"Fogged windows."
Grace eats pancakes like she's training for something.
She attacks them—fork in fist, syrup applied with the generous hand of a woman who screamed for two straight hours and has earned every carbohydrate on that plate.
She's still wearing the face paint. Red and blue stripes, slightly smeared now, one cheek brighter than the other.
She also hasn't stopped looking between me and Jane with the subtle restraint of someone actively not commenting on a wildfire.
Jane sits across from me. Her coffee is between both hands. She hasn't taken a sip in four minutes.
I know this because I’ve looked at nothing else.
Twenty-one days. That's how long it's been since I had her in the same room. Since the casita. Since Anguilla. Since I watched her walk through an airport terminal and disappear into the plane—and felt something in my chest rearrange itself permanently.
It feels surreal. She’s now here. In Cedar Falls. Her hair still slightly wild from the wind outside, and the February light through the restaurant window hitting the side of her face in a way that makes basic cognitive function unreasonable.
"You're staring," Jane says, without looking up.
"I'm looking at you. There's a difference."
"The difference being?"
"Staring implies I'm going to stop."
Her eyes lift. The corner of her mouth moves—barely, the kind of almost-smile that takes her entire face from beautiful to devastating.
Grace, between bites. "This is so uncomfortable for me, just so you both know."
"Then eat faster," I say.
"I've been trying, can’t you tell?"
"You've been on those pancakes for six minutes."
"Because I'm also trying to savor them. Some of us appreciate things, West."
Jane hides her mouth behind her coffee cup. I catch the laugh anyway. It lands in my chest like a match strike.
The server refills my coffee. I don't taste it, My sensory processing has been permanently hijacked by the woman in the green coat who keeps not looking at me while being completely aware that I'm looking at her.
She knows.
She knows and she's letting me suffer.
Jane Cooper. Twenty-six. Professional fixer. The woman who blew up a billionaire wedding in eight days, dismantled my celibacy in less time, and is currently torturing me with the way she wraps both hands around a coffee mug.
I want to put my mouth on the inside of her wrist.
I want to ask her to say my name in the voice she uses at two in the morning on the phone when she thinks I can't tell she's been thinking about me.
Instead, I'm sitting in a bistro eating eggs I can't taste.
The mountain hash arrives for all three of us—without drama, without presentation, just the thing itself placed in front of you with the implicit understanding that it will be excellent and you should eat it.
It is excellent.
Grace makes a sound after the first bite of mountain hash that causes the couple at the adjacent table to look over. She doesn't notice or doesn't care.
