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He leans into my ear. “Stop building observational models about what you thinkI’lllike, and just be honest about—”
“Booth,” I grunt out. The hostess makes an obvious mental note to tell our waiter that I’m a weirdo, but her “If you’ll follow me” is impeccable.
“Excellent choice,” Jack murmurs while we weave toward the table, and all I can think of is that Two-Weeks-Ago-Elsie, bright-eyed and future-hopeful, sat in this very restaurant across from Jack and contemplated slipping under the table to power-drill his kneecaps. Tonight-Elsie gapes at him as he tells the waitress, “I’ll have your craft beer. And she’ll have the cheese board.”
I lift my eyebrow. “What happened tomeasking for what I want?”
“The cheese boardiswhat you want.”
It is. But. “How can you be so sure?”
“Ikagawa ordered it the other night. I saw the way you looked at it.”
“How’s that?”
“Like people look at porn.”
Laughter bubbles out of me. “Okay, you want me to be honest? I’m going to be honest.”
“Go for it.”
“Brutally honest.” I take a deep breath. Maybe it’s the booth, but it almost feels like we’re alone in his apartment again. Just the two of us. Intimate. “Sometimes, when I can’t sleep because I’m nervous, I look up cheese on Google Images and I just... scroll. I scroll infinitely. And I feel peace.”
“That’s nothing.” God, his dimple. “George’s entire YouTube history is pimple-popping videos.”
I snort a laugh into my water. “By the way—she mentioned you wouldn’t give her my number.”
Jack’s beer arrives. His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. “I had a very disturbing mental image.”
“What mental image?”
“Of George reminding me daily for the next few decades that she got to take out the girl I liked before I ever did.”
I laugh, picturing her starting her maid of honor speech with “Webster’s Dictionarydefinessloppy secondsas...” Then I realize who the bride would be in the wedding, and my face is suddenly cooked medium rare. Whoa.
“You look like that again.”
“Like what?”
“Worried.” He searches for words, like he’s not sure himself. “Vigilant. Overthinking.”
I play with the cloth napkin. “How can you always tell what’s in my head?”
“Same wayyoucan tell what’s in everyone’s head.”
I frown. “I just look. Try to pay attention to what people want.”
“That’s what I do. Except that I don’t care much about most people, but I can’t stop paying attention to you.” He shrugs. There is something so utterly, disarmingly honest about him. “So I look.”
Is it really that simple? Is that what’s happening here? “What am I thinking now?”
“You have questions.”
I laugh. “That was a softball.”
“It was. Just ask the questions.”
“They’re kind of...” I exhale a laugh. “They’re not really just-casually-getting-to-know-each-other questions. They’re not... normal.”
