Lee was chewing another bite of roast when Tarin mentioned that this restaurant also served brunch. Lee just stopped moving for a couple of seconds and stared at Tarin before finishing the food in her mouth.

”If their brunch menu is anywhere near this good, they are definitely going to get sick of us,” she said matter of factly. It was an even better thing that Kevin’s powers seemed to simply drain batteries and didn’t fry his cell phone because it sounded like their food costs were going to go up because of this place.

Not that Lee minded. If it meant getting to see Tarin dress like this on a regular basis and have food that tasted this good, she’d figure out how to make it work. Even if it meant she ended up paying more often than not.

”This will have to be at least a somewhat regular date.”

The look on Lee’s face was virtually priceless when Tarin mentioned that this place had brunch too. Absolutely thrilled that she was so happy with his choice, Tarin took another bite and considered how well things were going.

They probably couldn’t come here all the time. It was awful fancy, but it could be a thing. ”The view is probably really cool during the day too.” The dress code was also more relaxed so that meant he wouldn’t have to have Rachel’s help to find something appropriate to wear.

”So yeah. We have to at least try it out. Hopefully the next time they came, there wouldn’t be an adapted there either. Tarin was still a bit miffed that he hadn’t been able to figure out who was causing Lee’s problems, but things seemed to have made a turn for the better so that was alright.

Tarin kept right on eating though, the sides were even good, complimenting the main course in a way that made everything better. Damn he’d done well. It wasn’t too arrogant to admit that to himself, right?

A thought struck Tarin as he ate though, and he looked up at the sky for a moment, thoughtfully.

”I wonder what they do when it’s cold or if it rains?” he asked after a moment looking up at the sky.

At least try brunch out here? Lee was thinking they needed to do it at least a few times because there was likely going to be multiple things that Lee would want to try. And the good thing with how she just worked when she wanted and Tarin’s appointments never started very early was that they would be able to come here during the work week, avoiding the weekend rush that Lee was sure they would have.

They continued eating in comfortable silence until Tarin looked up at the sky. ”Oh, that is a good point,” Lee agreed. That was something they were going to need to find out. Though real estate in New York was expensive enough that, even for a rooftop, Lee couldn’t imagine the restaurant could afford to close for the winter.

”Maybe there’s a roof of some sort they’re able to put up,” Lee guessed. ”And I haven’t been to any here, but I know that there are bars in Toronto that use heaters on their patios in the winter.”

Lee made some good points. Maybe the exposed beams had some kind of mechanism that allowed a roof to be attached, and maybe there were heaters.

”The view in the snow would be pretty incredible.” Tarin said, continuing to eat his food which was quickly starting to disappear.

The thought of the winter made him frown a bit thoughtfully, ”I still need to get a new coat though. I lost mine that day in the park and never replaced it because…everything happened and then it got warm.”

Tarin shook his head and took another, smaller bite, trying to keep the food around longer. ”That was a weird day.”

Lee smiled when Tarin made the comment about being up here to see the city in the snow. ”To see it white, and clean, possibly sparkling if there’s sun,” Lee said softly. ”Before it all turns to grey slush on the ground. I can only imagine it would be gorgeous.”

Other than in the Park, and even that was pushing it at times, Lee hadn’t seen fresh, crisp snow in years. It didn’t really exist on the streets of New York.

Lee was a little confused for a moment when Tarin started talking about with losing his coat. But only for a moment; then she remembered the brawl in the park that Tarin had mentioned. When he had first met Michael. In a form that if Lee had seen Michael in, she might have realized she’d known of him for years much sooner.

Before everything had happened and she became involved in Tarin’s life.

”Hopefully, we don’t have any more weird days for a while,” Lee replied. That certainly would be nice. ”I’m pretty sure that my tolerance for ‘weird’ and ‘adventure’ has drastically declined.”

Lee seemed to really like the idea of seeing the city in the snow. Especially if the snow was white and clean, not the dirty slush that seemed to accumulate everywhere once the people and commuters drove and walked all over it.

Tarin had to nod there and he hesitated for a second before he spoke because he knew that Lee didn’t really like to hear stories from when he’d first lived in New York.

”There weren’t a lot of great things about my first winter in New York…but other than a few flurries, it was the first time I had seen actual snow.” he said, and smiled.

