“Very,” she says.
“You probably both need to sleep on it.”
“No.”
“Maybe—”
“No! Simon! He’s dating someone else.”
“Bastard,” Baz hisses.
“No,” Penny laughs. “He’s not a bastard, he’s just—” She looks up at me. “—not in love with me.” Her shoulders start shaking, and a second later, she’s crying. “I think it was all in my head, all along.”
“Buffalo Blasts?” A different waiter is at our table. Baz takes the plates, then waves the man away while he’s asking whether we need any ketchup or ranch dressing. Crowley, this burger is gorgeous. It has hash browns on it. Baz’s steak is so rare, it looks like strawberry jelly.
“It wasn’t all in your head,” I say. “He wrote you letters.”Are we eating,I wonder.Or is this too tragic for eating?
“We were pen pals,” Penny says.
“You Skyped. He told you he loved you, I’ve heard him.”
That makes her cry some more. “Well, apparently he didn’t mean it!” She picks up a Buffalo Blast and takes a big, tearful bite.(Hurrah—weareeating!)
“He said it was my fault,” she says with her mouth full, “that I didn’t want a real relationship. He said I just wanted to have a boyfriend, so that I could check it off and worry about more important things.”
Baz picks up his knife and fork, and carefully starts cutting his steak.
“I can see what you’re thinking, Basilton. I know you agree with him.”
“I don’t agree with him, Bunce.”
“But?”
“I don’t agree with him. And I don’t know anything about relationships.”
“But Ihadchecked him off,” she says. “I thought we were going to get married.” She’s crying hard now.
Baz drops his cutlery and swings over to Penny’s side of thetable, helping her set her Blast down, putting his arm around her. “Please don’t choke to death, Bunce. Imagine the humiliation of dying at The Cheesecake Factory.”
Penny turns in to his shoulder and cries some more. “Micah’s right,” she sobs. “I took him for granted.”
“Maybe,” Baz says, “but that doesn’t excuse what he did. He’s a coward.”
“He said it’s impossible to tell me something I don’t want to hear!”
Baz catches my eye, and we both grimace, because that’s absolutely true.
“I like that about you,” I offer.
“We all do,” Baz says. “If you weren’t relentless, the Mage and the Humdrum would still be a plague on the whole World of Mages.”
“But you wouldn’t want to date me,” she says.
“I wouldneverwant to date you,” he earnestly replies, “but it’s not because you’re muleheaded. That’s practically my type.”
“I’m such a fool, Baz!”
Baz rubs her back and lets her cry into his shirt. I love him so much, and I want to tell him so. But I’ve never managed to say it, and now is definitely not the time.
