“That’s sweet,” Harper says. “You don’t want any?”
“Want any?” Mom shrieks. “Sugar, I’ve had more cookies than you can count. I’m hoping Arthur will get the hint soon that I’m all cookie-ed out.”
“Might have to agree to go out with him,” I joke, and Mom just rolls her eyes at me, the way she did when I was younger and in trouble.
“There will only ever be one man for me.”
After we are back in the car, Harper still has a smile on her face. “That was lovely,” she says, opening the tin. We both take a cookie, and eat in silence. I’m not ready to drive yet.
“She loves you,” I tell her after finishing the first cookie and reaching for another.
“She’s wonderful,” Harper says. “I don’t understand why you didn’t feel like you could tell me this is where you were. Where you’ve been coming.”
I take in a breath and let it out. “Mom is not the same as she was before Dad died,” I explain. “Sometimes she is the same, like today, but more often than not, that part of her slips. Her memory has gotten bad enough that she’s categorized as having fairly advanced dementia.”
“I’m so sorry,” Harper says.
“I am too. It’s hard seeing her that way. But like she said, Dad was it for her. They were so in love. That’s what I grew up around. The kind of love that goes soul-deep and floods back out, impossible to hide. That’s what I’ve always known as love. The standard I hold love to. And sometimes, I feel like it’s impossible to find. Like what they had was unobtainable.”
I eat my second cookie and dust my hands off. Then I realize Harper is simply staring at me, her eyes neither hard nor soft. “Do you still feel that way?” she asks.
“Like love is unobtainable?” I ask.
She nods.
I look at the building in front of us. The trees outside it. An elderly couple walking a dog. And then I look back at Harper. “I like to believe it’s not. Even if that belief has been hard from time to time. I really like to believe it’s not.”
She smiles subtly and bites her lip. Without thinking, I lean in and press my lips to hers. It’s warm and soft. When I pull back my heart is doing backflips in my chest, and the entire car seems to be full of static.
“Are you hungry?” I ask. “Because I think I owe you a date.”
Chapter 33
Asher
“Where…exactly…are we?” Harper asks as I put the car in park. I know what she’s thinking. It looks like I’ve brought her to an abandoned parking lot in the middle of nowhere in Golden, Colorado. Red flag for sure.
“Believe it or not, this is where I got a lot of the inspiration for my restaurants,” I tell her.
“No offence, but I don’t believe it,” she says, and I chuckle. I’m not surprised.
“Just trust me,” I say as we get out of the car.
“Okay Aladdin, but this better not be strike two,” she says. I had that coming, but this really isn’t a set up.
“I’m not sure if you were expecting something fancy,” I say as we walk around the corner. “But this really is some of the best food in the city. Maybe even the state.”
We approach a fenced area. It almost looks like a campground, but it’s legit. Dozens of food trucks are parked in a circle along with a circle of tables and chairs. In the middle is an outdoor micro-brewery run out of a shipping container. It’s an odd concept, but shipping container businesses have become very niche in American cities.
We walk between a couple of the trucks, and the scent of a million different foods hangs in the air. Music plays on speakers, and between the trucks are strings of lights, creating a little village.
“I didn’t even know this was here,” Harper says, her eyes dancing as she looks around.
“A lot of people don’t. Which is sad, because it really is some of the best food you’ll find in the state,” I tell her as we walk around.
“You got your inspiration from here?” she asks.
“I did,” I nod, shoving my hands in my pockets. Luckily, there are heat lamps and fire pits sprinkled around the area, creating a warm pocket on an otherwise freezing day. “I know it sounds crazy, but for these people, this is their whole life. Their passion. For a lot of restaurant owners, money and prestige are the drivers. Their goal is to have the coolest bar in the city or the most innovative restaurant that makes it into all the media. For these people, it started with a love for food, and a passion for cooking, baking, and curating.”
