Nine minutes.

If he wasn't here in nine more minutes, today would be the day Annabelle burned down a restaurant.

In fact, the restaurant was pretty damned lucky that it was nine minutes. She could have made it five minutes. Or two minutes. Or, you know, half a bloody hour ago, when her date was supposed to arrive.

She was feeling merciful, though. Mostly because the restaurant itself looked like it had been snatched up from an Italian olive grove, where the tables were just sleek chunks of wood that had been carved into disfigured circles and the fairy lights along the tree boughs caressed the diners in gold. Even the waiters rolled their tongues with their thick accents and, yes, she would admit it, a lot of them were pretty cute.

Seven minutes.

One of the waiters, a man with bottle glass green eyes and a hesitant smile, came by her table.

"Are you alright?" he asked softly. "I noticed you've been waiting a while."

Annabelle tried not to wince at the pity in his voice. "My date is on his way. There's just... a lot of traffic."

"Would you like anything to eat, at least? Or drink?"

She opened her mouth to say no, but her stomach beat her to the punch with a low whine. When the waiter ducked his head to hide his smile, Annabelle felt the last remaining shred of her dignity disintegrate.

"I could eat a whole cow and then drink its blood, if I'm honest," she told him. "But, really, I should wait for my date. I'll be okay."

"So, cancel the order for cow blood?"

"Yes. Wait. You actually have cow blood?"

The waiter said nothing. He just gave her one of those infuriating winks that waiters always seemed to give her when they topped up her drink, added it to the bill, and got away with it because she was too tipsy to properly understand the receipt.

Five minutes.

For the sixteenth time that night, Annabelle checked her phone. It was almost eight, and not only was he nowhere to be seen, but there was not a single notification from him on Tinder. Not a single heads up that he was running late, nor a single response to any of her messages.

Should she send him another one?

Surely not. She had already sent him six of them. One to tell him that she had arrived, and a second to say that she had chosen a table outside, so they could see the softly-spun clouds drape over the moon. The next three had come fifteen minutes later, to ask where he was, whether she should order some food, and to tell him that she hoped he was alright.

Her last message, sent only five minutes ago, had been a desperate emoji of the passive aggressive smile. That would show him exactly who he was messing with.

Four minutes.

Annabelle could feel more and more eyes on her by the second. It was bad enough that she had come straight from work with no time to glance over at her smudged makeup or tangled nest of hair -- but also forgetting her nice dress at home, and coming to this beautiful and posh restaurant in her blue blouse and black overalls?

It was humiliating.

Especially since the overalls had STRIKE OUT printed across her boobs.

Seriously. Whoever designed the uniforms for her local bowling club needed to be burnt down with the restaurant.

Three minutes.

On the bright side, at least her date was hot. She had nearly choked last week, when she had seen that they had been matched. Then, after zooming in and out of all six pictures he had available on his profile, she had screamed. Literally -- a sharp, thin squeal that had made the old woman next door think that her hearing aids had broken.

Shimmering blue eyes. Perfect, messy ringlets of brown hair. And, goodness, was it weird that she thought his forearms were hot? In one of his pictures, his shirt had been rolled up to his elbows, and there was something about those tanned, slim arms that had her weak in the knees.

Those gorgeous forearms would be worth the long wait. She was sure of it.

Not to mention his name. Al Moitzi. It just had a perfect ring to it.

Two minutes.

Besides, even if he was late, at least the scenery was nice. There were thorny roses crawling up along the fences, as well as marble statues of cherubs by each table. Her cherub seemed particularly special -- it was by a rippling water fountain, aiming its little arrow at her face.

In all honestly, she didn't appreciate the judgemental stare. It was hard enough being surrounded by the clutter of tinkling cutlery and flirty debates from all the couples across the neighbouring tables. The last thing she needed was this chubby marble baby aiming its arrow between her eyes.

One minute.

If he wasn't here in one more minute--

"Your drink is served."

Annabelle glanced up sharply. The waiter was there, a tray in his hand, his cheeks a faint pink from the drink he was lowering onto her table.

"Oh," Annabelle quickly said, "I didn't order--"

Then, she saw the drink.

Bright, bubbling crimson. Thin and deep, with even the ice cubes stained red along the surface.

"Cow blood," the waiter told her. "Just like you asked."

Annabelle tried not to gape. "I didn't ask for... You guys serve cow blood?"

"Yes. Would you like a slice of lemon in it?"

"Why would I want a slice of lemon in it? For flavour?"

"...Yes?"

She felt herself pale. The waiter laughed aloud -- a gentle, distant sound.

"I'm just joking," he told her. "It's just a Bloody Mary. The cocktail."

"Not cow blood?"

"Nope."

"Not even human blood?"

"Only if you take your hands off the knife, ma'am."

Annabelle lowered her gaze. Her hand had curled around the steak knife handle, and she hadn't even realised it. Go figure.

