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“I loved it.”
“Do you still?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been back.”
“Why not?”
The obvious answer feels strange now that he’s asked me to say it aloud. “I didn’t have anyone to go with.”
Kell rests his forearms on the table. “You do now.”
He says it as if the problem has been solved. Maybe it has.
I take out my phone. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t even know what kind of food they serve.”
“You said you love it.”
“That is an alarming amount of trust.”
“You choose good food.”
“I chose the chicken.”
“You complained about the chicken.”
“Fair.”
By the time I make the reservation, I’m smiling. We settle on breakfast for dinner and for the rest of the evening, the idea of going back feels unexpectedly good. Not like replacing anything. Just reclaiming something I used to love.
The next night, when Kell and I walk through Bellafonte’s front doors, I’m still holding on to that feeling. The hostess’s attention catches on Kell for half a second before her professional smile returns. At a table near the windows, a woman turns to look twice. Neither reaction is rude, but I register both of them anyway.
The front windows still glow against the dark, and the hostess station is still tucked beneath the ridiculous chandelier Dave used to call the upside-down wedding cake. The dining room has the same dark wood, cream linens, low lights, and enough space between tables that nobody has to listen to anyone else’s marriage ending over dessert.
As soon as we step inside, old familiarity catches me off guard. Dave and I came through these doors so many times that my body seems to remember the routine before the rest of me does. His hand would settle at the small of my back while I gave the reservation name, and before we reached the table we’d already be discussing whether we were going to pretend to study the menu before ordering exactly what we always ordered.
Kell moves closer beside me. “You okay?”
“Yes.” I smooth a hand over the front of my dress. “It’s just been a while.”
He’s wearing the dark shirt we bought in Springfield with the black leather jacket he loved the moment he put it on. Against the fabric, the darker brown of his wicker looks rich rather than rustic, and the fine weave of his face catches the restaurant’s warm light. He looks so good beside me that I feel almost smug about bringing him here.
The hostess leads us to a table near the back. It isn’t the table Dave and I usually had, and the relief that brings is disproportionate enough that I decide not to examine it. Kell waits while I sit, then takes the chair across from me as the server places two menus on the table and tells us she’ll give us a few minutes.
For a while, everything is fine. Kell opens his menu and begins working his way down the page. He’s been learning to read steadily, enough that familiar labels and signs don’t slow him down much anymore. Short sentences take longer, but he’s proud when he gets through them without help. Rachel found him some adult literacy material, and he practices wherever he can, sounding out storefronts, street signs, the sides of trucks, and anything else with printed words.
A restaurant menu is another matter. Kell moves a fingertip beneath one line. “Roasted.” He pauses over the next word. “Cauli… cauliflower.”
“Right.”
He gives a pleased nod and continues into the description. “Hazel…”
“Hazelnuts,” I supply.
He repeats the word quietly, matching the sound to what’s printed, then moves down another line. “Gremolata?”
