headed to the restaurant, feeling Jimmy’s gaze sweep the curve of my neck and my breasts.
“See something you like?” I teased.
He looked away and held open the door to the diner for me. The hostess at the front greeted us.
“Two? Right this way.”
She seated us at a wide table that made me feel like Jimmy and I were separated by a mile of sticky Formica.
“Cozy,” I said, as we slid into our seats on opposite sides.
A tired-looking waitress came by. “Drinks?”
“Chocolate milkshake, please,” I said. “Extra cherries.”
She turned to Jimmy. “For you, sugar?”
“A Coke.”
I opened the menu. “God, I want one of everything,” I said. “It’s been forever since I’ve eaten a burger and fries. I mean, I know that’s not true, but I feel like my entire life is a menu and I’m starving. For food, music, art, for experiences, for sex…”
Jimmy shifted in his chair and toyed madly with his fork.
“Can’t help it,” I said. “I’ve missed so much.”
The waitress returned with his soda and my shake. I took a long, deep pull from the straw and moaned as cold chocolate deliciousness poured into my mouth.
“Oh my God, brain freeze,” I said with a laugh. “But so worth it.”
I plucked a cherry and sucked the whipped cream off before biting it from the stem. Across the table, Jimmy stared, eyes dark under furrowed brows, fists clenched on the table.
“What?” I said.
“N-Nothing.”
I leaned over the table. “Your kind eyes don’t look so kind right now. You look as if you have some thoughts about what else I might be able to do with my tongue.”
Jimmy shifted in his seat. “You’re not making it difficult.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No, but—”
“But what?”
When he didn’t answer, I tossed my cherry stem on the table and sat back with a frustrated sigh.
“No bullshit, James. What’s going on? Why haven’t you tried to kiss me when we were practically sucking each other’s faces off in the parking lot yesterday morning.” I leaned forward again. “Even if the answer breaks my heart, I’d rather live with that pain than none at all. So I’m going to ask. Do you care for me, Jimmy?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said, meeting my gaze. “But I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“So you mentioned,” I said with a wince. “Why?”
“I have to be careful.”
“Because you don’t trust me to know what I want?”
“Something like that.”
My eyes flared open. “And here I thought you weren’t like them. You were the only one—”
“Thea,” he said, his voice harder than I’d heard him take with me. I fell silent.
“I knew you before the procedure for longer than I have after,” he said. “For all those weeks, we talked and listened to music and every conversation we built was torn down again by the amnesia. Over and over again. A part of me is scared shitless you’ll suddenly…”
“Go away again?”
He nodded. “I never want to cross a line with you. Which is why I shouldn’t have kissed you at Blue Ridge. I should’ve waited until we were outside of those gates.”
“We are now,” I said, my hand wanting to slide across the table and take his. “We’re here now. Together.”
“But we’re not here for me,” he said. “We’re here for you. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to get something out of you.”
“I don’t think that,” I said. “But we are here for you. You’re a good man. You deserve some happiness too. Don’t you?”
He shrugged, lifting the weight of his loveless life on his strong shoulders. No self-pity, just a heartbreaking gesture of resignation.
The waitress arrived, her arms laden with burgers and two baskets of fries.
“Here we are.” She set them down. “Anything else?”
“We’re fine, thanks,” I said. I ignored the heavenly scent of greasy food curling under my nose and kept looking at Jimmy, who stared back. I’d never seen him so hard and intimidating. A stone wall built up year by year, to protect a child who had nothing and no one.
“You want to know if I think I deserve happiness?” he said to my expectant gaze. “No, I don’t. Life doesn’t work that way. The world doesn’t owe me anything, and I stopped asking a long time ago. End of story.”
A short silence fell. Neither of us spoke or moved to touch our food.
“I think that’s exactly how life works,” I said gently, conscious I was talking to a man for whom life had provided only the barest of essentials. “I think everyone deserves happiness. It’s out there, waiting