”I know they show it being all sparkly on TV and stuff, but I hadn’t realized how bright it was. Also, I hadn’t realized that it makes a sound when it falls.” He also hadn’t realized just how cold it was, or how wet…

”It’s silly, I know, and boy do I have mixed feelings about it now, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that first time.”

After Tarin had brought up his coat, Lee commented that her tolerance for weird had declined drastically and he had to laugh a bit, ”Well, mine pretty much never existed so we are on the same page there.” he said with another smile, ”And that’s why we are here, having a perfectly normal dinner, and then maybe some perfectly normal dancing?”

Lee was a little apprehensive when Tarin brought up his first winter in New York. He was actually smiling, though, and as he continued speaking Lee smiled as well.

"It's not silly," Lee disagreed with Tarin. "I grew up with snow every winter, but it can still be magical. Light and fluffy is prettier, but Kevin prefers when it crunches underfoot because then he can make better snowballs." Lee shook her head slightly, though she had always enjoyed going to the park with Kevin for snowball fights.

And Tarin was right, other than the bit of uncomfortableness because of the adapted shutting her siphoning off, it had been a perfectly normal dinner, which caused Lee to smile wider.

Though the smile faltered slightly when he mentioned dancing. Her eyes glanced over to the dance floor. At least it looked like it was slower paced dancing, not like at the bar. "I'm not great dancing," Lee said, turning back to Tarin. "But we can give it a try."

Lee didn’t think Tarin’s ideas about snow were silly. In fact, she pointed out that even thought she’d been around snow her whole life, she still thought it was magical.

That was a good word for it. New York was lots of incredible things, but it was also crowded, and smelly sometimes, and dirty sometimes. When it first snowed, everything was white and clean.

Tarin hadn’t ever played in the snow much. Such things had been wildly frowned upon because of the attention they drew and the way that people tended to get fired up when they played like that. Lee pointed out the kind of snow that Kevin liked for snowballs though and Tarin wondered if when it got cold maybe they could play a little. ”I’ll have to ask him for pointers.” Tarin commented.

Lee didn’t seem too sold on the dancing, and she actually turned to look at the dance floor where people were moving in lazy circles or just kind of swaying to the music.

Tarin shrugged, ”We don’t have to.” He said simply, ”But if it makes you feel better, I’m absolutely awful. I figured we could handle swaying though.” Truth be told, Tarin could count the number of times he’d danced on one hand, so whatever Lee wanted to do was fine with him. Tarin took another bite of his food and was a little surprised to see that it was nearly all gone.

”You have to get the salmon next time.” he said, gesturing with his fork. ”It was so good.”

Lee laughed when Tarin said he'd have to ask Kevin for pointers about making snowballs. "I'm sure he'd be happy to," Lee told Tarin before shaking her head slightly. "He'll likely try convincing you to gang up on me."

Tarin was quick to say that they didn't have to dance when she seemed hesitant. Lee glanced back at the dance floor briefly before turning to Tarin again. "It's 'perfectly normal', you say?" Lee asked, her tone clearly not very serious. "If that's the case, maybe we can give it a try."

Though, Lee thought as she looked across the table as they continued to eat, they may have to be careful if they were to dance. Careful not to forget where they were. Because dancing like that would put them quite close to each other, and Tarin did look damn good in that suit.

And apparently the salmon was extremely good, Tarin saying that she needed to get it the next time they came. Lee nodded. "I have a feeling we'll be saying that about everything we eat here. Because this was extremely good, too."

Tarin’s smile only grew when Lee said that not only would Kevin help, but he’d probably try to get Tarin to team up against Lee. ”Now that would just be diabolical.” he said, ”I love it.”

Lee seemed to think that she might actually want to try the dancing and Tarin nodded a bit seriously when she asked if he’d said the activity was perfectly normal. ”Loads of perfectly normal people over there, doing some perfectly normal dancing.” he said, looking over Lee’s shoulder in that direction. Pretty much everyone was just swaying, moving in slow circles as they moved around the dance floor. That boded well for everyone involved if they actually did get out there and dance.

Now Lee was looking across the table at him though and for some reason it made that same flush from earlier work its way back up his neck a bit as he set down his fork and took another drink of his beer, which was also mostly gone. Huh.

It appeared Lee had enjoyed her food too and she had high hopes for the rest of the menu as well. Tarin had to agree, he’d seen a few other things he wanted to try himself. ”Definitely not the worst problem to have.” he said.

