#12

“Where did you get the driver immediately from ?”
“it's an Uber”
Jeffrey stared at me through the glass mirror in front of the car, shaking his head at my dishonesty. so he coughed loudly, then I squeezed his face. Then I signaled to him not to give me up. I knew after the date I would have to explain to him why I lied.

i have never seen an uber that looks expensive like this” she was starting to notice.
well it's an exclusive package for couples' ‘i instantly saved myself. I didn't want her to know yet that i was a billionaires son and my family had stupid money.

As Jeffery starts the car. Emma noticed the music that was playing, then she said the driver.
“Mister man, I see you listen to classical music.”
“Yes my dear. these are the songs of my generation not this rap -pop thing you all listen to” he said.
“I love earth wind and fire”
“Yeah, I love them too. baby girl” Jeffery turns up the volume of the music.
I then coughed loudly to get their attention.
“I listen to them whenever I want to work on a project,” she said.

“Emma I never knew you liked 80s music, you're such a grandma”
Jeffrey immediately looked back.
“stop that young man that's no way to talk to a lady. In our days we respected ladies and we were filled with so much romance. it's not like your generation, everything is so fast and digital. y'all want it fast. that's why y'all always talk about sex every time. no time for getting to know the person. such a microwave generation. instant rewards”.
In my mind, I was kind of irritated at Jeffrey because he was turning my date into a lecture. “Can we get going, sir? Time is running out”
Emma looked at me and said to me
“there's no need to be in a hurry we'll get there in time”
“Well we have reservations down and I don’t want our table to be taken”
I was losing my cool. I was getting anxious about everything.
“Chill out. James, there is no need to worry we will get there on time”
I was worried about leaving the restaurant because the tables were all filled up. we got outside the college walls. The restaurant was supposed to be about five blocks away.
“to Chester Street” I screamed in excitement. I was so eager and anxious because today is going to be one of my best days ever
on our way to Chester Street. We were held up by traffic.
“You can see what I said. if we had waited any minute longer we might not even get a table at all. i hope even with this traffic we get there early enough”
Apparently a road was getting fixed and this resulted in traffic that extended to the road we took.
Jeffrey could see how upset I was. so he decided to lighten up my already dampened mood by playing some of this classical 80s music.
We had to wait for about 30 minutes before we got to Chester Street. Jeffrey almost fought some driver in front of us because he was blocking our way. The restaurant I planned to take Emma to was an expensive lobster restaurant downtown. It was easy to recognise with the neon lights shown above it with text greeting us at the entrance saying Louis lobsters with the figure of a lobster shaped with the neon lights.

When we got there. Emma said in excitement “is this where we are going ?.
“It's a surprise”
she smiled and said “you have some tricks up your sleeve. so you want to impress me. this place is expensive… I see What you want to do James. OK. challenge accepted then. i must impress you too”
“you are enough to impress baby… your beauty knocks me out to heaven”
she laughed and said, “ It's ok, I got the message. So you don't want me to do anything to impress you? “
“no” I replied with a smirk on my face. “ That's not what I am saying. all I am saying is I am impressed”
When we got into Louie's lobster she was shocked by the decor. it was obvious it was an expensive restaurant. She looked at me perplexed and dumbfounded because she said “I've never been to such expensive restaurants before. Where do you get the money to pay for this? this must have cost you a fortune. Hope you didn't sell a kidney for this?”
“don't worry I Could sell my kidney to see a smile on your face”
she started blushing and shook her head with her face going all red.
“ I took out my savings. This kind of event is special. I'm happy to break your savings for this”
we walked up to the reception
“We have a reservation for two sirs”
the reception at the entrance responded and said
“ok, let me check. in what name did you put it down for?”
“ James hoodwink “ ok, I see a James timothy hoodwink”
“yes that's me”
“ok, you have the table in the center there with the number fifteen” he pointed at the table for us to locate it.
“happy to see you here again sir. have a lovely evening sir” trying to signal to him with my eye to not rat me out. I didn't want Emma to know I was the son of the billionaire tycoon. i was worried she might behave differently around me. “thank you,” I said and tipped him a few dollars. he squeezed it and put it in his pocket
She held my hand tightly as we walked to our reserved table.
“hello sir what would you be having this evening?” A waitress came beside me to take our orders “Oh. I didn't know it was you Mr hoodwink. happy to see you again”
I wrote on a tissue paper and placed it in the middle of the menu and showed it to him
I coughed and said “ this one looks nice, what's in it?” pointing at the tissue paper as I raised the menu for him to see what I wrote on it. it read “I don't want her to know who I am. Just treat me like a normal person that you don't know”
ok, sir, that's a simple one. lobster with shrimps and curry.
This is one of the restaurants that my father had major shares in. There was a picture of my father shaking the manager on the wall. I doubt Emma would ever guess I was related to a billionaire. I wanted her to be real around me. I wanted to know if Emma was interested in getting to know me. I thought I would be able to keep my little secret for a long time.

On our table covered with some white silky cloth and a champagne bottle on top of it. the waitress asked Emma what she wanted.
“ I will have the lobster Marley curry please”
“ OK ma noted and what would you be having sir”
I would have The creamy lobster. May I pour your wine? Let me get you napkins
Emma stands up, puts her hand into my collar, and pushes my napkin into my shirt.