“Yeah, Saturday,” I agreed. “We could grab lunch by the pier?”
Noah agreed, and we made our plans. We talked a little more. Noah was yawning every few sentences by the time we got off thephone, and I was fairly certain that I was getting the answer to the question that was asked of me.
Maybe I didn’t know if I wanted there to be something more between me and Noah, but I knew I wanted to find the answer to that question, and that was enough for me right now.
2
“Youknow,NewYorkhad a lot going for it, but it didn’t have this,” I mused as I took a bite of the grilled salmon I’d ordered.
“Salmon?” Matt asked with a raised eyebrow. His face was just as expressive now as it had been when we’d been in high school, and I could read the confusion on his features as clearly as if he had the wordconfusedscrawled across his forehead.
“They had salmon,” I corrected. “The salt air. I missed this.”
“I don’t think I could live anywhere that didn’t have it,” Matt mused. I could believe it.
For as long as I’d known him, I’d associated Matthew Bennett with water. Our first kiss had been on the beach, so close to the restaurant we were sitting at. He had a boat, probably one of the ones I could see from our table on the deck. I’d seen pictures of him as a toddler, taking his first steps on a different beach, further down the coast. He’d sent me pictures of him learning to surf when he went off to college in California. Even today, he picked a restaurant by the water for us to eat at.
Of course, I had no complaints about the restaurant choice. It was a newer seafood restaurant, one that hadn’t been in business when we were in high school. It wasn’t seeped in memory, unlike every other place in this town. I couldn’t even go to work without being bombarded with memories of Matt. It was where we’d connected for the first time, and it had been where we’d gone on our first date. We’d held hands for the first time by a painting I passed every day, and I could still feel how clammy his palm had been against mine. It was nice to have a place that wasn’t flooded in memories of what had once been.
It was a great reminder of the fact that things had changed, no matter how comfortable I felt hanging out with Matt. I’d even felt comfortable hanging out with his friends when he’d invited me to the bar after one of my Shakespeare in the Park performances a few weeks ago. They’d always gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable and included when Matt and I had been together in high school. They’d done the same thing when we’d hung out in the present day, drawing me into conversation and asking me questions about my life since high school.
They did tiptoe around the elephant in the room—my past relationship with Matt—but I think we were all doing that in a way. It was easier to be friends with someone when youweren’tthinking about the epic love story you’d once had with them.
I felt something nudge me under the table and realized, a moment too late, that it was Matt’s foot. When I looked at him across the table, I noticed a softness in his deep brown eyes as he studied me, a concern there that I’d seen a thousand times in our shared past. “You okay?” he asked softly.
“Just thinking,” I assured him. “This place is pretty nice.”
“You were thinking about the fact that this place is nice?”
“No, but I’m changing the subject,” I confessed with a laugh. “No need to go into all the weird places my head goes.”
“How’s your salmon? I haven’t had the salmon here yet.”
“Pretty good.” I took another bite and chewed it slowly. “How’s your pasta?”
“Amazing. Some people swear by Firelli’s for pasta, but their shrimp alfredo is so boring. Like yes, the sauce is good, but it’s generic. It’s basic. This one is seasoned better.” He paused his rapid-fire speech. “Want to try it?”
I nodded and watched as he carefully twirled pasta around his fork, using his spoon to keep it neat the way mynonna had shown him when we were younger. My eyes stayed trained on his hands as he speared a shrimp onto the tines of his fork. I caught myself leaning forward, ready to accept the bite the way I once would have, only to be slapped by the cold reality of the modern day by him passing the fork over to me. Because of course he would. This wasn’t a date. We weren’t dating anymore. We’d seen each other only a hand full of times since we’d broken up at the ripe old age of eighteen. There was no way he was going to be feeding me pasta.
What was wrong with me?
I took the offered bite. He was right. It was a lot better than Firelli’s, but then, the Italian restaurant had never been my favorite. I was raised in an Italian family. I could taste the difference between boxed pasta with mass produced sauce and the real deal. This was definitely boxed pasta, but the sauce was homemade and the seasoning? It was some kind of Cajun blend that had just the right amount of heat to be flavorful without burning my tongue. It was excellent.
“I’m ordering this next time,” I declared after I chewed and swallowed. I passed the fork back across the table to him. “Want to try my salmon?”
“Sure.” I repeated the process, and I noticed that he didn’t lean forward for me to feed him. Clearly, he was intelligent enough not to succumb to the waves of memory, but then, he’d alwaysbeen smarter than me. I watched as he chewed and swallowed. “Good, right?”
“For salmon. Still not my favorite fish.”
“Is it still cod?”
“Flounder, actually.”
I nodded.
We made small talk while we finished our food. When the check came, I was faster than Matt at pulling out my card and handing it to the server. Matt opened his mouth, like he was going to protest, but then shut it. That had to be a first.
“So, we’re near the boat,” he started as we left the restaurant, “if you wanted to see it again.”
