“I want to try this again. For real,” I say.
He leans back. He tips my chin up, but I don’t have far to go to be eye level with him. “You sure?”
I nod. “Positive.” I bite my lip. “I mean, if you are.”
“Kendall,” he moans. Our lips find each other. It’s shock, comfort, and euphoria all rolled into one, the nerves in my lips singing like they’ve never been alive until now. Every cell in my body breathes a sigh of relief. He angles his head to deepen the kiss. He’s shaking, frantic, trembling as his hands run up and down my arms, squeezing intermittently as though he’s reassuring himself I’m real.
He breaks away. “I came to tell you I can’t stand my life without you. That I’m yours. I don’t know what else I was going to say other than that. I just hoped you’d be receptive.” His face softens when he glimpses my pained expression. “I’m serious. I’ve been a goddamn mess.”
“Well”—I touch his lips with my finger, which pinkened with our kissing, and let my hand trail down his collarbone—“I’ve been the same way.” My breath puffs in the cold air. “Did you have a big speech?”
“Yes, but it all went out the window when I saw you. It’s like you scramble my brain.” He grins. “I thought about singing to you, but Joan confirmed you would hate that.”
I shudder. “That was a good call. I don’t need you to humiliate yourself for me.”
“Who says my voice isn’t good?”
My breath turns visible with my huff of laughter. “Even if it is, I have a feeling you would hate being on display like that.”
“True.” He tips forward and hugs me again. His strong arms band around me, and I feel like nothing could ever be wrong as long as we stay like this. “You want to go get something to eat? If you’re ready to leave, that is?”
I tilt back again. “Let me make sure Joan’s okay to drive home solo. I don’t want to just ditch her.” I have a feeling she’ll be enthusiastic about this, but I don’t say that. “And then we’ll get out of here.”
“I know this isn’t the fanciest place in the world,” he says.
“It’s too bad I’m used to such fine dining, then,” I tell him. I smile, but a flash of memory arises, one involving Blaine and I eating leftover hot dogs from a concession stand when he worked at a ballpark early in high school. I’ve never been snobby about food, and I won’t start now. I’m always just happy to have it.
“It’s delicious.” He walks with me to the counter of the late-night diner so we can order. It’s one of those places with the track menu boards and block lettering featuring various fried foods. “So it’s got that going for it.”
We chat about nothing while we wait for our food. Once we have plates in front of us, he gives me a direct stare.
“Are we actually doing this?” he asks.
I take a bite of a hush puppy and look out the window. When I return my gaze to him, he’s waiting for my answer. His fingers grip his fork.
“We are,” I say. “I was being so stubborn. I can’t believe I almost let you go.”
His shoulders drop. The harsh lights of the diner illuminate the dark circles under his eyes.
“You just needed time. And that’s okay.”
“I did,” I say quietly. “I missed you so much. You have no idea.”
It’s not a huge admission—I mean, he knew that, right?—but his face changes, his eyes widening, and he bites his lip like he’s trying to keep himself from smiling. He rubs a hand over his jaw and then he does smile, a broad, open beam that snaps any last piece of resistance I’m hanging onto.
“That’s . . . interesting,” he says mildly, though his eyes crinkle at the corners. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this expression on him—delighted, carefree, and smug all at once.
I’m thinking of throwing a french fry at him, but I smile back instead. “I want to get to know you again. We can reset.”
“All right.” He crunches on a piece of ice from his drink, and for some reason it strikes me as adorable. I’ve got it bad if even his chewing is somehow cute. “So let’s start.” He leans forward, and his eyes sparkle. “I’m going to pose a question you posed to me before. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“Hmm.” I tap my foot against the tile floor. “I sang at a friend’s wedding once,” I tell him. His gaze is riveted on me. “Well, more of an acquaintance, really. She was a friend of one of my coworkers at the time. Drove all the way to Pikeville for the wedding. She paid me thirty bucks for singing, which is fine. I don’t do that kind of thing for the money. But then she left her husband three months later, and I get a call from her, asking for her thirty dollars back. I guess she sold her wedding dress and all that, and she was trying to recoup some of her investment.”
“No way.” Grant’s laugh lights me up inside, like there’s actual voltage flowing from him to me. “So what did you do?”
“What else could I do? I gave her the money back. It’s not like I’ve never been in need of thirty bucks.” I spear a piece ofhis macaroni, and he makes a show of hoarding it for himself. “Your turn.”
“So, we’re going low stakes.” He rubs his chin. “When I was in med school, one of my classmates had an affair with one of our professors. The professor’s wife showed up in class one day and screamed at him. Apparently, my classmate felt guilty and told her. It was a shitshow.”
