“If I was out on a date, should I expect to get my own drink?”
He realizes what he’s done. “Sorry, I’ve just started inhaling everything like always. I think I have some cash …” He begins fishing around in his pockets.
I shake my head. “Keep saving that cash. You’re doing really well.” I try to pull out another fry but it’s overloaded and splats onto the table, narrowly missing my worksheet. “Meanwhile, this isn’t going well at all.”
“I had a dream last night that I paid Alistair for my share a week before the deadline. Do you think it’s a sign?”
I’ve heard enough about his dreams to know that things go weird pretty fast in them. “Then what happened?”
“I knew it was a dream because he gave me my key to the front door and it was the size of a surfboard. I woke myself up trying to fit it in my pocket and I’d gotten my boxers down around my knees.”
I laugh, even as thoughts of keys and locks distracts me. The relief of having some company has given way to nerves. I felt better about leaving Providence knowing that Teddy was staying behind. I know I don’t have to be there 24/7. I’m just more comfortable when I am.
“I’m not sure if my homework counts now. It specifically says I have to sit alone.”
He’s eaten probably a quarter of the plate with his fingers. “She’ll never know.” He’s got the blank sheet in front of him and he’s written my name at the top in elegant stylized script. “I’ll help. Tell me everything about you and I’ll write it down. Start from the beginning. Ruthie Maree Midona was born at … midnight. Or noon. Am I close?”
I begin to gather up my pens.
He sighs. “If you’re serious, I’ll go. I just missed you so much. I got home and your windows were dark. I followed your patrol route. I went up to your little lookout spot by the dumpsters, where you like to look at the city lights.”
I’m mildly disturbed. “Have you been stalking me?”
“Then I got your text. I remembered there’s this group of four sketchy dudes who hang out here drinking all afternoon, and I got into this panic that they’d found you sitting alone and were putting roofies in your Coke. That’s why I was so fast.” He picks up my glass and drinks from it.
“Lucky they didn’t roofie it, or we’d both be unconscious.”
“I worry about you, out in the world, all soft and kind. It’s horrible out here.” He goes silent and we hear bowling balls hitting pins and a child’s scream of joy. Down near the lanes there’s a lit-up cake and people are singing happy birthday.
“The outside world is not horrible.” I have to smile at myself. How could it be, when there’s weird food and happy kids, and Teddy’s legs wrapping mine up in a hug under the table? “I think you’ve been spending too much time at Providence to think that.”
He opens his sketchbook to a new page and begins helping himself to my pencil case. “I’m so glad you’re not on a date,” he declares quite cheerfully.
I can be selfless and encourage him every step of the way as he saves for his share in the studio, but for me and my goals he won’t do the same. “At some point soon, I’m going to be having a romantic candlelit dinner. At the same time, you’re going to be sitting in your very own tattoo studio writing Live Laugh Love down a girl’s back in Comic Sans.”
“That’s the most disgusting thing you could possibly say to me,” he splutters.
I try another french fry; finally, this food volcano is safe enough to eat properly. I raise my fork. His protests die and he leans forward like he is anticipating something.
This mix should be wrong. But every forkful is a prism of salt and flavor, the textures alternating between crispy and velvet. Luxe, melty macaroni blends into the gravy. Childhood flashbacks from smoky hot dog chunks.
I don’t know how long I’m in this haze. All I know is, nothing in life feels that bad when I’m eating carbs and fat. Everything will work out, because of cheese. Every time I glance up, he’s smiling at me, his cheek resting plumply on his fist. The smattering of freckles across his nose are cinnamon-sweet. I’m in a pleasurable dream. He has a white haze of light around his head.
I am possibly having a food-related stroke. I scrape up more. “What is happening to me?” I feel a wet line on my face; it’s a tear.
“My angel, that’s heaven on a plate. I told you.” He hasn’t taken a single fry or sketched a single line during my endless gorge. “When you enjoy yourself, you really do.”
I really should do some work. I dig through my supplies. “Actually, I might need that pencil back. It’s my only one. I need to be able to erase off the worksheet.”
He starts sketching with it, declining the request. “I think you need to write in ink. You know who you are. Thanks in advance for the Live Laugh Love nightmare tonight, by the way. You’re going to hear me crying through the wall.” He regards me with curiosity then bursts out laughing. “You know you’re funny as hell, right? Everything you say is so on point.”
I’m surprised and want to change the subject. “Oh thanks. So did you design all your own tattoos?”
“You think someone else designed me? You don’t recognize talent when you see it?” He’s grinning. “I drew them, Alistair did them for me. Sometimes when he was pissed off with me he’d press extra hard. So all of it was agony.” There’s truth in the joke.
“Do they all mean something?” He just smiles at that. “How many do you have?” It slips out before I can censor myself. How many girls have asked that same question? I get my answer.
“I don’t know. You can count them for me if you want.” (Insert here the predictable eyebrows, sparkling eyes, sinful smile, my heart fluttering, etc.) He unhinges his jaw to eat more fries. Chewing, he says, “Tidy girls like to be nice and organized, huh?” He reaches over for my hand and begins padding my finger up his arm. “One, two …”
I want to keep going and have to cover it up. “All seductive with your mouthful of mush. Hold me back.” It’s intensely gratifying to make him snort-laugh like that.
“Want help with the worksheet? I’ll write in all your facts. We’ll circle back to your time of birth. What was your college degree?” He’s poised and ready.
My smile fades. “My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college. I did a business administration course.”
“Must have been some wild parties.”
“It was one long orgy.” I’m lucky he wasn’t drinking because he would have sprayed me. “I was the youngest by twenty years, easily.”
“Kinky.”
I notice a woman at the bar watching us. Well, she’s watching Teddy. I guess I’ll have to get used to that, but I can’t say I’ll ever like it. “Most people were retraining for new careers. I could finally relax.” I’ve said too much there, and the memory twinges too close to a nerve. I push the plate at Teddy. “Here, eat more.”
He won’t be distracted. “Why could you relax?”
“I’m just more comfortable with older people.” I twist my fingers together as he just sits and stares at me, wanting more. “I got bullied a lot at school, obviously. But being in a class with adults I felt safe again.”