“We’d only had drinks. He had an appetizer, but I can’t eat that crap anyway. We were supposed to order the main meal right when you crashed.”
“Let me buy you dinner. It’s the least I can do for crashing your date.” I held my palms up. “I promise. No funny business. Just a friendly dinner between friends.” I winked. “Friends. That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
To my surprise, she agreed. “Yeah. Okay. But you’re not paying for me.”
“We’ll talk about it,” I said, knowing damn well I wouldn’t let her pay. “You wanna eat at that place or somewhere else?”
“Actually, there’s a Japanese restaurant around the corner I’ve been wanting to try.”
“Cool. Let’s go there, then.”
Since it was so close, Aspyn chose to meet me there while I found parking in the same area where she told me she’d parked her car.
Once I found a space, it was only a three-minute walk to Yamaguri House of Sushi. You had to go down a set of stairs to enter the restaurant in the basement. It was a cool little place with bright red wallpaper, relaxing lighting, and a large tank filled with tropical fish in the center of the room. We got a table in the corner. A small candle flickered between us as we opened our menus.
She sighed. “This is so much better.”
“Sitting across from me instead of Brian, you mean?” I smirked.
“Well, I was referring to the place, the food, the ambience… But I guess the company is a step up, too.”
“Unfortunately, considering who you were with, that’s not saying much.”
“True.” She giggled.
Okay. That fucking giggle? I could get high off it.
One step closer to making her scream.
Jesus.
Where did that come from?
My horny subconscious mind must have thought it could crash this party, too.
Ignoring the fact that my dick was having a field day, I casually asked, “You said you’ve never been here before?”
“It’s my first time. I love sushi. It’s one of the only restaurant foods I can eat without having to be a pain in the ass to the waiter, asking to modify everything.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what’s up with all of your dietary restrictions?”
“You probably just assumed I chose to be miserable, right? You know, bitter coffee girl and all?”
“I didn’t say that…” This time.
She took a sip of her water. “Let’s order first. The answer to your question is not a quick one.”
That had me curious. “Okay,” I said, perusing the menu.
I wasn’t typically a sushi guy. I liked my fish cooked. So, I opted for a chicken teriyaki dish. Aspyn asked for two orders of raw salmon and tuna wrapped in cucumber and a side of edamame.
After the waitress left with our menus, I crossed my arms. “Okay, so now tell me about your diet.”
“It’s not a diet,” she corrected. “It’s a way of life. And it has nothing to do with a need to be boring.”
“Tell me more.”
She exhaled, playing with the wrapper from her chopsticks. The skin on her neck reddened a bit. “A couple of years back, I started having all of these weird symptoms. At the time, I didn’t know if it was stress-related or if there was something more to it.”
My eyes narrowed. “What kind of symptoms?”
“Weakness, tingling, fatigue, some weird rashes that would come and go.”
“Okay…”
“The doctors ran a bunch of tests for things like MS, lupus, thyroid issues. Nothing came back definitive. They basically ruled those specific things out, but some autoimmune markers in my bloodwork were mildly elevated. So, they came to the conclusion that I have some form of autoimmune disease, not otherwise specified.”
“I’m sorry… I don’t know much about autoimmune diseases. How bad is that?”
My question probably sounded ignorant. But I genuinely knew nothing.
“Well, it can be bad if you can’t control the symptoms. I did a ton of research and found that there are autoimmune dietary protocols a lot of people swear by. But the only way they work is if you’re super strict in cutting out inflammatory foods.”
“So, like what types of things do you eliminate? I know sugar is one…”
“Gluten—so all bread and pasta, that kind of thing. Plus, all dairy and sugar.”
Damn.
“Is there anything left to eat?”
She laughed. “All fruits and vegetables, all meats and fish. And some non-gluten starches, like potato and rice.” She sighed. “It’s really not that bad once you get used to it. It’s mainly annoying when you go out to restaurants.”
“Or when assholes like me accuse you of being a bitter person because you don’t put sugar in your coffee.”
“Exactly.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, eating like that—how do you not shrivel up into nothing? Your body is healthy, and I mean that in the best of ways.”
“Nuts keep junk in the trunk.” She chuckled. “I eat lots of them. They’re healthy fats, along with things like avocado and full-fat coconut milk.”
“Got it.” I smiled. “So, how do you feel nowadays?”
“Honestly? I feel amazing. Better than I’ve ever felt, even before all of those symptoms started. Which is why I’m not willing to go back to the way I ate before. I tried reintroducing some of the old foods once just to experiment, and many of the symptoms came back.”
“That’s cool that you were able to figure this out on your own.”
“I feel lucky.”
“Thank you for explaining it to me. It makes total sense.” I lifted the green tea at the center of the table. “Can you have tea?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I drink it all the time, actually.”
I poured her a cup before doing the same for myself.
“Speaking of my eliminating bread and sugar…” she said. “I would imagine that’s particularly hard for you to fathom since your grandparents owned an Italian bakery growing up.”
“You knew about that, huh?”
“Yeah.” She smiled.
“Nonno and Nonna were legendary in Meadowbrook. He’d get up at 3 AM every day to head in to work and bake stuff. She’d follow him soon after. And they kept the place open till seven to catch the after-work crowd. So it was a long-ass day. They’d get home late every night. And I’d have a late dinner with them. Usually some kind of pasta.”
“Italians having pasta! You don’t say…” She teased.
“Imagine that?”
“Wait…” she said. “Did you live with them or your dad?”
“Both. We lived in a two-family house growing up. My father and I lived on the second floor, and my grandparents were downstairs. My dad worked a lot of night shifts at the fire department. There were times I was home alone and times when I was with my grandparents, but most nights ended with a late dinner and whatever bread needed to be taken home because it was too stale to sell at the bakery.”
“I visited that bakery a few times, but never knew who the owners were or that they were your grandparents.”
“If you had known in high school, you definitely would’ve stayed away, right?”
“Not if the cannoli was good.” She laughed.