20 Dinner with Ben

The next day Meredith had a date with Ben the guard from work. Even though she was deep in thought and distracted all day due to her conversation with Brayden Maxwell she had already rescheduled once and felt it would be rude to cancel with him again so she did her house work early and dusted her tiny apartment. She mopped and dried the wooden floors and scrubbed her clawfoot tub. She took her laundry to the basement and did a quick single load before heading back up to polish her floors with wood polish. She loved the orange sent and the way the floors shined.

When she was finally finished with her house work she checked the time. She still had an hour and a half before she had to leave. She sighed. All this cleaning had kept her mind busy and now that she was still thoughts of the previous night came flooding into her mind. She looked at Dino for a moment.

"Would you like to move to Streeterville into a weird billionaires house for six years?" Dino didn't respond. He rarely did. He just gave her a look then jumped on the freshly washed and fluffed throw blanket that was folded and draped over her loveseat.

Meredith sighed one more time and then headed to the shower. She thought about Brayden and marriage and what would happen if she said no as she washed her hair. She thought about what her parents would say if she said yes as she blowed her hair dry.

Meredith took a deep breath and shook her head then got dressed in her favorite jeans and a cute flowy pink short sleeve blouse. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and put on some mascara and eyeliner and thought she looked cute enough. Ben saw her at work everyday but still it was a date and she wanted to at least try to look nice.

Ben had texted Meredith earlier about the time and place to meet. So she grabbed her bag and made sure everything was in it that was important before saying goodbye to Dino and heading out.

Ben and Meredith were going to meet for dinner and talk over wine. He said he was looking forward to getting to know her outside of work. Honestly, Meredith didn't think she was anything special inside or outside of work and felt the same regardless where she was. But she was somewhat excited to try out this new restaurant she hadn't even heard of, The Purple Pig.

According to what pulled up on her map app when she typed it in, she walked past it frequently. She often went to the movies nearby and it was right across from her favorite candy store. If it turned out to be a good place to eat she would have to add it as one of her regulars since she was often in the neighborhood.

Meredith took the L downtown. The ride seemed longer than usual because a certain topic kept popping into her head that she really was not interested in revisiting. Try as she might, she just couldn't stop thinking about her meeting the night before. What would Taylor say about it? Meredith thought about all the people in her life and how they would reactif she was suddenly married to her boss. And not just any boss, but the owner's son, a billionaire. Meredith sighed and pulled out her phone. She knew what Taylor would say. She didn't need to keep thinking about this all day long. She opened her Fuzzy Jump app and began to play. She hoped it would distract her enough to make it to her location.

Meredith finally met Ben outside the Purple Pig. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a button up black short sleeve shirt. He looked different out of his guards uniform but he still turned red when he saw her and smiled like he usually did at work. She was glad for the distraction from the previous day's events. Even though they kept surfacing in her mind, she tried to push them down and vowed to enjoy herself.

"Hi. I guess I forgot to ask if you eat pork?" He said as a way of apologizing for taking her to an all pork restaurant. Although the name sort of gave the theme away so she didn't think he needed to apologize.

"Who doesn't love bacon." Meredith smiled a half smile. Brayden was still popping up in the back of her mind keeping her from having a good time but she would try regardless. She kept telling herself every time she thought of it that she was with Ben and she was having fun.

"Awesome! This is one of my favorite places." He told her and led her inside. They had a bit of a wait and talked about work mostly in an awkward I don't know how to start a conversation outside of work way. He asked her about her project and how it had gone. She told him about the meeting and what Edward's assistant had said and then they were called for their table.

They sat at a tall table near the center of the restaurant. It was shared by another group who smiled politely as Meredith and Ben sat down then went back to whatever they had been talking about. "They have an awesome wine list." Ben explained to Meredith as they were handed menus.

"Would you like a wine menu?" Asked the host.

"Yes, please." Ben told her and she was off and to grab them a menu.

"I don't know a lot about wine but I'll drink whatever you recommend." Meredith told Ben and then looked around. The place was dimly lit and not very large. There was a bar in the corner of the room that took up about a fifth of the space and the rest of the area was speckled with tall wooden tables and chairs. She looked at the menu that had been handed to her and noticed that Ben was right. The menu was heavy on pork related items. She ordered chorizo stuffed olives and braised shoulder. Ben got a bacon pate dish and pork belly. He ordered them both pinot noirs and they sat back.

