Shelly chuckled nervously. This was it. This was The Moment. Elon chuckled as well. He licked his dry lips. He tried to clear his throat without making a sound, but it made Shelly turn her head. It made her smile, and it made him look away. Elon gulped, and took a deep breath. Shelly’s eyes were wide. They were beautiful. All he wanted was to share this moment with her. To take this girl. To make her a woman.

He brushed the crumbs from the front of his shirt. But would she like it? Would it live up to expectations? She was so neat, and so tidy. Both of them had shared a big bag of crisps, but whereas he was covered in detritus, fragments of spicy cheddar and onion clinging to his best shirt, she was neat and tidy. There had been crumbs. He had watched the crumbs as she ate, watched them tumbling from that oh so perfect mouth, snuck side glances as they bounced against the taut curve of her sweater.

He gulped again. Focus, focus. Now or never.

Elon reached out. He made his move.

It took a while, but in the end, Shelly was finally satisfied.

She went online, Milly of course waiting, agog at the radio silence. Five hours since the date started, could mean only one thing of course, heh, heh heh. How many times did you guys? More important, how many times did he make you…?

Shelly giggled at the stream of wide-eyed mouth open emoji that came back when she answered six. She giggled again when Milly said, blimey, the batteries on the Blackbird 5000 still haven’t worn out????

They spent a while trying to dissect the ashes of her date with Elon. She had stayed till the bitter end, sat through the entire fucking credits, and even then nope, all he wanted to do was make sure that she had picked up that the character of Johnny Fontane was a cipher for Frank Sinatra and his close relationship with the real mafia. Then he’d gone online to show her the bit of Modern Family where they spoofed the vengeance scene at the christening.

I just wanted him to jump me, Shelly said. Was that too much to ask?

A mere five minutes Uber away, Elon sat, forlorn with disappointment. What had he done wrong? Why didn’t she get it? He had been sure to pause the film plenty of times to point out the important bits. He had carefully explained the symbolism behind the horse’s head, pointed out that it wasn’t a real horse’s head, it was only a model. The Godfather was the greatest film ever made. It needed to be savoured. It needed a detailed in person commentary from someone who had seen it forty-seven times, that’s what it needed.

Elon sighed, and reached for a discarded sock.