He gestured toward the booth in the corner — one of the few that didn’t sit right against the front windows. More tucked-away. Moreus.
We slid in together,on the same side, the vinyl seat sighing beneath our weight. Our knees brushed. Then our thighs. He didn’t move away. Neither did I.
“Cute,” the waitress said with a little smirk, passing us our menus. “Y’all on a road trip?”
“Something like that,” Ansel murmured.
She squinted at him. “You look familiar.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “I’ve got one of those faces.”
“Yeah. The kind I’d see on a movie poster. Or an arrest record.”
Ichokedon my water.
He didn’t even blink. “Could be both.”
She laughed, tapped her pen against her pad. “All right, Hollywood. What’ll it be?”
He looked at me. Let me order first — grilled cheese, fries, and lemon meringue for later — before ordering the same thing.
I arched a brow. “Copycat.”
He shrugged. “Can’t go wrong with the classics.”
We sat close. Closer than was maybe necessary. His knee pressed against mine. I didn’t shift away. If anything… I drifted closer.
My head tilted just slightly toward his shoulder. I didn’t realize I was doing it until I caught the way he looked at me — the mostridiculousgrin stretched across his lips.
I drummed my fingers lightly against the tabletop. “So.”
“So.”
“This is weird, right?”
He tilted his head. “You mean the part where we’re driving into the woods so I can introduce you to my mother like some kind of emotionally reckless meet-cute?” His hand slid across my thigh, squeezing gently.
I blinked, breath catching. “That.Exactly.”
He grinned. “Nah, I don’t think so. Feels like we’ve been doing this thing together for years.”
“I think I forgot how to do this,” I admitted. “The small stuff. Like letting someone see me eat. Letting someone drive me places. Letting someone…matter.”
His jaw clenched. “You think I don’t know that?”
My chest squeezed.
The food came, hot and greasy and enormous. We didn’t talk for a few minutes — too busy eating, too busy pretending we weren’t watching each other out of the corners of our eyes.
Eventually, I reached through his arm. Stole a fry from his plate, even though they were exactly the same as mine, a grin spreading wide across my face.
He let me.
Didn’t say a word. Just smirked a little and dipped one of his fries into my ketchup like it was nothing. Like it was natural. Like maybe this could benormalsomeday.
The lemon meringue came with two forks without us having to ask.
“Don’t go fightin’ over it,” Loretta, our waitress, warned, sliding the plate between us with a practiced thud. “And if either of you pretends not to want it, I’ll bring a second piece and charge you for three of them.”
