She made a face. “I told you, I’m not big on fish or on Mexican food—except for nachos.”
He gave her a long, hard look. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, but plastic cheese sauce isn’t Mexican food. Nor is Taco Bell, which, knowing your teenage-boy eating tendencies, is probably what you are basing your judgment on.” She rolled her eyes even though he was pretty much right. She knew better than to get him on a discussion of Mexican food, which he considered God’s gift to the planet. “But to answer your question, there is a vast difference between a fresh brat and a hot dog—namely discernible meat. By the time those things are emulsified and processed, God only knows what you are eating.”
“Who cares? They taste good.” She dipped a fried potato wedge—cooked with bacon—in the weird ketchup and popped it in her mouth to emphasize her point and smiled.
He shook his head, apparently giving up on her lack of a palate. “Finish your fried chicken, Brittany, so we can go on more rides before the park closes.”
They’d spent the morning at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, and then they’d visited the National Museum of Denmark in the afternoon before walking to the famous Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world.
It was a magical place, and she hadn’t been surprised at all when John had told her Walt Disney had once visited and had used it as inspiration for Disneyland. The better word might be “modeled,” as there were so many parts of the park that looked a lot like the Anaheim theme park. They were eating dinner at the Biergarten restaurant that was next to the Bjergbanen Mountain Coaster, which bore a distinct resemblance to the Matterhorn Bobsleds.
“It’s not fried chicken,” she said. “It’s schnitzel.” Which was obviously much healthier. “And I’m not leaving without dessert. You can’t eat in an Austrian restaurant and not try the strudel.”
“Is that a rule?”
“If it’s not, it should be.”
He smiled. “For once, when it comes to food, we agree on something. Apple strudel is one of my favorites.”
She realized just how much of a favorite after he devoured his and then finished off the second half of hers. The chef, a seventy-plus-year-old Austrian woman, overheard him complimenting the waiter and came out to accept the praise in person. This precipitated a good ten-minute conversation about the proper way to make a true Viennese apple strudel.
“How does an American know so much about strudel?” the chef asked, her rosy cheeks dimpling.
He didn’t correct her assumption that they were American. “It was one my mother’s favorites.”
“Did she have family from Austria?”
Brittany suspected that the woman was getting ready to whisk him away if the answer was yes. Alas, Brittany wouldn’t be getting rid of him that easily. John shook his head. “No. Her family was Danish. They were from a town not far from here.”
Brittany stilled, her heart jamming in her chest. Was that why they were here? She’d thought they’d ended upin Copenhagen by chance, but had he picked it for a reason?
She stared at him. Almost as if he knew what she was thinking, he wouldn’t look in her direction.
It wasn’t until they were walking out of the restaurant that she asked him about it. “I was wondering how you knew so much about Copenhagen. Were you here before with your mom?”
He shook his head. “No. She never had the chance. But it was her dream to come here one day.” He smiled. “She used to read guidebooks cover to cover. We talked about doing a trip together after I graduated from SC.”
Brittany knew his mother hadn’t lived that long. She’d been diagnosed with a vicious form of breast cancer when John was a senior in high school. He’d missed so much school to stay by her bedside that he probably shouldn’t have graduated, but his teachers had taken pity on him. He’d passed, but barely.
His mom had died a few months after she was diagnosed. John had to live with his water polo coach and his coach’s wife for the remainder of his senior year, as he didn’t have any other immediate family.
Brittany had asked him about his father when he’d told her about his mom. It was the first time she’d ever seen him angry. He’d said his father was a selfish bastard and a walking cliché who’d left them to marry his twenty-two-year-old secretary when John was nine years old. He was on his fourth wife now and had three other kids whom John had never met.
He’d played his father’s abandonment and mother’s death off as no big deal, but Brittany knew otherwise. She knew what it was like to be orphaned at a young age. It must have been difficult to go off to college alone. What had he done during holidays? She’d at least had her aunt and uncle. And Brandon. Though they hadn’t seen much ofeach other in those days—or the days after—she’d always known he was there.
Brittany had never had the courage to ask John about where he’d gone during the off times during college, as she suspected he would think she felt sorry for him. Maybe he was right. But her heart had gone out to him anyway.
She’d been touched that he’d confided in her about his mom at all. As much as he talked and enjoyed being the center of attention, John actually didn’t say much about himself. That he’d shared something so personal with her meant something.
She suspected that despite his matter-of-fact, no-big-deal, everyone-has-shit-to-deal-with attitude, his mother’s death was a painful subject for him that he tried to block out or not think about at all. Maybe that was how he was able to move on—by pretending it didn’t happen.
In other words, she’d convinced herself that beneath the outwardly “no big deal” exterior, things did matter to him. His mom. Brandon and the other guys on the team. Her.
At least that’s what she’d thought until that day on the beach. But what if she’d been right in the beginning and he did care?
“Is this your first time here?” she asked.
He nodded.
