The waiter chose this moment to stop at our table and babble on about the backstory of each dish and its ingredients. The carrots were cruelty-free, the bacon knew its grandmother, the chef had trekked all the way to the Malabar coast to handpick the peppercorns. It was a whole big thing. Through it all, Rob and I studied each other in another round ofLook at all of our issues and the curious ways in which they manifest themselves. There was Rob with his inability to reveal the inner parts of himself without tremendous cost and there was me with my inability to abide any amount of secrets or shadows because I expected the worst was headed my way.
We ordered two bottles—red and white—and I could almost hear my mother asking, "What? You're planning to drink that entire thing by yourself? You better not plan on walking the dog too. Not unless you want your picture on the front page of the newspaper because you've been kidnapped and killed."
I swallowed a hysterical giggle at that, waving away Rob's curious expression. "It's nothing," I said. "Ignore me."
He shook his head. "Can't."
"All right." I gestured toward him. "Where were we?"
"You said something about salt. I have no salt?"
"You have a ton of salt," I replied, holding my arms out wide. "So much salt."
"No," he answered. "Not that much."
"You're saltier than the Great Salt Lake," I replied. "And the Death Valley Salt Flats."
"Combined? Or separately?"
I leaned forward, flattened my hands on the table. "Both."
"Are we talking that cool pink salt or lame-ass table salt?" he asked.
"Oh, as lame as it comes," I replied. "No one is grinding your salt into artisanal flakes or sprinkling you over chocolate or caramel."
"That's disappointing," he murmured.
"It really is," I replied. "You're a slab of salt, my friend. If I licked you, I'd need to chase it with an entire bottle of tequila."
He motioned to his torso. "All yours."
I waved him off and shifted my gaze to the tables around us. "I don't lick guys who can't manage their shit," I said. I didn't say,Not anymore.Thought about it. Kept that tidbit under my hat. "Or guys who think they can legislate how I spend my time or who I spend it with."
The waiter returned with our wine and went to great efforts to present each bottle, uncork them, pour a sample sip, wait for our approval—who the hell sent back wine?—and then top off our glasses. He tied cute little cloth napkin kerchiefs around the bottles and set each in a silver canister. It was a lot of damn effort for wine. I understood there were varying levels to this stuff but I was perfectly satisfied with my screw caps and pink Corksicle tumbler.
Rob held up his glass, waiting for me to follow suit. When I joined him, he said, "My ex cheated on me while I was away on business. Not just once. She cheated on me for two years. With my best friend. The guy I grew up with. I was going to propose to her, and I was going to ask him to stand up as my best man."
Staring at him, I blinked several times. Then I looked away, swinging my gaze from side to side in search of the space to absorb this information without him watching. That was some real shit, and from the two people you were supposed to trust the most.
After a wild-eyed pause too long to be anything but uncomfortable, I asked, "And we're drinking to that?"
He looked at our glasses, still held aloft, and his tight expression broke into a quick laugh. "No.Fuckno," he said. "I just…I hate saying that shit out loud. I hate that it happened. I hate that it happened to me. Sometimes, I hate that I found out because ignorance never fucked me up like this. Then I hate that I'm still fucked up over it and I can't leave town without…"
Rob set his glass down and glanced away.
"Without thinking the person you left at home is going to fuck you over again," I said.Goddamn.I hadn't known I was walking right into the snake pit on this one but here I was, stomping all over Rob's king cobras. "Even if it's irrational, you can't help thinking it." He nodded, still blindly staring across the restaurant. "If it helps, I'm fucked up too."
"You're not fucked up," he replied, hitting me with a half-smile. It was sad and sweet, and left me aching for him. "You're perfect."
My belly swooped. Circumstances aside, I couldn't resist a half-smiled "You're perfect." Nope. I wasn't too proud to admit it either.
"Not too sure about that," I said. "I can't leave my dog with a man I'm dating. Not even for five minutes. I'll call him to follow me if I leave the room because I can't deal with the possibility my dog will get hurt. It's been…hmm, what is it now, three years? Yeah, three years this summer and I can't leave my dog alone with a guy. Not without a full-blown panic attack."
Rob's gaze scraped over me as if he was trying to find my soft spots by looks alone. "Someone did something to yourdog?"
I pinched my fingers around the stem of the wineglass and twirled the base against the tablecloth. "My ex stole my dog. Some other stuff too but my dog was the most important thing he stole. A bunch of my friends had to raid his place to get Gronk back."
"I love that you named him Gronk. Such a big name for a little dog," Rob said, that half-smile still in place. "Does he have that Gronkowski spirit?"
