Page 88 of The Sweetest Return

I wanted to know her again.

This time, I was not going to stand there quiet and proud while she waited for me to ask her to stay.

My stomach growled before I could get too deep with it.

That helped.

Room service sounded depressing, and I was too wired to sleep anyway. I pulled on dark jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black hoodie, added my chain, then grabbed my keys.

Mason’s.

If anywhere in Pittsburgh could make a man stop thinking for half an hour, it was Mason’s.

The diner sat close enough to campus that half of AWU had eaten there at some point, but it had belonged to me in a particular way before I ever brought Imani through the door. Freshman year, when football swallowed most of my schedule and the dining hall closed before I was finished with practice, Mason’s kept me fed. Burgers after late lifts. Fries after film. Pancakes when we had early workouts and I had no business eating pancakes. Ms. Jean had been there for all of it, calling me baby when I looked tired, greedy when I ordered too much, and “that handsome boy with the big legs” until I became old enough to tell her she needed to stop saying that in public.

She did not stop.

Then Imani became part of the place too.

The second time I ran into her, she had been outside the athletic center with too many books in her arms and irritation all over that pretty face. We had just beat Banneker State, and I was feeling myself enough to think two hundred twelve yards and three touchdowns should impress anybody with sense.

Imani had looked at me and asked, “Is that good?”

I should have known then.

Instead, I took her to Mason’s.

Ms. Jean served us in the back booth, side-eyeing me because she knew when I was trying harder than usual. Imani ordered fries and a strawberry shake, then dipped the fries into it like she had no respect for food groups, potatoes, or my opinion. I talked too much. She acted like she was only halfway entertained.

Then she laughed, and Mason’s stopped being only the place I went when I needed to eat.

It became ours too.

Maybe that was why I went there that night.

Maybe grease and fries could do what the shower couldn’t.

Late-night traffic moved easy through the city, and Mason’s old sign came into view a little after midnight, the windows fogged along the bottom and the parking lot half full.

The smell hit me as soon as I walked in.

Burgers, onions, grease, fries, and sugar from the shakes.

The black-and-white floor was still there. Same booths. Same old counter. Same framed AWU pennant hanging crooked behind the register because Ms. Jean had sworn for years she liked it that way.

A few heads turned. A younger dude near the register stared for half a second before giving me a nod, while an older man lifted two fingers from his coffee cup.

I took the booth in the back.

Ms. Jean appeared with her order pad tucked into her apron, a silver-streaked pixie framing her warm brown face and gold hoops glinting beneath the diner lights. Her lipstick was berry today, her glasses perched low on her nose, and the years had done nothing to soften the knowing look she turned on me. “Well, look what walked in here wearing all that money.”

I laughed. “How you doing, Ms. Jean?”

“Better than you, judging by that face.”

“What is wrong with my face?”

“A woman.”