“What about for the little lady?”
Ben looked me over. “Two eggs over medium, bacon, and coffee that’s more cream and sugar.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “That’s exactly what I order. How did you know that?”
Ben shrugged. “I just know you. I can’t explain it.”
“So,” Hilda said, handing us our coffee cups. “I ain’t never seen you with a girl, Ben. I thought this whole time you came in here every night to see me.” She cackled.
I laughed behind my hand and, inside, was bathing in relief. Ben was clearly a regular here, and he wasn’t stumbling in with a different girl every time.
“You come here every night?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine being able to keep a body like Ben’s eating stuff like this.
“Well, I come every night I have a gig in Charlotte. Which is a lot of nights.” He grinned, increasing those butterflies in my stomach. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for Hilda.”
I smiled, feeling giddy and alive.
“So,” Ben said. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I’m assuming the fiancé dumping wasn’t over cheating. And I assume you didn’t really call off an engagement over some cruise control situation. So what’s the deal?”
I took a sip of my coffee, feeling myself sobering—and waking—up. “He’s just not the one.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Obviously. That’s me.”
I was so fully and completely charmed by Ben. And, when I looked in his eyes, it was like I knew him too. Sitting across the table, I instinctively felt that I understood him better than anyone else ever would, that I could see what was inside of him. “So,” I said, taking my first bite of egg. “What’s your story?”
“I have a feeling,” Ben said, “that the only part of the story I’ll ever care about again is just beginning.”
“So this Waffle House late-night breakfast is the beginning of a Gabriel García Márquez–style love story?”
“God rest his soul,” we said in unison.
“That was pretty creepy,” Hilda interjected.
Ben laughed. “Love in the Time of Cholerais my all-time favorite book.”
I gasped, mid–bacon bite. “Shut. Up. Mine too. My grandmother and I read it every year. She says it’s a reminder of what true love should look like, of what you should find before you get married.”
“My mom says that exact same thing.” He paused. “Of course, she should’ve waited a little longer.”
“Why is that?”
“Because my dad cheated on her.”
“Oh no.” I shook my head. “So they’re divorced?”
Ben rolled his eyes and took another bite of waffle. “No. My mom’s a sex therapist who believes that sometimes sex is just sex.”
Even the word coming out of his mouth gave me those butterflies again. I shifted nervously in my seat as Ben smiled at me. I gave him a haughty look and said, “Just so you are aware. I’m not sleeping with you.”
He gave me an amused look. “You’re not?”
“No. I just met you, for heaven’s sake.”
He laughed, his fork in the air, mid-bite. “I know that, Annabelle. I told you: Iknowyou.” He shrugged. “But if you’ll come home with me—just to talk”—he put his hands up as if surrendering—“I promise I won’t put any of my irresistible moves on you.”
He wiggled his eyebrows, and we both burst out laughing.
Watching the sun rise usually made me feel sick, gave me that panicked feeling that it was day again and I had yet to go to sleep. But, watching it rise out of Ben’s bedroom window the next morning, after a night of talking until my throat was scratchy, my head resting heavily on his now contentedly beating heart, it made me feel unbelievably happy, as though the sun was rising on the first day of the rest of my life. I knew that, as improbable as it seemed, I had found my missing half in a bar, onstage, singing me love songs. Anyone over the age of twenty-two would have known for sure that a devilishly sexy, slightly dangerous musician would choose a new victim after every gig. But I knew when he looked at me that he saw the same thing I did when I looked at him: fire.
