Last night I finally made good on my promise and took Mike out to dinner. Neither of us even remember what I owed him dinner for — and he didn’t even remember I owed him until I opened my big mouth — but it was worth it.

I took him to Outback Steakhouse, which is probably our favorite restaurant. Our waitress’ name was Nicole. We ordered our drinks and appetizer — Bloomin’ Onion, of course — and talked as we sat waiting for our bread and Bloomin’ Onion.

“So did you have another moment?” He asked, referring to the delayed reaction I had to the promise ring he gave me. I had told him how, on Friday, I’d burst into tears once in the morning and then later on that afternoon.

“Yeah, either later Friday or today — wait, yeah, it was this morning,” I said.

“I was tearing up when I gave it to you.”

“I’m gonna start crying now,” I said, looking up and to my left to keep the tears away. When I cry, I make a huge mess of myself. I get my hair all wet and I go on for a few minutes. It’s a good thing it doesn’t happen very often.

Nicole returned. “Everything okay?”

“She’s gonna cry,” Mike said.

“Oh, don’t cry, ’cause then I’m gonna cry,” our waitress said.

“They’re happy tears,” I said.

“I gave her a promise ring,” Mike explained.

“Aww, congratulations!” Nicole said. She was really excited about it. I bit down on my lower lip and shuffled my feet.

The rest of our dinner date was really nice. We swapped bites of food, chatted about stuff (he asked me about one of my websites, which was a nice surprise), and then I tried to poison him. Well, not really; he forgot to tell Nicole “no mushrooms” on his Alice Springs Chicken. Luckily he’d only taken a few bites and he isn’t severely — per se — allergic to them. As we picked mushrooms off of his plate and put them into his empty soup cup, he explained he’d have to eat all of them for anything bad to happen. Still, my heart rate didn’t go back to normal until Nicole came back to doggie bag our leftovers.

“Can I get you anything else? Dessert?”

He and I exchanged glances. “It’s up to you,” he said.

“Well, um, I’m really full. How about… we just get one to go and split it later?”

Minutes later, Nicole returned with a slice of cheesecake and two forks. “That’s on me. Congratulations, guys,” she said as she bounced away.

We stared at each other for a long time. Finally, he said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Wait until we get engaged.”

“We’ll get a whole dinner for free!”