My guilt was threatening to suffocate me, and I did not know what to do with that new piece of information.
I was going to tell him. I was.
“That cake wasn’t enough to fill me up,” he said. “I’m starving. We should go grab something to eat.”
There was a pain at the back of my throat that I didn’t want to identify. I was going to push these feelings out. Like I’d told Shelby, I’d been compartmentalizing things my entire life, and I was going to spend whatever time I had with Noah enjoying him and his company.
I said, “You don’t want to eat here and have paper-thin-crust greasy pizza topped with a cheese by-product?”
“I was thinking something more substantial. Do you know of anywhere good to eat?”
Did I . . . “Are you ready for this conversation?”
He laughed. “I was being polite and trying to find out if you are on any kind of dietary plan. Like gluten-free, vegan, keto, paleo—”
“I’m on the eat-eo diet. That’s where if I want to eat something, I do.”
Another laugh. “I have the perfect place in mind. The food is incredible. Head west on this road.”
I started up the van. “When you’re giving me directions, you can’t use words like west.”
“Go left.”
It took us about twenty minutes, but he had taken me to . . . a tiny hole in the wall called Quixote’s. I’d expected a super nice, fancy place, and this was like its evil twin. We headed in, and somehow the inside was worse than the outside.
“Does the health department know about this place?” I whispered, and he nudged me with his elbow.
“It’s good food and everybody here leaves me alone.”
A hostess approached us. “Two?”
“Yes,” Noah said, and we followed her to a table. We sat down and she left us with menus. “Their burgers are amazing.”
“Doubtful.”
“You’re going to eat your words.”
“Yeah, that may be the only thing I eat,” I told him.
We silently read the menu and he asked, “Do you want to get appetizers? The oysters here are pretty good.”
“Oysters are disgusting. They look like somebody already ate them. They’re basically sea vomit.”
“The ones here are fried.”
“I’m not interested in fried ocean puke,” I said.
“Well Miss Appetizer Snob, do you know what you want?”
“I’ll try one of their burgers that you promised are good. And know that our entire friendship hangs in the balance, because if they’re terrible, I’ll never get over it.”
That twinkle I loved sparkled in his eyes. “I’ll take my chances.” He raised his arm to gesture for our server to come over. “I’m about to order enough food to freak out the other patrons,” he informed me. I was good with that.
We placed our orders, Noah making good on his threat to order an insane amount of food, and I asked for a cheeseburger and fries along with a side of ranch. The server took our menus. Noah reached across the table and took my hand, and I loved the happy blue butterflies that twirled around my heart at the expression in his eyes.
“I missed you when I was in New York,” he said.
Those tiny butterfly wings flapped more intensely. “You already said that when you got back.”
“I just wanted to make sure that you knew. That I thought about you the whole time while I was away. And I almost called you half a dozen times, but I didn’t know if it was okay for me to do that because we’re just . . .” He let his words trail off.
“Friends can call each other,” I said, ignoring the warm feelings that were bubbling up inside me at his words.
“Right.” An expression I didn’t recognize crossed his face. “Friends can do that.”
There was an awkward silence, and it had been so long since that had happened between us that I didn’t know how to respond to it.
Thankfully, he spoke first. “Speaking of New York, I found this article online that said staring into each other’s eyes is supposed to increase intimacy and put our brains in sync with one another.”
“That sounds made up.”
He made an X on his chest. “I swear it’s not.”
The server returned with glasses of water for both of us, and we thanked him. When he had cleared out, Noah asked, “Do you want to try it?”
“Sure.”
We leaned over and began staring into each other’s eyes. Even if people did normally leave him alone here, I had the feeling somebody was going to call in a padded wagon if