I think, somehow, I hear an echo of my heart cracking. “Are we?”
“Yes.” Rowan half smiles. “I tell you your pastries are delicious and you tell me you think I’m ugly. That’s the best kind of friendship.”
I shake my head and stare down at the plate, hiding my smile. “You are ugly.”
“I know.” He laughs. “You tell me every day.”
“You need to be humbled.”
“And you do it for me.”
“I’m doing society a favor,” I retort, dipping another stick in ketchup.
“I used to think the way you eat mozzarella sticks was weird,” he tells me before he dips a stick of his own in ketchup. “But then, I tried it a couple of years ago. I see why you like it.”
“It’s good,” I say. “It’s tomato. Just like marinara.”
He takes a bite, and I don’t miss the way he cringes. Rowan Asher doesn’t like cheese. He’s never liked cheese. “It is abitdifferent?—”
“Whose side are you on?” I take a bite of my stick dipped in ketchup.Delicious.
“Yours, obviously.” He chuckles. “Why do you think I’m eating mozzarella sticks with ketchup right now?”
Even though he hates cheese.
I laugh just as my phone dings with a few texts from the group chat with my dads.
Dad: Thinking of you sweetie
Daddy: Pay attention to your mail this week. We’ve sent you a sweatshirt and some other Canadian goodies.
Dad: Love you
Daddy: Love you
Dad: How’s Rowan?
“Christ,” I hiss under my breath. I should just reply with a quick and easygoodand leave it at that. I haven’t spoken to them on the phone in a week, and the last time I did, I gushed about all the romantic fall season couples things Rowan and I have been doing together. I somehow almost managed to convincemyselfthose things actually happened.
“What’s wrong?”
I lock my phone with a sigh. “Nothing, just my dads.”
Rowan wipes the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “What are they saying?”
I dust my fingers off on a napkin and shrug a shoulder. “Just that they sent me some souvenirs from Canada. And they asked how you were.”
His lips form something just shy of a smirk. “You can tell them I’m well.”
I thought about it.I shake my head, and those blue eyes soften.
“What’s wrong, Natalia?”
“They keep asking me how you’re doing every time wetalk,” I murmur and move on to my burger, lifting the bun and squirting ketchup in a circle. “They think we’ve been…going on dates and stuff. I told them we’ve gone apple picking and pumpkin picking…Things like that.”
“Do youwantto go pumpkin picking?” Rowan asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
