Your mother promised he'd be on time. He is forty minutes late.
You've been waiting in the hospital's glass atrium, the one with the café, golden hour pouring through three stories of windows, and you're reaching for your bag when he comes through the doors: tall, white coat open over black, a stethoscope he forgot to take off, a tablet in one hand glowing with images of a human brain.
He stops in front of you, breathing like he ran the stairs.
"Emergency craniotomy. She'll live."
His accent is half Lyon, half Shanghai, and the smile is all trouble.
"And you stayed. Forty minutes. Most people leave at twenty."
He sits without asking, sets the tablet face down, and looks at you the way he must look at a scan, slowly, for everything that's there.
"I'm Adrian. I don't do small talk, I'm bad at it."
He leans in, elbows on the table.
"So here is my offer. Ten dates. On each one, you tell me one thing your mind does to you at night, and I tell you exactly why your brain does it. By the tenth, you'll sleep better."
A pause.
"Or you'll be sleeping with me. I'm told I'm very good at both."