“Hmmm.” I pinned Serena with a glare. “Do you always grope your professors?”
She gasped and Hayes smiled a little. “Now, now, Mini. Play nice.”
“I’ll play nice when she stops touching what doesn’t belong to her.” I don’t know what had gotten into me. The part of my brain that filtered my responses was clearly broken.
“I’ll just show you to your table. I had Darcy put you in my section,” she answered without looking at me.
Fantastic. “Peachy,” I said aloud, resolving to watch my food for spit.
Hayes leaned forward, elbows on the table, as she walked away after seating us. “That was damn hot.”
“I didn’t do it to be hot. I did it because she was touching you.”
“And I’m yours.”
I looked at him over my menu. “Until I say otherwise. Who is she, anyway?”
“She’s no one. A student. Technically my TA, but not of my choosing,” he said.
“Hmmm.”
He closed his menu with a snap. “Spit it out, Smalls. What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing much.” With a flick, I opened and laid my napkin across my lap. “It’s just obvious that she has a thing for you.”
He looked at me steadily. “Yes. She’s delusional. But I’m not interested in her.”
“I have amnesia; I’m not stupid. She was sending fuck me vibes so strong I’m surprised men from the next city over didn’t show up.”
In my periphery I watched him brush at the corner of his mouth. “Well. That’s not anything you have to worry about with me, Birdie. Ever. You’re it for me.”
I nudged the corner of my menu until it was precisely in line with my silverware. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Ah...I think you might have been a little jealous.”
“No. I’m not jealous.” I’d have to be in love with you to be jealous.
He raised a single brow, the corner of his mouth crooking upward. “You are in love with me. You just don’t remember.”
I hummed but didn’t reply. He did that eyebrow thing a lot, I had noticed. It would be badass if I could do that with my eyebrow, but I didn’t think I was able to. Not that I could remember, one way or the other. I tried, just to be certain, tensing my eye muscles and concentrating.
Nope.
“What are you doing?”
I blinked and relaxed my face. “Nothing. I wanted to see if I could do that thing with my eyebrow.”
Hayes laughed out loud. He laughed with his entire body, I noticed, leaning back in his seat and raising his chin. Several diners turned to look at him, but he ignored them, secure in himself. I loved his lack of self-consciousness, his confidence. Somehow, I didn’t think I had his boldness.
“Am I shy?” I asked.
“Shy?” He considered the question. “No, I wouldn’t say that. You’re introverted. You’re generally more comfortable by yourself than in a crowd.”
I sipped at the water Serena-the-Delusional had set down a minute earlier. “That’s kind of what I was thinking. What about you? You’re just the opposite, right?”
“To an extent. I don’t mind being around people, but I need my downtime, too.”
“So, how did we get along —” I broke off as she returned to take our order. I really wanted a different waitress, but I wasn’t willing to make a scene to get it. “Chicken tenders, please, side of fries and a ton of honey mustard sauce.” As she walked off, I caught a small smile hovering on Hayes’s mouth. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “You were saying?”
“Oh, yeah. Just that my head is spinning. I have a reaction to something, and I can’t help wondering if it’s how I would have reacted before. Am I the same person? Am I totally different? It’s confusing as hell.”
“I get that,” came his calm reassurance. “I’m sure it’s normal —”
“I don’t want to be normal. I want to be me!”
“You are you, Smalls. You just ordered the same dish you do every time we eat here, down to the extra honey mustard sauce that you never eat. Part of you knows exactly who you are. It’s there in the details. You just have to trust that the rest is going to catch up.”
I nodded, not really believing it but wanting to close the subject. “I got a job this morning. Oh, and I kind of lost one yesterday.”
“A job? What in the — Birdie, you don’t need to get a job right now. I’ll take care of you.”
“I wanted one. And mom’s insurance coverage is going to end pretty soon, so I needed one to cover the pregnancy and birth.” It felt odd to be discussing such things.
“Birdie, you know that my insurance will take care of things, too.”
“If we get married.” I leveled a look at him. “I’m not sure about that right now.”
Our food arrived, and we fell quiet as we ate. “Where’d you get a job?” he asked after a while.
“The Farmer’s Wife, a few shops down.”
Hayes choked suddenly and grabbed his drink. “Are you okay?” I half rose and he held a hand out to stop me.
“I’m fine. Sorry.” He got himself together and continued. “The Farmer’s Wife. What took you in there?”
“I just saw a help wanted sign, and something about it seemed interesting.”
“Huh. Okay. I hope you enjoy it.”
I was taken aback by his about-face but shrugged it off. “Thanks. I’ve been doing some thinking,” I said, pushing my plate away. He had been right about the extra honey mustard.
“Okay.”
“I think a romantic relationship right now is too much for me.” I didn’t trust myself to look at him. “It’s crazy enough to contemplate the fact that I’m going to be a mother. I can’t…I don’t have the mental energy for all of it.”
For an infinite moment, silence stretched between us, taut and ripe with things unsaid.
“I guess I should have been expecting that,” he replied at last. “What are you proposing, exactly?” He cut his hand sharply as Serena-the-Waitress approached and she did a one-eighty.
I folded my hands on the table to still their trembling. “I think we should do the friend thing for a while, until I feel like I know you again.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing? How do you think you’re going to get to know me again, if we’re not spending time together?”
“I’m sure we’ll see each other. Just not romantically.” I cringed. That was lame. This whole thing sounded better in my head.
Hayes must have agreed with my internal assessment, because his mouth pressed into a thin line. “You’ll have to be more specific, Birdie. I think I’ve been pretty patient…pretty low key as far as that goes, anyway. It’s not like I’m all over you, demanding things that I know you’re not ready for.”
“I know, and I’m grateful. It’s not anything like that. It’s more…the walks down memory lane. The nicknames. The visits to places where we used to hang out. Coming into the exam room at the doctor’s office. These are all things people do when they’re involved and comfortable with each other, and it’s making me so not comfortable —”