider again. ”It could be fun.”

"True..." he murmured, thinking as he sat back in the chair. Probably best to wait until after dinner before trying that little trick. Besides, if the food was good, then maybe he'd better not. After all, he'd like to be able to return to this place if he liked it.

"Well, attention's sort of easy to come by when you're the class clown," he said with a slight shrug. He never really was a 'model student' or anything of that nature. "Let's....see how the food is before I do anything that could get us thrown out," he whispered, winking just a little.

Part of him hoped the food sucked; that would make the date much more exciting, wouldn't it? Hopefully there'd be no cops of anything of that sort.

Zoe tilted her head when Dante alluded to the fact that he had been the class clown in school. From what she had seen so far, that was surprising; Dante's attitude was far darker than any of the class clowns she had seen in school. ”Ah, the attention I got in school wasn't exactly wanted,” Zoe said softly, looking down at her hands on the table briefly. ”It was normally some variation of calling me crazy.”

As she heard Dante continue speaking, this time in a whisper, Zoe looked across the table at him again. And then giggled. ”Deal. Though now I'm kind of hoping the food here is horrible,” she replied, a mischievous smile on her face. ”I suppose the sooner we order, the sooner we'll find out, right?” With that, Zoe turned her eyes down to the menu in front of her.

"Eh, I just didn't really care," he said frankly. And honestly, he still didn't, but he was rather enjoying the company. It wasn't bad at all, if he were being honest.

And then, she was smiling again, but more mischievously as she spoke. It was a different side than what he'd seen so far, and he had to admit, he liked it quite a bit. "Yeah, one can always hope it sucks," he said with a more mischievous grin.

Oh yeah, there was a menu, and he should probably be looking at it instead of at Zoe's...figure. Right. He looked over the menu, wondering what to get. Though part of him thought about getting something deliberately disgusting, he didn't. Instead, he looked for something that caught his eye. Hell, he was going to give this place a fair shot, after all. Then, if he didn't have a reason to come back, he'd take his chances.

Zoe shrugged slightly at Dante’s reply that he hadn’t cared about the attention he’d gotten in school. ”I tried not to let it bother me,” she said as she looked up and across the table at Dante again. ”But I’m guessing you have an idea how good I was at that…”

But Dante matched her mischievous smile, perhaps even surpassing it, as they briefly talked about what they, or rather Dante, may do with smoke rings after they ate.

Since Zoe was looking down at her menu at this point, she didn’t notice where exactly Dante’s eyes were looking before he too started looking at the menu. Probably a good thing, considering how she’d have reacted.

“Hi, I’m your waitress Sunny,” Zoe heard an accented voice say, and looked up to see a young woman standing beside the table. “What can I get you?”

Glancing back down at the menu, Zoe took another quick look as she made a decision. ”I’ll have aloo gobi and chicken tikka masala, and a water.” Looking up, Zoe handed her menu to the waitress and looked across the table at Dante. ”Do you know what you’d like to try?”

He nodded, biting his lip. "I guess I had it easy, there," he admitted, though not giving too much information away. Just enough so they'd be even. "I don't know when my mutation surfaced. But I only discovered it last year. So I'm still fairly new to the whole mutant thing, and I don't really take to the judgement well. Hell, if I hadn't have been trying to make money, I probably would have kicked that guy's ass." He would have, in fact it was very hard for him not to anyway, so much so that just thinking about that guy made the hair on the back of his neck bristle up.

He continued enjoying his....view, before he was caught off guard by the unexpected voice. Oh right. Waitress. They were there to eat. He looked over the menu a moment more, thinking. "I'm honestly thinking the butter chicken," he said with a shrug. "And water, I guess," he said, looking back at Zoe, making eye contact this time.

Zoe blinked as she looked across the table at Dante. He had honestly only realized that he was a mutant a year earlier? The power had to have emerged before that, right? Mutant powers developed in puberty, not in your 20s.

But the waitress had come up, so Zoe decided she would ask Dante about that later. And as she sat there, Zoe wondered what Dante would choose, since he had said he’d never tried Indian food before that evening.

”Not a bad choice,” she said as the waitress walked away with their menus. Then her smile turned mischievous again. ”Well, hopefully it’s not a bad choice here, though I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

Now that they were settled and sitting, Zoe was starting to get a little warm, so she unzipped her jacket, slipping it off to reveal her khaki work shirt underneath. ”But how did it take so long to discover what you can do?”

"Guess we will," he said with a wink as she unzipped her jacket, which...didn't improve his view at all. That really was a damn shame. Maybe they'd do something about that later. But then he thought about it; she struck him as a very sweet, good girl. Maybe too good. Great. Oh well, either way, no need in letting the night go to waste; he'd just have to make up for it somehow.

Then she was asking personal questions. "Well, I was never really in an environment where I had to breathe smoke. And I only started smoking like this after my power surfaced, before then it never really crossed my mind. When your powers revolve around breathing smoke, and you're never around smoke....well, you don't discover that **** for awhile," he said, shrugging again as he looked across the table at her.

