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Kendra hadn't been in an intimate setting in some time. She had that nervous fluttery feeling again.  Just when she was starting to relax. He asked what brought her to the city and she told him that her work had brought her here. She kept it vague. "I'm actually a freelance photographer." She wasn't here on assignment or anything like that. Honestly she just wanted to get away from Georgia. The bigoted south, since the civil rights movements and Martin Luther King, the south and found a whole new thing to be bigoted about.... Mutants. And though she didn't really have a visible mutation, she still wanted to get out of there. She could have said this, but instead of telling Max that her own father hated her when he found out she kept things light. She didn't want to bring up the stories of a screaming drunk throwing dishes against the wall.

Kendra reached up and rubbed at her neck.  The elegant gentle slope of her neck was tense and she absentmindedly rubbed at it while she listened to him talk about growing up in Virginia.  Southern boy too huh?  He probably knew what she was running from then.  That simple minded southern ignorance that seemed to spread down there like wildfire. Growing up in the south was the reason she knew so much violence.  Shaped the person she was, and was partly to blame for her shy secluded sometimes skittish nature.  Still, she didn't back down.  She might be slow to warm to people, but she was curious and inquisitive and wouldn't shrink away from finding out more about things that really peeked her interest.  Like Max.  One of the things that drew her to him was how she instantly felt comfortable around him.  She didn't have that awkward, weird "Hi my name is Kendra" phase.  Ugh!  She hated having to introduce herself.  She felt like she was standing in front of a crowded room whenever she did slowly suffocating.  Max made her feel safe, like she could be herself.

Max said he didn't want to waste time on small talk, yet all of his questions had been small talky questions.  What do you do for fun?  What brings you to the city?  It was like a survey and she was going down a check list.  What does he REALLY want to know?  Kendra wondered.  She hadn't been on a date in awhile, in fact.... The last time was actually with a woman, but the routine was slowly coming back to her.  The courtship dance of pretending like you were interested in boring hubba-baloo.  Kendra wanted to up the antie a bit.

So far they had exchanged where they lived, what they wanted to aspire to.  But they haven't really broken the ice.  Call it nerves of being on a first date, but Kendra came out of left field with a completely random question.  And though it may seem trivial, Kendra could tell everything she needed to know about Max by his answer.  This was a deal breaker too!  Kendra didn't mess around with this if he answered wrong he was dead on arrival.  Kendra looked Max in the eye.  A warm devilish smile spread across her face.  "Ok. Ima ask ya a question.  How ya answer's gone determine how the rest'ta the night goes.  Do ya understand?"  Kendra said.  Her Georgia twang, relaying that Max only had one shot to get this right.  Kendra would be able to tell if they had any kind of future at all based solely around this one single solitary question.

"What combination of fixings makes up your perfect burrito?"  Kendra asked as the smile spread deeper across her face.  She was being completely serious.  Burrito creation was high on the list of qualities she wanted in a man.  Suddenly Kendra was laughing.  Obviously she was kidding, but she still waited for his answer the same.  To find out he was a no sour cream man would just be a travesty!

They were seated at a table that was spaced out, yet still found itself in the middle of the room. Kendra sat down and tried her best to conceal the smile that threatened to take over her face. Her muscles betrayed her and she felt the corners of her mouth pulling upward in a giddy smile. The fact that she was new to the prospect of dating couldn't been more apparent if someone wrote "I'm rusty at this." on a big rubber mallet and beat you over the head with it. Kendra glanced around the room. All of these people just out on the town.

For once she felt... Normal. Not like a mutant, but a normal person. Going on a date. She placed her hands on the menu and opened it up. She didn't know what Max's expectation were.  She had kissed him.  And by god she had lingered on it.  She pulled away from the kiss reluctantly and struggling to catch her breathe for a moment, but she didn't really know him.  She just spent the day with  him on the beach building a sandcastle, soaring over the ocean and topping it all off with him trying to defend her from a group of assholes.  It was like a romantic novel almost, she read quite of few of those a guilty pleasure of hers if she was being completely honest. 

Max was cute, he wasn't chiseled or build out of stone, he wasn't the next Brad Pitt, but that's not what she was attracted to either.  She found herself drawn to his sweetness and his genuine charm.  When the waiter came by Kendra asked for a glass of water and moments later he was gone.  She could feel the stifling static between them.  She felt like she had to say something, anything.  Don't be weird!  She scolded herself, but thankfully he broke the silence and told her to skip the small talk and asked her questions directly.  That was a relief. 

