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It could have been seconds, minutes, or hours.
Or forever.
She could stay in his arms forever.
“You make it impossible to walk away from you,” he murmured.
She smiled against his t-shirt. Beneath his regular scent, she caught a trace of sawdust he must have picked up at work. “You should stop trying.” Reluctantly, she pulled back, searching for the control she’d lost when his tongue tangled with hers. “I’m hungry.” The best idea occurred to her. “You ever been to the Majestic?”
Fifteen minutes later, they sat in a small booth. She had a Deluxe Burger with American cheese, and Brick got the Majestic Special.
She breathed in the comforting scents of the food and ran her hand reverently over the familiar vinyl seats. “I’ve loved this place since I was a kid.”
He took a bite of his burger and looked around the place, not quite skeptically, but clearly not seeing beneath the surface of its old-school diner charm.
But he would.
“My dad took me to lunch here for my eighth birthday.” She could still picture him as he looked then, so tall and healthy and strong. “We never told my mom he checked me out of school. He called it a father-daughter adventure.”
She gestured to the shiny red counter and the padded stools. “We sat right there, and he told me I could have anything I wanted. On the grown-up menu. I had a giant cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake.” She’d felt so big.
Dad had shared memories about all the times his father had taken him here as a kid. The restaurant was a legacy of Turner memories. “He told the entire place it was my birthday and they all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.”
He nodded, setting down his half-eaten sandwich.
“After Dad died—and later, my mom too—coming here helped heal me.” She hugged herself tightly, reliving the bear hugs her dad gave freely every day of her childhood.
“The Majestic is a hundred years old. It’s an institution.” It wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t changing. “I can still walk in twenty years from now and see the hanging lights or the vinyl booths. I can sit on the same stool where I sat with my dad, the table where I ate with Izzy after graduation.” She released her arms. “Or this booth, where I ate with you for the first time. It will all stay the same. Accessible forever.”
He dipped his head when she added the memory they were making now to her list of unforgettable moments. The way he’d watched her, transfixed during the story, made it clear he understood the significance.
The waitress stopped by and offered them refills.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and rearranged the ice cubes in his Coke with a straw. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here with me.”
“I enjoy being with you,” she said simply.
He said nothing, turning his attention back to his food.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Brick as he demolished his double-decker burger in a handful of efficient bites. She chewed hers slowly, savoring the juicy ground beef and the cool sweet tang of ketchup before she swallowed.
“Hey, Mister.” A little boy with curly carrot-colored hair and a striped shirt tugged on Brick’s sleeve. “Are you in WWE? You look like a Superstar.”
Brick smiled but didn’t show any teeth. “Nah, buddy. I’m not a Superstar.”
“But you’re so big.” The little boy’s eyes were wide. “I want to be big like you someday. Then nobody can ever be mean to me no more. I could beat ’em up first.”
“You’ll be big one day,” Brick assured him. “I’ll tell you how to do it if you make me a promise.”
The child nodded.
“The secret: you gotta practice lifting milk jugs filled with water above your head over and over again. You think you can try it? Lift ’em over and over until you can’t anymore. Then do it again the next day and the next, until one day it’s not even hard anymore.”
“Milk jugs are the secret?” The little boy bounced.
“Mmm hmm. But now, here’s your part of our deal. You’ve got to promise me when you get big, you use those muscles to protect people instead of pushing them around. A deal’s a deal.”
“Hey, Dad,” the kid yelled, already running off. “We got any milk at home?”
