“Fried foodshouldbe crispyandhot when you eat it,” he said. “I’m not going to back down on that.”
Lila Mae giggled. “You don’t have to. I’m sure we can find something you’ll approve of.”
“I was going to take you for Chinese,” he said. “It’s one of your favorites, and you haven’t had it since you moved here.”
“I’m sure they deliver,” she said, and she opened the Two Cents app, which had recently added food delivery. She hadn’t realized that it was a recommendation app that’d been expanding to include all kinds of other things, including community boards, a dating center, and now food and grocery delivery. Since she was new to town, she only knew the app as it existed now, not how it’d been before.
Trap had told her all about it, and he’d shown her pictures of Three Rivers before the two fifteen-story buildings had been built downtown. Everyone in town acted like they were huge and a nuisance, and Lila Mae didn’t dare tell him anything about Atlanta or Baltimore, where a fifteen-story building wasn’t even big.
“If you’re tired, you can take a nap until the food comes,” she said.
He once again shook his head. “I don’t want to waste my time with you sleeping.” He gazed at her with affection running through his expression. “Will you tell me a story from your childhood tonight?”
Lila Mae looked down at the Two Cents app, a vein of apprehension running through her. “All right,” she said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about family traditions because my parents’ anniversary is coming up, and we always celebrate it in a certain way.”
“Great,” Trap said. “I’d love to hear about it.” He smiled at her and stretched a little bit toward her. Lila Mae ducked her head and kissed him sweetly.
“Oh, Colt called about a cancellation for brunch tomorrow,” he said. “Do you want to go?”
“Yes,” Lila Mae said, instantly.
Trap kissed her again. “Great,” he said, his lips still practically on hers. “I told him we’d be there. It’s at nine a.m.”
Lila Mae groaned and then put both hands on either side of his face. “You committed us to a nine a.m. brunch?”
“They’re booked out for eight weeks, sweetheart.” He smiled at her. “Come on, you can get up.”
“I can, yes,” she said. “But it’s theweekend, Trap.”
“I don’t know how you sleep late on the weekend anyway,” he said. “I’m used to getting up at a certain time every day, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Monday or a Saturday.”
“Yes, well, we’re not all like you,” she said. “Sometimes when I’m really tired, I take a single sleeping pill, and that helps me go back to sleep in the morning.”
His eyes widened, and he searched her face. “You take sleeping pills?”
“Not all the time,” Lila Mae said.
“Is that safe?” he asked.
She frowned. “My mother takes them practically every day. Why wouldn’t it be safe?”
“I don’t know,” Trap said. “I don’t know anyone who takes sleeping pills all the time.”
Something bit through Lila Mae. “My mother’s taken pills every day of her life since I was old enough to know,” Lila Mae said. “Your momma doesn’t do that?”
“No,” Trap said.
Lila Mae frowned, because while they were still getting to know one another, they’d moved on from things like favorite colors and foods to deeper topics, which was why he’d asked her to tell him a story about her family. Their backgrounds were so completely different, and Lila Mae was once again reminded that his version of normal reality and hers weren’t anything alike.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Your momma hasn’t had any plastic surgery either.”
Trap shook his head slowly. “No, she hasn’t.”
“I think my momma had something fixed every year,” she said. “And she was always going in for some treatment with her eyes or lips.”
“Interesting,” Trap said, and Lila Mae really knew that was his way of acknowledging that he’d heard what she’d said but that he didn’t understand it. “Do you think you’ll be like that?”
“I don’t know,” Lila Mae said. “To me, it was normal. If there’s something about your body you don’t like, you just go get it fixed.”
