Our food arrives, and I throw myself at my sandwich with orgasmic enthusiasm, eating my feelings with abandon. Jack pauses in the process of cutting up his pancakes and stares. My mouth is full, so I give him a defensive look. He suppresses a smile.
I chew, slowly, and narrow my eyes at him.
“Even though it wasn’t technically a fight, I still feel bad,” he finally says, around a bite of pancake. “Brawling,even with a sheet”—he stops my taunting in its tracks—“is not something I’m used to. I think the last time I hit anyone at all was in a college bar fight I didn’t start. That’s the Moth thing I mentioned. The scar on my chin.” He chews and looks contemplative. “Anyway, I don’t like the feeling.”
“I would’ve thought you brawled constantly with that mouth of yours.” I take another bite of Reuben.
“I’m big enough it doesn’t encourage a ton of that.” He dips his pancake into a little pool of syrup. “And I’ve always been more of a champion-the-underdog sort anyway. Bullies tend to back down pretty quickly.” He smirks. “Except you.”
I snort and swallow my food, wiping a strand of hair out of my face. “I’vebulliedyou? Because of you, I’ve had to redo at least twenty loads of laundry.”
“You put a gigantic purple dildo in the dryer with my whites. Do you know how awkward that conversation was with Gence? His wife was scandalized. Thing kept slamming up against the glass like a fucking sledgehammer.”
I snort-laugh. That trip to Velvet Whisper set me back ten bucks, and I never knew if that investment paid off.
“Laugh it up.”
“Whatever. At least I didn’t steal your underwear, pervert.”
Jack draws on his shake straw and stops. “That wasn’t me.”
“Right. Then who?”
“I have absolutely no clue, but I haven’t stolen any underwear.”
I absorb that, unsure of whether or not to believe him.
He sets down his shake, and the devil in Ms. Huff decides to dip one of my fries in it and scarf it down. The sweet-and-salty combo of French fry and milkshake is one of my childhood faves. At his look, I blush.
“Sorry. I should’ve asked before—”
He snatches a fry from my plate. “Didn’t know we were sharing is all.” He gamely dunks the fry in the shake, but his face shows he isn’t a fan.
I smile, about to tuck into my sandwich again when he lifts his milkshake and tips it in my direction, the straw not far from my mouth. The mood shifts, slowing until the drunken disorderliness around us becomes white noise. I open my mouth, lean forward, and wrap my lips around his straw. I watch him as I take a pull, sucking hard, feeling the milkshake cool and coat my tongue. There is a strange intimacy to this shared straw that sets my heart skittering around my chest for purchase. I sit back, running my tongue over my lips, watching him watching me.
I clear my throat. “Thank you,” I say, simply. His attention is fixed on me, his eyes unreadable, and I feel something shift inside me, creaky from disuse.
We grab the check and then walk back, the quiet and the dark reminding me a bit of our time on the hangar deck at the Vaughn party. But this silence is a lot more companionable.
“So, was this the worst date you’ve ever been on?” he asks suddenly.
“Didn’t realize we were on a date.” Jack doesn’t look at me, but I see his smile in the dim light. It fills me with a warm glow. “No. This wasn’t the worst.”
Jack gives a little laugh. “What was the worst?”
I blush, even in the dark. “It’s bad… Okay, so this was after college. Don’t judge me. I was wearing a booze bra…where you can smuggle booze into places, and it makes your boobs look bigger? I was broke! I didn’t want to assume he’d pay for me. And…I don’t know why, but I decided to get the biggest honking cup size they made. I was a little less secure in those days. To this day, I still don’t know how, but I sprang a leak in one of the cups. I was wearing white. The guy pretended not to notice, bless him, but between the cup differential and the— Stop laughing! Fine. What’s yours, then?”
“Worst date…besides this one?”
“Hmm.”
“Okay…worst date… None, actually. I’m pretty amazing.”
I push at him, but he doesn’t budge. He does chuckle, though.
“Fine. I went to dinner with this girl, and halfway through her entrée I mentioned something about it being tax day, and she freaked out because she hadn’t filed her taxes or an extension, insisted she had to go… I ended up going back to her place and doing them for her in QuickBooks.” He shrugs.
“Oof. You’re a fixer, huh?”
