“Christ on the Mount of Olivesis probably as close as he got, but that’s too heavy before lunch,” Adrian said.
“Love Olivia Rodrigo,” Tom said fervently. That worked another bright-white smile out of Caroline.
Adrian clenched his jaw. He didn’t think he could take over the lease if he left Tom in the dumpster behind their apartment. At his glare, Tom stuck out his tongue at Adrian.
On a Saturday, it didn’t take them long to make their way to the outskirts of the city and the cheerful box of the restaurant facing the river. The parking lot was nearly full though; this IHOP was popular. Adrian couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten at a chain restaurant of any kind. Nora wouldn’t have been caught dead in one, even if it might have been more appropriate to his budget than the kinds of places they usually ate at. That unhappy thought must have made its way to his face, because Adrian was startled out of his reverie by Caroline’s fingers wrapping around the inside of his bicep as they walked to therestaurant. He automatically flexed the muscle, then felt ridiculous.
“Pancakes always make me feel better after a hard day,” she told him soothingly. “They’re basically salt mixed with butter, and then you pour sugar on top. The perfect recovery food.”
Adrian gave a small laugh. “Who’d ever break up with you?”
Caroline’s mouth puckered like she was embarrassed. “You’d be surprised. Though I was talking about workouts, not breakups.”
She halted as soon as they entered the restaurant. It was crowded, filled mostly with students wearing pajama pants, sweatshirts, and the remnants of the previous night’s makeup. They were there in couples and in groups of up to half a dozen, splitting pots of coffee and breakfast combos with an air of cheerful post-dissolution. Caroline scanned the room, her smile fading.
“Do you see someone you know?” Adrian asked her.
“No,” she replied, letting go of his arm.
Adrian nearly asked her what was wrong, but Tom had already found a host and a booth. He waved at them from farther inside.
Tom was bouncing on the edge of his red vinyl seat, so Adrian had no choice but to slide in next to Caroline. He tried to slide, anyway—everything was vaguely sticky to the touch, either from cleaning product residue or (more likely) from the bottled corn syrup compotes set out on the table.
“We used to come here after performances when I was at Boston College,” Tom said, recollection softening his face. “Seven people crammed into someone’s tinycompact. This place smells likeRentto me. I think I performed ‘Seasons of Love’ on top of that booth over there.”
Adrian caught Caroline’s wistful expression as she followed what Tom was saying, deducing that she probably wished she were there with a carful of friends rather than a couple of men in their thirties. There wasn’t any reason why she shouldn’t be there with the other students. He embraced another stab of guilt that he’d let Caroline waste half her day with his problems already.
“What about you? Did you ever come here?” Caroline asked Adrian.
“Not that I can recall,” he said, picking up the menu. “But it was a long time ago.”
He gingerly flipped through the laminated pages of the novella-length menu.
Caroline leaned against him, looking over his shoulder. He ignored the soft press of her breast against his back.
“If you’ve never eaten here before, the pancakes are very good,” she told him.
“Thank you, I’ll take that under advisement,” he replied, squinting at the picture of the eggs Florentine and wondering whether he dared order them at this place.
She lightly shoved him with her shoulder, tucking her chin and looking up at him through blond eyelashes until he sighed and closed the menu.
“I believe I’ll try the pancakes,” he said, gesturing at one of the servers to come take their order.
As soon as that was accomplished, Caroline reached into her big yellow purse, pulled out a thin laptop and set it on the table. Adrian had not realized she was carrying around a computer with her, but the bag was large enoughthat she could have been carrying welding tools or a picnic lunch.
“Okay,” she said after a couple of minutes of fiddling with the screen. “You have pancakes. You’re halfway there. Now what you need is a business plan.”
“Pardon?” Adrian asked once he realized she was talking to him.
“You are going to feel so much better once you have pancakes and a business plan,” she said, bringing up a large, complex spreadsheet.
Adrian instinctively recoiled, but Caroline did not pay him any mind.
“This was my final exam one semester,” she said. “It’s a simple business model. We’ve got the balance sheet on this tab and the profit and loss on the other one. See? We’ll figure out how to get you back in the black.”
The spreadsheet was still titled “MegaCorp Widget Factory” and contained about twenty rows for everything from accounting expenses to utilities. Caroline had already changed some of the row titles to things like “Paintings Sold” and, very ambitiously, “Grants Awarded.”
Tom stifled a snicker at the look on Adrian’s face.
