“You wore skates. Indoors. To an elementary school.”
“Commitment to the part.” He crunched a cracker. “Also, I didn’t think it through. Classic Pickle move. Act first, consider consequences never.”
I set the menu down between us.
“I should warn you,” Pickle said, “I’m bad at dates. Like, historically terrible. I talk too much and order the wrong thing. I once knocked an entire plate of spaghetti into someone’s lap because I was waving my hands about—I don’t even remember what. Penguins? Something about penguin mating rituals. It was a weird night.”
“Penguin mating rituals?”
“They give each other pebbles. As gifts. Isn’t that romantic?” He shrugged. “The guy didn’t agree. He drives a snowplow.”
“His loss.”
A grin flickered on Pickle’s face. “Anyway. Fair warning. I’ll probably say something weird. Or knock something over. Or—”
“I’m rusty, too,” I said. “I haven’t done this in a while. The last person I dated—it didn’t end well.”
Pickle watched me. The manic energy dimmed, replaced by something quieter. Attentive.
“How long?” he asked.
“Five years.”
An eyebrow rose. “Five years?”
“Give or take.”
Pickle leaned back against the booth and exhaled. “That’s a long time to be alone.”
“I’ve not been alone. I had work. Projects.” I picked up the menu.
“The Pad Thai,” I said. “You recommended it.”
Pickle accepted the deflection. I watched him decide to let it go and file it away for later, giving me room to breathe.
“The Pad Thai is transcendent,” he said. “Life-changing. Religious experience territory. The drunken noodles are also—” He kissed his fingers. “Mrs. Prasert puts crack in them. That’s the only explanation.”
“Crack?”
“Metaphorical crack. Flavor crack. The good kind.”
We ordered. Pad Thai for me, drunken noodles for him, spring rolls to share because Pickle insisted they were a moral imperative.
The food came fast, and for a while, we just ate. Pickle was right about the food. It was obscenely good.
“You have sauce on your chin,” Pickle said.
“So do you.”
“Yeah, but I warned you. I’m a disaster. You’re supposed to be the composed one.”
I wiped my chin with a napkin. He smiled at me again—a specific grin that seemed to generate its own light source. Under the table, his knee bumped mine.
Pickle set his fork down. “Can I ask you something?”
“That depends on what it is.”
“The guy. The one from five years ago.” He picked the fork up and twirled noodles on it, not quite looking at me. “What happened?”
