I blink. “What’s up?”
“You tell me,” Nova replies, her smile soft and curious. “You’re not hearing a word I say.”
“Miss Nova, dear, I think I need to get the check now,” Mr. Hobbs calls out in his wobbly voice. “If I don’t stop eating now, I’ll have to undo the button on my trousers.”
Nova smiles at the kind old man. “Coming right up, Mr. Hobbs.”
I glance over my shoulder at Mr. Hobbs as Nova brings him the check and he hands her a ten dollar bill. I notice the small bundle of daisies wrapped in brown paper on the counter beside him. “Off to see your wife now?”
Mr. Hobbs raises his pale blue eyes to me, and they crinkle like tissue paper in the corners when he smiles. “You know my schedule as well as I do. Hoping to watch the sunset with her.”
Mr. Hobbs and his wife used to come in here every Wednesday because the special is unlimited lobster chowder with fresh baked garlic rolls and they both adored it. Two years ago Mrs. Hobbs was moved into a care facility because of her rapidly progressing bone cancer. He then came in for take-out so he could bring it to her. That went on for almost three months until she passed. And now, he comes in alone once a week, flowers in hand to take to her grave after he’s finished his meal.
“Be careful on your walk, Mr. Hobbs,” Nova says as she brings him his change.
The cemetery is two blocks from here and it’s all uphill. He gives her a grateful smile and leaves his change on the polished countertop with a wink.
“He is the sweetest man on the planet. And I miss seeing him help Mrs. Hobbs on with her coat and hold her hand while they walked in. And how he used to sit on the same side of the booth as her,” Nova gushes and sighs with a hand on her heart once Mr. Hobbs is out the door. She is a romantic. Like a Hallmark-movie-marathoning, Valentine’s-Day-celebrating, mistletoe-kissing, romance-novel-reading, hardcore romantic. And she married Declan, who I don’t even think can spell romance. So odd.
The swinging door that leads to the kitchen and separates the counter from the bar moves and Declan emerges from it. He’s wearing a crisp, navy suit with a light blue shirt and a checkered tie. He sticks out in his surroundings like a sore thumb. He glances at me. “Do I need to order a new one?”
“Nope,” I assure him and hold my breath while I flip a switch. The machine swirls to life and I grin, victorious once again. “There’s a little screw in the turning mechanism on the arm that’s end-of-life. I’ll text Dad and he can grab one at the hardware store.”
“Awesome,” Declan doesn’t grin so much as grimace and then he rubs his smooth, wide forehead again. “Now back to trying to teach Finn how to do the schedule. Do we know if Mom dropped him on his head as a kid? Or like if Logan accidentally absorbed his brain in the womb?”
“Be nice!” Nova commands.
“Do you want my help?” I ask because Declan and Finn fight like cats and dogs at the best of times.
“Didn’t Dad just drop you off after dialysis?” Declan asks and when I nod he replies, “Just chill. I can handle it.”
I give him a grateful smile and go back to working on the milkshake machine. I think about the way Jake looked at me in the fire station parking lot. Like I was perfect. No one has ever looked at me like that. Ever. I’ve always been the kid/girl/woman that was imperfect and I certainly never felt perfect. Lupus never lets you feel perfect. My senior year of high school I had hair loss so bad I took Rogaine and wore a wig to prom. Meds fixed that and it grew back. Sure it’s thin, but there are no bald spots anymore. I’ve had random rashes pop up on my face or hands since I was a pre-teen. They were hard to hide at times. The aches and internal pains no one could see kept me from feeling normal let alone perfect. So did the steroids I occasionally get prescribed that turn my face into a puffy pumpkin. And now the battered arms from the dialysis. Jake’s known me through all of that and he still looked at me like I was perfect last night.
A hand whips by my eyes. I blink and turn to find Nova right there again, laughing at me. “You left the building again mentally? What the hell has you so flighty?”
“I… Illumination Night… He…” With every stuttering word Nova’s thick, dark eyebrows inch higher and higher. I haven’t told a soul what happened but I suddenly need to desperately. So I put down the screw driver, walk over to the kitchen door and peek through the porthole type window in it. The kitchen staff is busy. Finn and Declan are nowhere in sight. “Jake kissed me.”
The second the words leave my lips I can actually feel the shock like a sonic boom emanating off Nova. “I’m sorry… what?”
“He kissed me,” I whisper it even lower than the first time and nervously tuck my hair behind my ears. “I mean, technically I kissed him first—accidentally—when he told me he was going to be my donor. But I didn’t mean it. Then he wanted this do-over for the time in high school he refused to kiss me and …hekissedme. And then we kissed each other again, later in the fire station parking lot.”
Nova’s eyes are enormous. “So was this like a peck on the cheek? Peck on the lips? Was there tongue? Every time?”
“No. No, and holy shit yes,” I whisper back and Nova gasps so loud I turn red and panic. My eyes dart to the kitchen door but no one rushes through it wondering what is going on. When I turn back around, Nova is standing there with both hands clamped over her gaping mouth. I shush her even though she’s not speaking.
“I’m still so confused, Sis,” Nova says after she finally unclamps the hands over her mouth. “What the heck is he trying to make up for? And how, exactly, does a person accidentally kiss someone?”
I explain what happened in the parking lot when he told me he was a match and then give her the details of that party oh so long ago. Nova has this frown on her face when I finish talking.
“Oh honey, You’re still the smartest Hawkins just not when it comes to your own heart,” Nova cups my face in her hands and grins. “Everyone thinks you two are like cats and dogs, oil and water, fire and ice, whatever silly analogy you can think of for opposites,” Nova says as she grabs the keys to the front door from under the cash register and walks over to lock it. “But I’ve always believed the other saying, where there is fighting there is fire. Opposites attract. Jake likes you. And you like Jake.”
“The expression is where there is smoke there is fire. Not where there is fighting,” I correct her. Nova always gets metaphors slightly wrong. It’s kind of her thing. The family calls them Nova-isms. She once told Declan, before he did the Boston marathon, to go at it balls to the wind instead of balls to the wall. Dad almost died laughing.
“Nah. I meant it the way I said it this time,” she says confidently, walking around the counter to flip the sign to closed on the restaurant door. “Look, if Jake didn’t find you attractive, he wouldn’t have kissed you. He would have just apologized. And you made out with him, not because he told you he was your match kidney-wise but because you know in your heart he’s always been your match on every other level too.”
My heart is racing and my skin feels hot because she’s right. Nova is one hundred percent right. “I do think that, but I always thought I had no chance.”
“You have a chance,” Nova replies with simple, solid confidence in her tone.
