“Who shuts a restaurant on a busy road in the middle of a Sunday afternoon?” Oliver adds. “That’s bad business practice.”
The kid at the counter tells me my order’s up before the stripper decides to argue back about his methodologies.
I grab the bag with one hand and Oliver’s hand with the other and tug him toward the door while the man in a full-fledged Sir Pollock costume grinds against the birthday girl with his codpiece.
“It’s gettingcodin here!” he crows.
I barely make it out of the door before I double over laughing. “I swear, I didn’t know,” I gasp out. “Didn’t—wouldn’t—never—gah.”
And I didn’t use the bathroom.
Didn’t use the bathroom, and now I have to pee, and I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe, and this isn’t gonna end well.
Oliver sighs.
He takes the bag of fish from me, then does something even worse for my bladder. Once again, he tosses me over his shoulder to head to the car.
This really will look like he’s kidnapping me if any of the birthday people look out at us.
Including the part where I’ve gone past normal laughing and into laughing so hard that I’m crying.
Oliver deposits me next to the passenger door. “Absolute chaos,” he mutters.
He doesn’t sound mad.
And I swear he’s smiling as he turns away from me, even if he’s totally straight-faced when he strides around the hood and grabs the driver’s door handle.
I scramble to open my own door as soon as he unlocks the car.
Pretty sure he’d leave me if I didn’t.
Maybe.
Probably.
Or maybe not.
He reaches into the bag, pulls out a fish fillet, grimaces, and hands it to me. “You eat this regularly?”
I’m still giggling and wiping my eyes with my free hand. “The grease makes it slide right through your digestive system. You’re gonna love it.”
There it is again.
The hint of a smile.
Is Oliver Cumberlandhaving fun?
Can’t be.
Whatever I thought was a smile disappears behind a wary grimace as he pulls another fish fillet out of the bag.
He sniffs it, which has me rolling again.
Who sniffs fried fish?
But I don’t say that out loud when he gives me another look before biting into the fish.
I simply watch him discover the beautiful, delicious horror that is Cod Pieces’ fried fish.