This bit mischievous playfulness was far more enjoyable and fun than how things had started. That's not to say Zoe hadn't been enjoying the time with Dante because she had been. But maybe she was starting to break down the gruff, dark little wall of a personality she had been seeing to get a glimpse of the man Duke had briefly mentioned to her. The man who had adopted an abused young dog.

The man that Duke said liked her.

Dante continued speaking, Zoe listened closely. She had asked, it was only right to listen carefully. And, though Zoe hadn't understood how Dante could not know that he was a mutant until a year ago, his explanation made sense. ”That makes sense,” Zoe said after a moment. ”Just a little surprising to hear at first.

“I thought I was dreaming when my car first started talking to me,” Zoe continued with a laugh. ”I mean, it was the middle of the night. But when it kept happening, well, it couldn't always be imaginary, right?”

He merely nodded, not going into details about his mutation. Only his siblings would get to know about that, and his mom, but he'd told her before he'd even moved out to New York. But as pretty and sweet as this girl was, she was still someone he didn't know. And as such, he didn't trust her. Sure, he had his motives, but sharing his deep dark secrets weren't on his to-do list. Probably never would be, if he had his way.

But then she shared part of her story too. That was fair. Nice, even. It was interesting, as far as stories went. Her cat randomly started talking? That had to be creepy. Scary, even. "Damn...I don't know what I'd think if animals just started talking or something like that. Sounds wild," he said softly.

Wait....he'd actually paid attention? Well, he was mildly interested. After all, he was only on this date because of his dog. Heh...Duke set him up. He just hoped his dog was better at picking dates than he usually was.

Dante was a little shocked by her explanation of how her powers had emerged. But right then the waitress had come back with their waters, so Zoe just waited until she walked away, simply giving Dante a shrug while she waited.

”Like I said, I thought it was a dream at first,” Zoe explained. ”So I just went with it to start. But it did take a while to get used to. When I started understanding birds and squirrels, that’s when it really started getting strange.”

And then Zoe wasn’t sure what else to say. She wasn’t exactly used to dating to start with, and this wasn’t exactly planned. So to buy herself some time to think, Zoe took a sip of her water. A moment later, Zoe had an idea, and looked back up and across the table at Dante. ”I guess we’re going to have to figure sometime for you to come see my drawings, if you actually wanted to see them.”

Her power was interesting; most mutations were in some way or another. "So you can only talk to certain animals," he murmured, thinking on it. It was a little more detailed than his own, he thought. Though he purposed himself not to tell her how he'd discovered his power. That was for another day.

He too took a sip of his water, and looked across the table at her. "Well, we can do that some other time. I would like to see them though. May even give me something to go by; since I don't really do realistic stuff," he said with a slight shrug as he relaxed in his chair.

Zoe nodded as she heard Dante’s murmur about her power. It sounded like he was thinking about what she said, interested in her powers. ”Yeah, it sort of seems like I need to learn how to talk to them or something,” she said in explanation. ”At least that's my guess. I was able to talk to new animals gradually, and after a couple months at work, I started being able to understand the zebras.

And, it seemed, that Dante really did want to see her drawings. Though Zoe blushed slightly when he hinted that he might be able to learn something about drawing more realistically from her sketches. She did smile, though; here was a guy who knew what her powers were, and not only had he wanted to spend more time with her that day, but he was suggesting getting together again another time so he could see her drawings.

”That sounds good. Maybe I could cook so you don't have to leave Duke at home.”

He nodded. "After I discovered mine, I spent a lot of time playing with it. I had to learn exactly how to meld the smoke, what kind of control I have at what distances, that sort of thing. I can even slightly control the color," he explained.

Zebras. So she worked at the zoo. Or she was an African missionary. He hoped it was the first one. And she was smiling again. And offering to cook next time. Next time? Well, this was quite the surprise, wasn't it?

"That actually sounds like a good idea. And I can bring my guitar for afterwards. Or while you're cooking," he offered with a shrug.

Zoe nodded as she listened to Dante explain how he’s experimented with his powers when he first discovered them. That made sense, she likely would have done the same thing. The only difference was that she hadn’t really had a way to experiment other than simply talking to the animals like she had. And that had made everyone around her think that she was crazy. At least if she’d have had a mutation more like Dante’s, she could have used it in private and not ended up as an outcast in school.

When Dante agreed that her cooking sounded like a good plan, Zoe’s smile widened slightly. And then a bit more when he suggested bringing his guitar with him. ”Sounds good,” Zoe replied, looking at the man across the table from her. ”I would like to hear more than just the one song I heard today. You played really well.”

About then, their food arrived at the table, and Zoe was surprised by how fast it came out. Or maybe they had been that distracted by the conversation that it had been longer than Zoe realized. As the waitress walked away, Zoe turned to look at Dante again, picking up her fork. ”Moment of truth, I guess. Are we hoping it’s good, or bad?”