"It's so weird seeing you without your uniform on." Meredith told Ben with a chuckle after a couple of sips of her wine. Thinking of him at work had her remember her dinner the night before and she proceeded to drink the rest of her glass in an attempt to push the thoughts to the back of her mind again. She wasn't sure if it would work but at least it would relax her a bit more.. Ben gave her an odd look and she smiled. "This was a really good selection."

"Oh. Thank you. I like darker wines. Also it goes really well with the bacon pate."

"I've never had bacon pate. I've never had any pate actually." Meredith thought about her dinner last night and whether there was any pate present. Her glass was refilled and the appetizers arrived.

"Would you like to try some?" Ben offered her some of his bacon pate and fed it to her across the table. She blushed and took a bite then sighed around it.

"Mmm. That's delicious." It wasn't just delicious it was creamy melt in your mouth bacon bliss.

"Now take a sip of your wine." He suggested. She took a small sip and her eyes widened as the dry wine mixed with the flavors of the pate on her tongue and brought out the taste of mushroom and berries in the wine.

"Wow!" She said after swallowing impressed with the pairing. Then she recalled how well the wine had tasted the night before following the creme brulee and she finished her glass thinking about the contract that was discussed. "Would you like to try an olive? These are amazing!" He opened his mouth and she passed an olive into it. Her fingers brushed his lips and he blushed as he chewed the olive.

"Thank you. That is really good. I actually have never tried those. I've been on a bacon pate kick for a while." He told her as he munched the fried stuffed olive.

"Do you come here a lot?"

"Yes most Fridays after work I stop in and eat at the bar. It's a nice treat after a long week, ya know."

"I'll bet." She said and popped another olive into her mouth.

"How did your big project go?" He asked as her glass was filled again.

"It went well actually. I was really busy with a potentially new project offer yesterday so I didn't get to really celebrate with the others but our design was chosen as one of the two to be taken to the client meeting."

"Oh that's great. Makes all the hard work worth it to get chosen like that."

"Yeah if the client likes our ad campaign it will mean an increase in our departments budget. As head of the design concept I would receive a raise."

"That's exciting. What's the new project?" He asked as their main dishes arrived.

"I had to sign a NDA so I can't really talk much about it but it would be just two of us working on it. I would be working directly under Mr. Maxwell." She chugged her glass of wine again and nodded at the server for a refill.

"Must be nerve wrecking." He said assuming her wine consumption was due to her work load and the pressure it brought. He didn't know that she was thinking about either losing her job and the possibility of ever getting a good job again and marrying someone she didn't know for six years.

"If you had to choose to relocate for a six year contract would you?" She asked him suddenly.

"I'm not sure. Six years is a long time." He took a bite of his pork belly and thought about it. "I guess it would depend. If it was worth it in the long run. If I could make enough to open up my business and do that fulltime then yeah, maybe."

"You want to open a business?" She was nearly done with her braised shoulder and on her sixth cup of wine. To say she was tipsy was an understatement.

"Oh yeah. I would love to open a manga shop. I'm really into manga and japanese culture. It's been a dream of mine for a long time. I went to New York when I was in college and walked into a random little manga shop and fell in love with it. Ever since then I have been dreaming of having my own shop."

"Wow, that's really cool." Her eyes were glossy and she leaned her elbows on the table as she listened with her chin in her hands.

"You don't normally drink wine do you?" He asked looking at her with a slight tilt.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I had a crazy two weeks and then found out I have this other project that will take more time than I really want to invest. I just wasn't paying attention I guess. I should probably go home."

"I'll get us an uber." He pulled out his phone and waived at the server to bring their checks. Meredith didn't even want to look at her bill. But if she married Brayden Maxwell she could save all her money for six years and not have to worry about it. She really didn't want to keep thinking about it but it was like a nasty splinter stuck in the back of her mind and she just couldn't seem to pull it out.

Ben dropped Meredith off at her apartment and thanked her for a nice time. She apologized and slurred as she opened the door and then gave him a sloshy hug before saying goodnight and he took the uber home. Meredith passed out on her bed fully dressed.