Violet made it to the smoothie place at 6:22 PM and Jeremy was already waiting for her. He had taken off his suit coat and tie but he was still overdressed for a smoothie joint. Most of the people in here were wearing sweatshirts.

He smiled up at her. "Nice to see you again, Violet."

"You too."

They got in line and he ordered a standard strawberry banana smoothie with sorbet added. She wasn't allowed to drink anything like that.

Her smoothie consisted of blueberries, strawberries, mango, chia seeds, and spinach. No juice because of all the added sugars. She always had to specifically request they make her smoothies with water. It didn't affect the flavor much.

With their smoothies in hand, they settled down at a table on raised stools. Violet sipped her smoothie happily. It had been quite a while since she had gotten one of these.

The last time she came here was over the summer with Noah. They ended up splitting a large because he wanted to try what he called her ballerina food. He said it wasn't bad but he preferred the smoothies with sorbet in them.

As expected. Most people didn't like clean eating. Violet wasn't the biggest fan herself but she had gotten used to it.

When she eventually retired she had already promised herself to try a whole bunch of restaurants her dietician wanted her to steer clear of. That wouldn't be for a while yet though. She was only twenty-five.

"Tell me about yourself," Jeremy said after finishing a long sip of his smoothie.

That was so unspecific! With a direction like that Violet didn't even know where to start. Why couldn't people simply ask what they wanted to know? She would happily answer.

She had always loathed small talk like this but it was a necessary evil. Not everyone knew everything about her from being around her entire life like Noah. He was the easiest person to talk to out of everyone she knew.

"Let's see…I'm twenty-five. I'm a ballerina, but you already know that. You also already know about my family. So I guess all that's left is that I love to read."

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. "That's really all there is to you? I don't buy that. I suspect you're actually a very interesting person."

Did he? Violet wondered how exactly he had come to that conclusion after only meeting her twice. She didn't think she was all that interesting. Kaleb had accused her of being boring more than once over the years.

"Oh really?"

He nodded. "I could tell from the moment we met. So…what sort of things do you do outside of work?"

Not much, honestly. She hung out with her parents or Nathan when their schedules matched up. Mostly she spent time with Noah.

What sort of things did they even do? Usually they went out to eat or played board games or talked. Definitely boring by other people's standards but it was what she liked.

"I'm usually hanging out with my family or my best friend, to be perfectly honest. I spend a fair amount of time with my cats as well," Violet said with a shrug.

She took another sip of her smoothie, feeling self-conscious. Jeremy's expectations of an interesting person had totally been dashed. Well, she shouldn't have expected anything to come of this sort-of date in the first place.

"I didn't know you had cats," he said mildly.

"Oh yeah, their names are Sassy and Rosie. Sassy is pretty old now; we've had her since I was a kid. We got Rosie about three years ago when our other cat died. He and Sassy were from the same litter."

Jeremy laughed. "Sorry, I have a really hard time imagining Aaron owning pets."

Given the limited interaction Violet had seen between him and her dad it totally made sense. He had told her years ago that Uncle Cameron was shocked he wanted to get Dinah at all. Yet now he was a staunch cat person after owning them for so many years.

It was a little strange talking to someone who knew her dad so well but in a completely different way than she did. They had been working together for the better part of five years after all.

"He told me once that he originally got his first cat, Dinah, to impress my mom. He definitely got attached to her though. She died when I was little and he was even more upset than I was," Violet said with a nostalgic smile on her face.

Talking too much about her dad with his assistant felt like it would be gossipy though so she needed to change the subject. Asking about Jeremy should do the trick.

"So I've told you a little about me. It's your turn."

He fiddled with his straw. "There's not much to tell. I've been interested in business since I was a kid in Washington D.C. and ended up going to Yale for my economics degree. I always knew I wanted to work at Hale Investments and here I am."

That was something Violet could work with. Yale was an Ivy League school just like Columbia. Asking him about college would help keep the conversation flowing.

They ended up swapping college stories until long after the smoothies were gone. Once the awkwardness was out of the way, Jeremy was an enjoyable person to talk to. All they had to do was find common ground first.

No matter what different majors people chose, there were certain universal things about the college experience. The two of them were able to relate to each other because of those even though most of Violet's classes had involved dance. She had taken enough general education courses to know what Jeremy was talking about.

This was actually pretty nice. It had been a long time since she had talked to anyone like this aside from Noah. They always had long philosophical discussions about anything and everything but she couldn't do that with anybody else.

At the end of the date—they had talked for nearly three hours—Violet went home with a smile on her face. Branching out wasn't always a bad thing. It allowed her to talk to people she wouldn't have been able to hold a decent conversation with otherwise.