Page 71 of The Perfect Rom-Com

A look of deep contempt comes over the face of our waiter, who has hitherto been standing over us.

Then, with an entirely different look, he turns to me. “Perhaps mademoiselle would care to start off with something a little nicer than ‘free bread rolls for the table,’ hmm? Perhaps our famous seven-hour beef tongue in a nice potato mousse with gravy?”

“Oh,” I say. Well. That’s quite honorable, isn’t it? He’s trying to save me. “Well . . . absolutely.” I nod emphatically. “Beef tongue sounds just lovely. Thank you very much.”

He gives a little bow to me. Pointedly ignores Jack. Moves off.

It’s not until he’s back inside that Jack addresses me, all while slathering up a roll with butter. “Are you happy? This is what you get when you sit like the queen of England. Beef tongue.”

“Dipped in potato mousse,” I add.

I look at the butter on his bread. He seems to be spreading on an extra layer. I bet it’s salted too. With honey. A nice, lathery honey. This seems like a lathery honey kind of establishment.

He slathers on some more butter and then sighs, handing it to me. “Here. Unless you’d rather I sneak the pathetic ‘free bread roll’ under the table to you?”

“That won’t be necessary,” I say, but snatch it quickly before the waiter comes back.

And the butter roll breaks the ice.

Somewhere between sampling the dinner rolls, prodding the beef tongue together like some science experiment, and eventually daring each other to try it (Jack fares far better than I do; it goes straight from my mouth to the napkin), we end up in the course of dinner as we always do.

Talking about work. Talking about the little noticed nothings of the day. Talking about bowling and wondering if our team misses us. (We text. They don’t.) It’s all just . . . normal.

I look into his eyes as he tells me about the latest news in his apartment hunt and . . . nothing.

He looks into my eyes as I give him bite-by-bite commentary on the tarte Bourdaloue and . . . nothing.

Now I sit back in my chair, stuffed to the gills, slouching and slightly regretting the after-dinner cappuccino sloshing around in my stomach as the waiter comes by with the bill and Jack lifts his hand to take it and . . . something.

Something.

All of a sudden I’m aware of my ankle so casually resting on his the past half hour beneath our tight quarters.

And the way his hand so casually reaches out with confidence and gathers up the bill for the both of us.

And the way he—oh my gosh, what is wrong with me?—holds his pen as his signature slides over the bottom of the bill.

And here I am, lounging like a couch potato, having gorged myself on words and food without another thought.

“You’re doing it again.”

Jack isn’t even looking up as he speaks. No, he’s snapping the pen shut. Setting it on the bill. Sliding it to the end of the table.

Then he looks up at me, and as our eyes lock, it’s like a hole has suddenly opened up beneath me and I’m dropped through the concrete.

It’s as though a current of electricity zips between us as our eyes lock. It feels so loud that people around us have to notice. Have to feel the change in the atmosphere.

And yet in my periphery nobody’s head is turning.

People are carrying on in their own conversations. Numb to the seismic shift between us.

A slight smile lifts his lips, and I feel a hundred more pings as it does. His eyes soften. He speaks softer. “You’re sitting like a telephone pole again.”

And there’s a slight tease in his voice. But also . . . something else. Something with more intimate force.

“Sometimes,” I say, “I wonder . . .”

I haven’t got anything left to say.