"It's not alcoholic," the waiter continued. "I didn't know if you drank or not. I asked them to just make a mocktail, so you don't need to worry about that. If you are, you know, worried. But if you do want it alcoholic, I can ask--"

"Don't worry," Annabelle cut in. "I didn't want to drink. But, really, you didn't have to do this."

He gave her a look that was almost sympathetic. "You've been waiting a long time. I think you definitely needed a drink."

She couldn't argue with that. Especially since the nine minutes had ended.

"Besides," he added, "I won't make you pay for it. It's on the house."

Then, with another one of those irritating winks, he was gone. Annabelle reached for the drink, stirring the straw, and sighed.

Perhaps the waiter had known, all along, that she was considering burning down the restaurant. Perhaps this Bloody Mary was just here to placate her.

And, well, nine minutes be damned, it was a pretty good Bloody Mary. The restaurant could live for nine more minutes.

Once those nine minutes or five-hundred-and-something seconds was over, though, that was it. She was going to grab the flickering candle in front of her, toss her phone and all its pathetic dating apps into it, and watch it all burn and crackle and--

"Annabelle, right?"

She didn't recognise the man as he pulled out the chair for himself, letting it squeal and grate along the concrete. She didn't recognise his receding hairline, or the stringy grey streaks that peppered his moustache. She didn't recognise his strange and puckered lips, or the monobrow.

"Yes?" she finally said. "That's me? Who are you?"

He froze. "Oh. I'm your date."

"My date?"

"Yeah."

"Al Moitzi?"

"That's me, darling."

He leaned forwards, plopping his elbows onto the table. Annabelle took a long look at those forearms.

Those were definitely not the forearms she had seen in the Tinder photos.

"Didn't mean to be late, by the way," he said. "Slept in."

Annabelle was too busy staring to even demand an apology.

His hair didn't fall in gentle ringlets like it did in the photos -- it was all slick with oil and sweat. And he was just so much smaller than in the photos, and the face was just all different, and those lips looked like they had been completely glossed up with layers of grease, and there were hairs sticking out of his nose, and, and, and--

"You don't look like your photos," Annabelle said. "At all."

He didn't even bat an eye. "Those were from when I was younger."

"So you shrunk as you grew older?"

"What?"

"Show me your shoes."

"What?"

Annabelle leaned back in her chair. "Show me your shoes."

"Are you crazy?"

"Show me."

She was very aware that people from the tables beside her were now glancing over at them, whispering and frowning. Even the waiter that had served her earlier was hovering close by, the menus limp in his hands.

Her date -- she refused to call him Al -- also seemed to realise this. As he tugged off his torn sneakers, he gave the neighbouring table a coarse laugh.

"First date in, and she already wants to know my shoe size, hey?"

Annabelle ignored him. She ignored the hideous stench wafting from the sneakers as he placed it in her hands. Then, she fished her phone from her lap.

As she scrolled through his Tinder photos, right there, she tried not to gag.

The man in the photos was taller. He was younger. His smile was relaxed and light, and there was no monobrow there.

And, of course, the forearms. They were hot.

Meanwhile, the man in front of her looked old enough to be her freaking uncle.

Still, she just swiped through the photos until she found it. The second last photo, where 'Al' was sitting across a set of stairs.

"Over here," she said, turning the phone over so he could see. "In this photo, the shoe doesn't even fit on the step. It goes over the edge. However, based on the fact that he can sit his whole ass on the step right above it, the step must be pretty wide. That means that his shoe size must be at least size twelve. Maybe even thirteen."

He furrowed his single, thick monobrow. "They were small steps. You don't know what you're talking about."

"I work in a bowling alley," Annabelle fired back. "Trust me, I know about shoe sizes."

"Whatever you say."

"And," she added, raising the tattered sneaker in her hand, "I'm pretty sure this one that you are wearing is a size eight."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

Annabelle snorted. Then, she raised the flap of the shoe, ignoring the way the laces left brown stains along her fingers.

There, pasted along the shoe, was the size label.

Size 8.

"So?" He snatched the shoe back, gritting his teeth. "I was wearing big shoes on that day."

"And you grew a monobrow?"

"Excuse me?"

"And you got your hair permanently straightened or something?"

"Gel. It's gel."

"Also, what, did you also get an overbite when your feet shrunk?"

The man raised his hands in surrender. "Look. I'm still the Al you talked to. Didn't you enjoy our talks at night?"

In all honesty, she had not. Talking to him had felt so exhausting -- he didn't like the same movies as her, his messages always seemed to be one-word responses, and he would usually reply with haha lol.

Like, seriously? Who used both haha and lol in the same message?

But she had hoped that he would only be dry in his text messages. Desperately and stupidly, she had hoped that he would be one of those people who would speak for hours and hours when they were together, in person.

"Waiter," he was calling out, tilting his chair backwards like a damned child. "Are you going to take our order or what?"

The waiter came over. He even gave Annabelle a questioning, worried look.

But Annabelle just opened Tinder again. Looked at the photos. At the man in front of her. At the photos again.

Then, it all came sinking in.

She had been catfished.