Lee shook her head and laughed a bit more as Tarin commented on the evil nature of the assumed plan from her son. "Two against one isn't exactly fair, you know," Lee pointed out despite her laughter.

As Lee sat there finishing her food, she couldn't help but think that people who lived perfectly normal lives probably didn't say things like 'perfectly normal' multiple times in one sentence. But the fact was that tonight really had been perfectly normal. For them.

It was nice to know that they were actually able to go out, and that they could go have a nice, normal date. That things weren't going to go weird or wrong inherently because of who they were.

"It is not," Lee agreed with a smile across the table. "Means that as long as there's something on the menu we haven't tried, we have reason to come back here, doesn't it?"

Two against one wasn’t fair?

”That’s the point…” Tarin said, ”It’s not supposed to be fair.”

Tarin was done eating, but as he waited for Lee to finish her food, he was thinking back on the conversation from earlier. Lee had said that it was incredibly important for him to learn about music and that she would help him figure out what he liked. There was no reason he couldn’t figure some things out on his own too though. He had a couple of books he needed to return to the library, maybe while he was there he could find some books about music.

It was definitely an idea.

Lee spoke again and pulled Tarin from his thoughts as he looked back at her across the table and nodded. ”I have to be honest in, I was hoping that either the atmosphere or the food would be excellent, I hadn’t planned on both. So I’m glad it all worked out.”

It wasn't supposed to be fair? Lee just rolled her eyes at Tarin. It was bad enough when Kevin and Zack were ganging up on her, but they were at least both kids. Though this past winter it had been bordering on unfair a number of times.

As she finished speaking, Lee leaned back slightly in her chair as she smiled across at Tarin. "So am I. Though you wouldn't tell me anything, so I had no expectations for tonight," Lee said with a slight shake of her head. "But even if I did, I'm pretty sure they would have been exceeded before we left home."

Lee continued to sit there for a couple of moments before glancing over at the dancefloor again. "You won't let me bump into anyone, right?" Lee asked softly as she turned her eyes back to Tarin.

Lee not knowing any of the details until the last minute had been an integral part of the plan for the night. Tarin had known that no matter what, Lee would be worried about the whole rooftop aspect of where they were going and he hadn’t wanted her to spend more time than necessary on it. Sure, the not knowing had been stressful for Lee too, but it had ultimately been a cost/benefit analysis and keeping things close to the chest had won out.

The end result has been so worth it though, especially when Lee kept on Lee kept saying things that made Tarin feel like he was going to combust right on the stop.

”I wanted it to be a surprise…” he said, ”One thing you did this week where all you had to worry about was showing up.” and boy had she shown up.

Tarin followed Lee’s gaze as she glanced back at the dance floor and he felt a bit bad for bringing it up. Lee had some misgivings and he didn’t want to push her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

Lee spoke after a few moments and Tarin looked back at her briefly before he looked away and focused his attention on the dance floor. It wasn’t really crowded, and as Tarin had noticed before, most of the couples dancing weren’t really covering a lot of real estate. Lee could usually sense the people around her and Tarin could absolutely understand why this would be weird. Could he be sure they wouldn’t bump into anyone else?

”I won’t let you bump into anyone.” he said, meeting Lee’s eyes, confident in an answer he wouldn’t have given otherwise.

Tarin had wanted tonight to be a surprise. That, it definitely has been. And a good surprise as well.

But he'd also wanted her to have one time, one thing that week where she hadn't needed to worry about anything. Hadn't needed to plan anything. Hadn't needed to think about it. All she had had to do was get dressed and be ready for Tarin to take her out.

”Maybe,” Lee said softly, a smile on her face. ”If you do something like this every so often, I'll start to appreciate simply having to ‘show up’.”

Maybe she'd be able to be happy without knowing the plans. Not being in control of what was going on around her and I'm her life.

Anything was possible, right?

Lee had asked if Tarin would make sure she didn't bump into anyone. And instead of answering, he looked back at the dancefloor.

But was it any surprise this part made her nervous? She still wasn't siphoning. Lee wouldn't be able to tell the difference between someone standing a meet inch behind her or 100 feet. She couldn't feel anyone right now.

”I won’t let you bump into anyone.”

He hadn't been not answering, Tarin had been looking at the dancefloor to make sure he could make and keep that promise.

Lee smiled gratefully. ”Does that man you're going to ask me to dance?”