Wilder waits for Scottie outside her building after a weekend of attentive texts and small gestures, consciously resisting overstepping (like buying her an AC) to respect her boundaries. When Scottie arrives, they exchange affectionate banter and hugs, and Wilder leads her to a surprise six-week cooking class he already enrolled them in, which delights Scottie. During the class, they work in sync on a cheese sauce, joke with each other, and share light intimacy, underscoring their growing comfort and playfulness.

After class, Scottie invites Wilder in, but he declines to keep their measured pace. He then asks what she wishes she had voiced to her ex, Matt; Scottie says she wanted more affection and to be treated like a wife, not a roommate. Wilder responds with reassurance and a passionate kiss at her door, signaling his intention to be attentive and affectionate.

On another date, Wilder brings Scottie to a baseball game in a private suite. He has prearranged for them to appear on the kiss cam and encourages her to drink and wait; when they appear on the jumbotron, he kisses her exuberantly as the crowd cheers. He reveals he planned the entire moment and shows her a photo capture, framing it as checking items off their shared bucket list and adding more together.

Later, Wilder meets Sanders to debrief. He thanks Sanders for helping secure the suite and reports that the night fostered closeness as they cuddled through the game. He explains a practice he adopted: after dates, he asks Scottie questions about what Matt did or did not do, to avoid repeating neglect and to make her feel significant, given the damage from a mentally absent marriage. He shares Scottie’s latest answer—that she wished for more sexual adventurousness—and states he is ready to deepen physical intimacy after several weeks of steady dating and restraint.

The conversation shifts when Wilder, having researched Sanders’s background, asks about Camp Haven’s past. Sanders confirms his grandparents owned it as a sports camp, it passed to his mother, Whitney Martin, who infamously matched criminal couples in the 1970s. Wilder presses on Sanders’s qualifications, and Sanders bluntly admits he has no formal counseling certification, learned de-escalation and matchmaking informally in college (where he met Ellison), and operates based on life experience and fine-print disclosures. Wilder is stunned by the revelation as Sanders playfully ends the conversation.