“Anything else, hon?”
Ilan blinked, then turned back to the bartender and his gaze fell on her nametag. Gail. “Well Gail,” he said with a plaintive smile, “what’s good here?”
She lifted a brow at him, and the right side of her mouth rose into a half-smirk. “Besides all my drinks?”
At that, he laughed. “Say someone was trying to eat their feelings…?”
Her face fell a little, and the pity was back in her eyes, but he let himself feel the brunt of it because he sort of deserved it. “Anything I can do to help?”
“I fucking wish,” he blurted, then flushed. “Sorry.”
She gave him a flat look. “I’m a bartender, hon. I’ve heard it all.”
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “It’s just, I’m trying this new thing called being a better person,” then he laughed when both of her brows rose. “Stupid, I know. Things in my life kind of changed faster than I expected them to when I wasn’t looking. Everyone I knew left town and my best friend moved to Paris. I sold my house, and yesterday I bought one up the street, but my neighborhood is empty and so quiet.”
“Sounds lonely,” she said, and he felt that right in his gut.
“Yeah,’ he said from behind a breath. “I just wasn’t expecting it to be. I’ve always wanted to live here. The ocean is my favorite place in the world. My parents would drive us down every time they had a free Sunday, and I used to sit on the sand and wish I could turn into a dolphin or a shark and never have to come out of the water.”
She leaned her arm on the counter and smiled. “My kid used to tie her feet up with yarn and pretend to be a mermaid. She told me that’s what she was going to be when she grew up.”
Ilan chuckled. “Did she ever realize her dream?”
“Oh, for a while in college. She got a job at one of those aquariums wearing a big mermaid tail and doing shows for kids’ birthday parties.”
He grinned and took a sip of the wine and was grateful it didn’t make his stomach hurt worse than it already did. “What does she do now?”
“She works as a school counselor. More regular paycheck, but not as magical.” Gail winked and turned when her little ticket machine whirred to life. “What about you? What did you choose, since you’re not a shark?”
“Doctor,” he said, and she gave him a sharp look, making him blush. “I got into orthopedics, but it wasn’t like a dream of mine or anything. I just happened to be good at it.”
“You seem like the type to enjoy that sort of thing,” she said, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“The first time I used a bone saw—I made it through the surgery, then threw up for five straight minutes.”
“Lord,” she breathed out, and he chuckled a little bit more. “That’s something.”
“It was a choice.” He tipped his glass to his lips and took another long swallow. Eating at the bar was starting to sound more and more appealing, and if he was going to drive, food was going to be necessary. “Do you like working here, Gail?”
She shrugged, then walked to the other end of the bar with the drinks she’d poured, and came back with something like a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t hate it. My daughter wishes I’d retire or do something else with my twilight years, as she likes to call them. I think she likes to torment me about being old.”
He smiled, and had a single, painful moment of missing his mom, because she was a lot like Gail. “You don’t look that old to me.”
“And you look too young to be flirting with the likes of me, young man,” she shot back. She bent down, then stood back up and slid a menu in front of him. “I know every restaurant says this, but our lobster mac is the best in town. The lobster gets marinated for three hours in a garlic and white wine blend, and it’s topped with fresh bacon crumbles. Worth the twenty bucks for the bowl.”
He smiled softly at the slightly wrinkled finger with the red nail that tapped on the laminated paper. “That sounds good.”
“You sure you don’t wanna wait for that table?” she asked, hesitating.
“I’m sure.” He met her gaze and offered a sheepish shrug. “I think your company is bound to be a lot fucking better than my own.”
There was something oddly soothing about sitting and people watching. After Ilan told the hostess he was giving up his spot on the wait list, he got comfortable at the bar with Gail, dug into a meal that would have his parents spinning in their graves, and let himself exist.
His eyes strayed around the room, watching people on their first and their hundredth dates. He watched people on the verge of marriage and people on the verge of divorce. He watched a couple with bags under their eyes not saying a word, the father with a spit-up stain on his shoulder and the mother who was gently rocking back and forth like she’d forgotten what it was like to be still.
Part of him wanted to climb into their heads and experience all the euphoric parts and all the ones filled with agony. To wake up whatever was inside of him that had gone numb to the idea of loving someone. And even as he watched a couple have a fight, hissing insults under their breath, he thought maybe all that pain was worth something too.
He had started perusing the dessert menu when the hostess walked by him, and his breath caught in his throat when he saw the man holding her arm was also holding a white cane. He was in a nice suit, and his hair was rich black and combed in precise waves, and he was wearing a smile that Ilan would recognize anywhere.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed out.
Gail cleared her throat. “You know it’s rude to stare, right?”
Ilan rolled his eyes toward her. “Yeah, I do. He’s the one who taught me that. He’s my best friend’s dad.”
“The best friend living in Paris?” she asked, and he laughed.
“Yeah. What the fuck is he doing here? He’s…” Ilan went quiet when the hostess led him to a table occupied by a younger man who was staring at Fredric, his expression stoic but mostly unreadable. Ilan was too far away to hear anything, but he saw Fredric stick out his hand, and the man hesitated before he took it.
The guy looked like he was ready to bolt for a second, and then his face fell into something like boredom as he sat down, waiting for Fredric to get settled.
“Oh, fuck me,” Ilan breathed out. “He’s on a date.”
Gail’s brows rose. “Is he cheating?”
“No. Fuck,” Ilan said and rubbed his eye under his glasses, grimacing when he left a smudge on the lens. “He’s divorced.”
“Well, he looks sweet. This must be a first date, look how nervous he is,” she said.
Ilan groped next to him for his wine, then took a massive swallow. “Yeah, but…he’s straight.”
Gail hummed. “Is he, now?”
And Ilan’s mouth opened to say yes, he was. Because the last time he checked, Fredric had only been interested in women. Only…only he didn’t know that. Not really. He’d never asked. He knew that Fredric and Jacqueline had been together since they were teens—he knew that Fredric had never really dated anyone. And, like an ass, he just assumed.