The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,91
With hesitant steps, he made his way over to me. “By being a little bit stalker-ish and creep-ish? Zach helped me find you. You’re hard to find because you go by Kate Hall now.” He smiled. “Your picture is on the theater’s website, and Zach found you with his proprietary facial recognition software. I figured you’d find a home in the fringe theater world here. But you’re super fringe. Like way off-off-Broadway. You’re so far off Broadway you’re in Queens.”
I punched his arm but couldn’t stifle my smile. “Jerk! So really, why are you in Queens, the theater capital of the world?”
He chewed his lip. “A wise person once told me to make sure I enjoy my life. So, I traveled to New York with my family during winter break. And because I’m me, I’ve tacked on some East Coast college tours too.” He peeled off his coat. “Your heater’s broken. This whole place feels like a boiler room. Want me to fix it?”
Behind me, Zoe squeaked, “Wait, are you Nate? Nate Kim? And you know how to fix heaters?”
“Yeah, Nate’s pretty handy,” I said.
Nate reached out to shake Zoe’s hand, but she pulled him in for a hug. “I don’t believe in handshakes,” she said, and then released him. “Nice to meet you, Nate! I’m Zoe.”
He straightened his crumpled cardigan and smiled at her. “Nice to meet you too.” Then he said to me, “I haven’t eaten dinner yet. Would you grab a late-night bite with me? I’m thinking burger and fries. Maybe a milkshake too. Like old times.”
I stammered, “I—I don’t know. I still have to clean the seats and sweep the stage—”
Zoe elbowed me in the ribs. “She’d love to, Nate. No curfew tonight. Have fun, you two.” She exited stage right.
I shook my head. “I still can’t believe you’re here. What colleges are you touring?”
“Columbia. Princeton. Rutgers. Columbia’s here, and the last two are pretty close to New York City. I’ve narrowed it down to those three. You want me to work on the heater now?”
My stomach gurgled. “Actually, let’s go get food. And maybe you can come back for the heater another time?”
He glanced at the ceiling, walls, and floors. “There are a ton of broken things here. And I noticed some leaky faucets in the men’s bathroom. And running toilets. You might need someone to come back here a few times. Maybe even regularly. My spring break and summer breaks are pretty open right now.”
I pressed my lips together in amusement. “Okay then, for future repair payment, dinner’s on me tonight. There’s this dive a few blocks down, Burger Basin, that’s open late. We can go there. They have handmade shakes and really great hand-cut fries. It’s no Dick’s, but pretty good and cheap.”
Nate pulled his coat back on and put on a pair of gloves he got from his pockets. “That sounds perfect.”
I grabbed my bag and peacoat and led him out the alley exit.
Our boots crunched through the packed snow. Snowflakes flurried around us as we rounded the corner to the restaurant.
I nodded. Crunch, crunch. “Me too.” Crunch, crunch, crunch. “Sorry I didn’t reach out. I wanted to, but I’m still finding my way here. The money’s helped a lot. Thank you for that.” I offered him a tentative smile.
He shivered. “And I’m sorry about how the competition ended. Your dad, he—”
“I know.” I sighed. “He came clean and told me everything this weekend. We’re finally talking now, adult to adult. There’s a lot of healing to do, but at least we made some progress.”
The Burger Basin’s open sign, slightly askew, flashed in red, like it was warning us to go elsewhere. But through the steamed-up windows we could make out a bustling crowd of patrons inside. We were seated right away and hung up our coats on the coatrack by our booth.
“I’m starving,” I said, snapping open the folded laminated menu.
Nate unzipped his gray wool cardigan, then flapped it open and closed for ventilation. “It was so hot in that theater! I’m still sweating.”
I leaned in and peered at his T-shirt. “Wait, is that the shirt I got you for your birthday? Why does it look so, um—”
“Hot on me?” Nate interjected.
I tried to fight my smile but failed. “Um. No. I was going to say old.”
He grinned. “I wear this shirt all the time. I’ve gotten so many compliments. And a ton of harassment, too, especially around the bars in Belltown. Turns out Maroon 5 is really polarizing. Like, someone threw a beer bottle at my head when he saw my shirt the other day. And another drunk guy in Capitol Hill hugged me, saying Adam Levine was his guilty pleasure. I still don’t exactly know what he meant by that.” He cocked his head, and his inviting brown eyes crinkled with his sheepish smile. “But I still wear it because I like the shirt. I love it actually.” He closed his menu and looked at me. “I know we haven’t put in our order, and I haven’t tried the food yet, but can we do this again? Another…uh…date? My treat next time?”
A sigh of relief escaped me. “Sure!”
He grinned and opened his menu again. Nate looked up at the antiquated metal cash register and whispered to me, “So I guess they don’t take Bitcoin?”
Instead of punching him, I nudged his knee with mine under the table. “Nope.” While we ordered, Nate kept his leg steady against mine. My skin prickled all over as heat flowed between our bodies.
After we ate our burgers, he grabbed my hand. “This is the main advantage of not having drippy sauce on your burger. It’s not sticky when I do this.”
I said the only thing that came to mind as I grabbed his other hand. “Roger that.” A familiar feeling of contentment passed through me as Nate gently stroked my fingers with his thumbs.
He nodded and leaned in closer. “Roger that.”
I didn’t know what our future held, but in that moment, everything was perfect.