Sera turns to Jack whose face appears genuinely shocked. Whatever is going on with him, I don't think he was expecting this. Sera's instincts start to kick in; she sneaks past his rigid body heading back into the store. This isn't right, she thinks shaking her head.

"Sera?" She turns around to respond when the fire alarm blares to life in a deafening roar. The sprinklers extend almost automatically before raining water on the two of them. Sera glances down, almost unbelieving as the water soaks through her shirt and pretty much everything else around. Their eyes meet again; Jack's eyes are as wide as his mouth. He's frozen in the same stance as when the sprinklers started. If Sera didn't know any better, she would say he looks just as stupefied as she must.

Pure unrelenting laughter bursts from Sera. What are the odds? Jack's shoulders visibly relax at Sera's reaction before also cracking a smile. He then walks beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder blades this time, guiding her toward the door.

"I'm sorry our first date was such a mess." His ringlets drip, but his eyes hold a sincerity she finds endearing.

"Well, when Amanda asks, I'll tell her that it was so hot the fire alarm went off." That gets a laugh as he holds the door open for her, his cologne filling her senses. The sirens from the approaching fire engines become increasingly louder. Jack escorts her all the way to her car out front when suddenly his demeanor changes.

"I'm sorry this had to happen tonight, I hope you'll give me a second chance."

"It's not a big deal, Jack, my clothes will dry. I'm worried about your store." Water has begun to pour out from under the front door and snake down the path toward the parking lot.

"Don't worry about it; it's just a glitch somewhere." He rubs his arm again, which Sera is beginning to realize that the gesture shows he's lying. "You should go home and dry off before the firemen get here and this date gets really embarrassing."

"So this was a date?"

"I was hoping it would be..." His eyes gaze down at his feet. "But, maybe we shouldn't count this as a date."

"Maybe." Her fingers swiftly slip into her pocket and deftly pull out the car keys behind her back. Jack's eyes study her face, trying to read her, but she spent a year schooling her features so that no one can.

"Well, this was... eventful." Her eyes glance down allowing the keys to jingle from her hands. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I hope so." His expression tries to hide disappointment before he closes the gap between them.

Sera grows increasingly nervous. The end of the date, the uneasiness of how to say goodbye flushes her cheeks. She can feel his breath on her face, feel his heart beat through his shirt; it has been a while since she's been this close to a man. "Definitely." Her arms quickly wrap around him in a hug, and she tilts her face to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek. "Goodnight, Jack."

He watches her slip inside the car before closing the door behind her. Only when she straps her seat belt on and shoots him a shy wave, does he finally step back onto the curb.

Sera pulls away from the shop before glancing back in the rear view mirror just as the fire trucks begin to pull up. Jack's eyes are still staring after her sedan. Should she have kissed him? Jack is gorgeous, sweet, and owns his own business. So why does she still have goose bumps on her arm and the feeling that something is off? Her mind reels the entire drive home.

By the time she pulls the car across from her house, she's still no closer to answers. The weird feeling in the pit of her stomach has passed, and she finds herself wondering if she imagined it all. It could have been nerves, only it wasn't like any butterflies she's ever experienced before. That combined with the goose bumps and her hair standing on end make her wonder what Jack could be hiding. With a shake of her head, she exits the car, not able to bear thinking about it any longer. Her feet take her up the walk of the blue farmhouse she shares with her parents. When she returned home from college, she didn't have the funds to move out and now, quite a few years later, she finds she doesn't have the heart to. Her parents are the best 'roommates'. Her father is hardly ever home, working long hours in the city while her mother spends most of her time grading papers from all of her high school students.

She opens the door quietly, but there is no need. Her mother is still awake. She's curled up in the living room reading her latest adventure novel wrapped on the comfy (and dare she call ugly) recliner her father just had to have. Her curly auburn hair is up in a bun with a few stray strands spiraling free as her eyes intently scan the new Kindle she received for her birthday only a few weeks ago. It's safe to say she has become a little obsessed with it. Can't say Sera can blame her. She herself escapes to a different world every time she's asleep and has become a little infatuated with it as well. Bianca Cross looks up from her retro reading glasses when she hears the front door close.

"There you are. Where were you all evening?" It seems like no matter how old Sera gets, her mother will always be protective of her. A smile plays on Sera's lips when she enters the living room.

"I kind of had a date after work," she says, sitting on the edge of the couch across from her.

"Oh?" Her mother's head picks up; Sera has her full attention now. "And how did that go?" Her glasses slip low and she eyes Sera's wet clothes. Ever since Sera turned twenty-four, her old fashioned parents have begun hounding her to settle down and get married. They didn't hide their disappointment when she broke up with her high school sweetheart a year earlier. To be honest, to this day, he still comes up conveniently in conversation with her parents. She knows they mean well, they just feel she should be getting on with her life by now. Looking into her mother's dark almond-shaped eyes, Sera can't bear to admit she doesn't think there will be a second date. So instead, she switches to her go-to response—sarcasm.

"Oh, you know," waving her hand and scooting off the arm of the couch, "The kitchen exploded, the sprinklers went off, the cops came, the usual." Sera's footsteps slosh their way toward the stairs.

"Well, as long as you had fun," she says, shaking her head at Sera's antics before returning to her book. Sera notices she is leaving a trail of water in her wake when she climbs the stairs and slips into her room. Peeling off the wet clothes, she tosses them in the corner before throwing on an oversized tee shirt and collapsing into bed. After the day she's had, she's completely ready to escape to her alternate universe. Closing her eyes, she hopes that sleep will come quickly.