"I'm from Georgia.  I'm suppose'n you prolly figured that from my accent by'now."  She said smiling.  The truth was he was easy to talk to.  She started to relax a little.  These were the easy questions.  She didn't know that much harder questions were on their way shortly.  Questions she honestly didn't have any answers for.  The man that attacked her had caught her by surprise, that was the first time something like that had happened to her.  She was rattled at the time, but that was then and this was now.  She had been through worse.  She was a big girl.  She didn't think about such things now.  She was on a date.  Like a normal girl.  A normal, simple, average girl.  She supposed she should have felt a little guilty for having this human fantasy.  Just wanting to pretend for one night that she wasn't a mutant. 

No matter how this night ended up she'd be dreaming at some point.  The ruiner of even the best of good days.  Kendra was still looking at the menu when she answered his second question.  "I read, I'm a photography nerd, and on the riskier side of thangs.  I'm an urban explorer.  Exploring abandoned and haunted buildings.  You dream every night you find yourself with a lot of time to walk around and explore."  Kendra smiled when the waited came back.

"What will you be having tonight miss?

Kendra smiled bigger.  It was kind of unexplainable why tonight was so special.  She had gone places and not been recognized as a mutant before, but being out on this date and doing it, made her feel like just a normal human.  She was relishing the feeling.  "Yes, I'll have the Cesar salad." Kendra said handing him the menu.  She wasn't terribly hungry.  She was to nervous, but she did like salad.  The waiter took her menu and turned to Max.

"And for you sir?" 

Kendra looked out the window and watched the city zooming by.  The traffic, the noise.  New York was a interesting place.  Nothing like home.  Not, that she missed home. She got out of there and she was never going back to that hell hole, but it was still going to take some getting used to New York.  It was truly a unique city.  Kendra turned back to Max.....

Kendra was woefully underdressed she felt when she finally showed up and saw the outside of the restaurant. She saw Max. Purple tie on black?  He looks handsome.  Kendra walked up feeling like a fish out of water.  She was thinking more about what was going to happen over the course of the evening she wasn't exactly thinking about what happened last time.  She didn't know that Max was going to question her about it or that he even saw.  Kendra smiled and greeted him warmly.  "Hey, glad you called." 

She said trying to hide her nervous bravado.  This wasn't her element, this wasn't her comfort zone.  She was way outside of that and she was trying to push herself to be more outgoing.  Ever since she got to the mansion she could feel herself coming more and more out of her shell.  Her comfort zone was getting a little bigger and a little bigger.  Here she was on a proper date. 

She had a few questions herself and she'd ask them over the course of dinner.  "Should we go in?"  She asked. Kendra's hair was brought up in a bun, with a curly lock of hair that hung down over one eye.  Her eyes seemed especially vibrant and bright.  Her pouty lips a light shade of pink? Yes, she actually bothered with make up as well.  That just went to show how big of a deal this was to her.  She had on a sky blue button up blouse and a pair of tight jeans.  She defiantly need to go shopping.

The inside of the restaurant was warm and lively.  It was actually pretty fancy.  She didn't realize at first just how pricey this place looked.  Kendra raised an eyebrow at Max.  This was lavish and expensive looking.  She felt more underdressed than ever.  "Um..Nice place."  She barbed.  She wasn't one for flashy cars or money or things.  That stuff wouldn't impress her.  She had to admit though.  He seemed to be trying to impress her just a little bit. 

"Kendra"  Said quietly.  She was nervously tugging at the hem of her shirt.  Kendra started to take a step further but stopped when she noticed the picture had fallen on the floor.  She stopped and picked it up and placed it back on the shelf where she had found it.

Kendra watched as Ghost looked at the photo and simply shrugged it off as if she couldn't even see it. Kendra was starting to grasp that Ghost couldn't see very well and she felt kind of dumb for not really noticing until now.

So moving on. Kendra thought in her head. How many times are you going to embarrass yourself today? Kendra smiled and placed her hand on the wall.  She allowed the tips of her fingers to graze over the wainscoting as she walked.  In a few days she'd be able to do this tour herself to the new students arriving at the mansion.  She would walk these halls a thousand times in a week. 

"So you don't see very well do ya?"  Kendra said rather awkwardly.  She didn't always take the most tactful, polite approach.  She wasn't trying to be rude or abrasive she just accidentally blurted it out. 

Kendra walked and talked with Ghost about the past and even the future.  Not much about her own future.  She just listened mostly.  She wasn't sure what her own future held for her.  Her ears perked when Ghost brought up training.  She would love the chance to train her ability.  Learn more about it, She imaged if Ghost could do something as impressive as materialize like she did at the gate and that took practice, patience, understanding of her powers.  Kendra didn't know how to use her owns she had never  sat down and tried to train it.  She didn't even know where to begin, but she was down to train if that's what it took to join the team.

Kendra didn't mind the danger.  The X-Men missions were dangerous.  She figured that much, but how much danger could someone be in if they were invisible?  Kendra tapped her fingers along the wall as she moved along.  "I'm eager to learn."