“That’s right,” Ty said.
Davy returned with their drinks and a gloriously huge basket of bread that contained a dark bread with oatmeal on top, a couple of Asiago cheese rolls, and a soft honey whole wheat bun that Ty couldn’t wait to taste.
“And we’ve got two salted butters,” Davy said. “This one is plain sea salt from the Dead Sea. And this is our smoked pink Himalayan sea salt.”
“Wow,” Winnie said, leaning closer to examine the pink-salted butter. “It’s so beautiful. I don’t even want to eat it.”
“I totally want to eat it,” Ty said, and his own stomach rumbled at him to give it something good.
Davy chuckled. “Have you two decided what you’re going to have?”
“Yes,” Ty said, reaching for Winnie’s menu. “We both want the chicken dinner.”
“Excellent,” Davy said, and he took the menus from Ty. “Your sausage and polenta is almost done, and I’ll bring it right out.”
“Thank you,” Winnie and Ty said together.
Once Davy left, Ty once again found himself at a loss for what to say to Winnie. She hadn’t seemed to want to expound on her familial relationships, especially Taylor, and Ty scrambled to find something else to ask her. He didn’t want tonight’s date to be a repeat of some of his previous ones lately, where he’d sat there like a fool—mute, unable to come up with anything to start a conversation.
“Tell me how you learned sign language,” he said, because that seemed safe enough. “Is someone in your family deaf?”
“No,” Winnie said. “I just started taking it in junior high, and I loved it.” She reached for a straw and unwrapped it to put in her virgin cocktail. “I’ve always known I’d work in a service industry, and for a while, I thought I might be an interpreter.”
Ty reached for one of the honey whole wheat rolls and the regular salted butter. “Colt will be thrilled that his apple butter is here,” he said. “I’m going to take a picture of it for him.” He did that,and then he held up his phone and added, “Let me get a picture of you with your drink.”
She lifted it up to her face and wore the widest smile Ty had ever seen. He snapped a photo, something that felt so much like joy painting him from the inside out. He hadn’t felt this way in such a long time, he hardly knew what to do with it.
“Here’s the sausage polenta,” Davy said. “I can get a picture of the two of you, if you’d like.”
Ty’s heartbeat stuttered, and he wasn’t sure when he’d last taken a picture with a woman. But Winnie said, “Yeah, sure. You can use my phone.” She handed it to Davy, and then she folded her arms on the table in front of her and leaned forward.
Ty followed her lead, the scent of marinara meeting his nose. He hitched a smile to his face, hoping he didn’t look absolutely ridiculous.
“Right there,” Davy said, and then he lowered the phone. He handed it back to Winnie, who beamed her sunshine down at the screen. While she sighed over the photo, Ty scooped out some polenta and a few pieces of sliced sausage, put them on a plate, and pushed it in front of her.
“There you go, sweetheart,” he said.
“Look at us, Ty.” She ignored the food and got up. She came around the table and sank into a crouch at his knee. She held up her phone, but Ty could only look at her.
She exuded such joy, and Ty loved the light she put off. She looked up at him, and he quickly cleared his throat and looked at the photo on her phone. The sunset shone through the window behind them, and Ty looked happy enough while Winnie bore pure radiance.
“Send that to me, would you?” he asked.
“Of course.” Winnie did it right there, crouching at his side, and then she straightened and went back to her seat. “This looks amazing.” She got herself situated while Ty served himself some sausageand polenta, and he’d just speared some meat when she said, “Let’s taste it together on three, two, one.”
Ty put his bite in his mouth at the same time Winnie did, and the spice, tomatoes, and fatty salt hit him all at the same time. “Oh, yeah,” he said around the creamy polenta, with plenty of that sharp cheddar flavor in there.
“Mm, this is spicy,” Winnie said, and she chewed quickly, swallowed, and reached for her spritzer. She took two big gulps and then coughed. “Wow. How are you not coughing?”
In response, Ty forked up another bite of the spicy sausage, the creamy polenta, and swiped it through the marinara sauce. “It’sgood.” He popped the bite of food into his mouth as Winnie’s cheeks pinked up.
Winnie ran the tines of her fork through the polenta and ate a little bit of that, but she didn’t take another bite of the sausage. She picked up a chunk of brown bread and spread the polenta on that as if it were butter. “Let’s do the yes-no game.”
“The what now?”
She smiled at him. “I ask you something, and you can only say yes or no. Then you can ask me something.”
Ty hated games, but he didn’t have any amazing conversation topics. He supposed he could’ve asked more about her formal sign language training, but that ship seemed to have sailed. “All right,” he said, taking another bite of spicy sausage.
