“How nice of you, Gia! Well, you two, come on in. Sit anywhere you like, and I’ll let Bill know you’re here. He hasn’t stopped asking about you since Max brought you for a visit. Even though he knows as well as I do I haven’t seen the boy since then, either.”
Clucking her tongue with a playful roll of her eyes, she ushered us in fully before she disappeared into the back.
“Oh my god, that was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
With the back of her hand, she thwacked her forehead, then swooned like she might faint. I kept her upright, and she laughed before she followed me to the table. Odd sounds from behind me had me glancing over my shoulder.
I caught her fanning her eyes like she might cry.
“I can’t help it! It’s like you’re her daughter-in-law already.”
“Calm down, you nut. They’re both really sweet, but I don’t think Max gave them the impression he planned to propose.” A dark cloud formed over my head. “At least, not to me.”
“Well, it sure didn’t sound like she or this Bill fella have any idea what Max has been up to. That’s a good sign, at least.”
I slid into the last booth—Max’s booth—before I’d even registered choosing a table. My feet carried me there on instinct, like they’d done each time I’d come to the diner.
“Is it? I mean, I want to believe so, but what if he just hasn’t had time to share the good news with them?” I grumbled as I opened my menu, even though I didn’t need to look at it. “I could be making everything he’s done into something it’s not.”
From her seat across from me, Gia frowned. “True. I wanted to be optimistic while you have a lead, but it doesn’t seem like you’re there right now.”
“I guess I’m not. Maybe that’ll change after talking to Bill and Diane, but right now, I don’t know what to believe. And I don’t want to be hurt more, wishing for the best, when all the signs in front of me point out danger.”
Before Gia responded, Diane approached the table with Bill in tow. He pulled me up from my seat and straight into a hug. “Quinn! Oh, thank goodness. I’ve been worried sick.”
“You have? But why?”
He didn’t spare the dramatics, his voice lamenting. “Oh, that the stubborn fool ran you off because he wouldn’t take advice from an old man.”
I laughed and hugged him back, too touched to break the man’s heart by telling him the truth. “Not to worry, Bill. You taught him well. Max turned out to be quite the gentleman.”
He pulled back to search my face, not fully believing me or just pretending he didn’t, before he let out a dramatic sigh of relief. “Good. You two would be good for one another. An old man can tell these sorts of things, you know?”
“You’re not an old man.”
Diane swatted at his arm. “He’s also not the one who said that. But at least now I know he listens when I talk.”
Bill released me to give Diane a peck on the cheek, then urged me to sit back down.
I introduced him to Gia, who had hearts in her eyes over the way he had just treated me, and they chatted with us for a minute before Diane disappeared to make our milkshakes.
When Bill gave me a kiss on the cheek, coloring my face a deep crimson, Gia was smitten.
After he disappeared into the back, she began her new life’s mission: Getting them to adopt us.
“Gia, your parents are very much alive and really cool.”
She waved off my concern. “I know, I know. That’s why they’ll understand as soon as they meet Bill and Diane.”
I laughed, smiling ear to ear by the time Diane came back with our shakes. She took a seat beside Gia, who welcomed her in with open arms, and smiled at me from across the table, looking as happy as I suddenly felt.
“So, is our Max fellow off and up to no good?”
I shook my head as I sipped my milkshake. “All the guys had to set up for ourBonding Daytomorrow. It’s part of the fraternity thing he told you about. Since the girls got a day off, Gia picked me up and brought me here.”
“Well, you’re welcome anytime, of course. With or without Max. Although we so loved seeing the two of you together on the days you came to visit. Max is…” She waved her hand, as if pushing away what she’d been about to say.
“No, please tell me,” I urged her. “I love hearing your stories about him.”
