“Oh, um…” Chloe looks at me and I grip Enzo’s shoulder, sending flour residue into a small puff.
“We’ll take two classics, and a slice of the Devil’s Pizza.”
“Very good,” Enzo cheers. “Very good. Go sit, I’ll bring it out.” He waves us toward the back that’s full of empty tables. It’s too late for a pre-game dinner, but way too early for the drunk I-need-a-pizza-before-bed crowd.
“Friend of yours?” Chloe asks as she slides into the booth across from me.
“I’ve been coming here since freshman year. Sometimes I come with the guys after a night out. Sometimes I just come by myself on a random Tuesday.”
“The pizza’s that good?”
The people are.“Honestly, the pizza could suck, but I’d still show up. Enzo treated me right once when I was going through something...” I trail off, thinking back on the random day I found myself in here. I don’t even remember what was bothering me then, but I do remember Enzo talking to me. I’m sure he had some words of wisdom in that thick Italian accent of his. “Anyway, he’s got my loyalty now, and I make it a point to try and come in at least once a week.”
Chloe tilts her head, looking at me, but it’s the feeling of her actually seeing me that makes me look down at the table. Every time she looks at me it feel like she’s somehow crawled inside my chest and she’s seeing past the usual walls I put up, reading the parts no one else does.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other day.”
Her words make me pause, and I lift my eyes to hers.
“About loyalty not meaning anything to you. I knew it wasn’t true when I said it.”
“It’s no big,” I say with a shrug.
“No, it is.” She nods her head, and it seems more toconvince me than herself. “I was wrong, and even before tonight I could see that, and… you didn’t deserve what I said.”
For the first time that I can remember, I don’t have a witty response. Part of me is grateful that she sees me the way my family and the boys do. The other part of me is screaming at her to expect that for herself. How is it that everyone else sees me as this reckless, selfish commitment-phobe, yet Chloe can see the truth. And in the same breath, she can’t see that Nathan is exactly the kind of guy that everyone thinks I am.
Her eyes linger on me a moment longer, and I rub a hand across my chest, trying to push away the unfamiliar throb that comes from her words.
“What’s your favorite conspiracy?” she pipes up, breaking the ice.
“What?” I blink, completely caught off guard.
“Your favorite conspiracy theory. I think knowing that will tell me more about you than what your favorite color is or the name of your family pet growing up.”
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist.”
“I have two,” she says, ignoring me. “The first is about how J.P. Morgan orchestrated the Titanic sinking in an insurance scam.”
“And the other?”
She leans back in the red vinyl booth, the table giving a soft wobble when she shifts. “I think Jimmy Hoffa is buried under a parking lot at the old Tigers Stadium.”
I throw my head back, barking out a laugh that comes from deep in my chest.
“You laugh, but the Jimmy Hoffa rabbit hole is endless.”
“You’re gullible.” I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table.
“No. I just like to believe in things.” She shrugs, and almost immediately makes a face, like she’s said too much, or wishes she could take it back. She keeps her eyes on me, but Icatch the way her fingers curl around a napkin, quietly picking at the corners.
“What else do you believe in?”
“Astrology.”
“Of course you do.” I smirk, watching as she tucks one leg up underneath her in the booth.
“Well, maybe if everything I’ve ever read about my sign hadn’t been me to an exact T, then I wouldn’t, but it is.”
