I do not know much about dating, and I guess Adam doesn’t either. At the bar we order our drinks separately. When we leave we walk at each other’s side but do not make much contact beyond that. When finally we are outside in the cool crisp air, neither of us asks if the other is cold or would you like to hold hands or should we kiss?

    "Let’s watch a movie,” says Adam, which is the date-est thing he has said all day.

    I nod at him. “Good idea.”

    We walk in silence to the theater, which is a big gray square just a few blocks from the bar. We settle on the first movie they offer — a rerun of some superhero adventure — and pay for our tickets separately. In the room, Adam and I pick seats next to each other in a middle row. There is only one other person with us, an old lady sleeping with a bucket of popcorn in the front row.

    The movie is nothing special, and I am pretty sure I have seen it before. Adam does not say anything during the movie, does not attempt to put his arm on my shoulders or lean in to whisper something during a romantic scene. We simply sit there until the movie runs itself out and then we get up and leave, and at the exit we finally look at each other but all he says is, “That was a good movie,” and I nod.

    By the time we shuffle to the theater doors again, it is warmer outside, stickier, and the passers-by are all wearing less clothes.

    ”Should I get an Uber?” asks Adam, and I tell him I don't really care. We end up taking a bus and sitting across from each other with our hands twiddling on our laps. A few stops go by when suddenly another couple boards the bus, a young woman with beautiful sunset-red hair and a young man with brown stubble and  scrawny arms. The old man beside me gets off at this stop and the woman sits down next to me, and the mother with a child on her lap empties the seat beside Adam to get off the bus too, and the stubble guy sits next to Adam. He twiddles his fingers just the same, as does the woman next to me.

    ”I do not know much about dating,” she says to me. “I’m on a date with this guy and I don’t think he knows much more than me, either.”

    I smile at the girl, who is real pretty — she’s got ginger freckles all across her nose and grayish-green eyes — and admit that I am in the same situation. When I point at Adam, we see he and the man are making steady conversation too. The redhead girl smiles at me too, then cracks into some embarrassed laughter.

    ”You know, this is the most my Steve has talked all night,” she says.

    ”Yeah, my Adam too,” I say.

    At their names, the young men look up at us, and both of them are smiling. When we get to the last stop, and the bus driver tells us to get off, the redhead girl and I leave the bus hand-in-hand, and the boys get off the bus arm-in-arm, and on the sidewalk Ginger and I share a kiss, and Stubble and Adam share a kiss, and we bid the other goodbye with traces of them still on our lips.