The moment his eyes met mine, I spewed, “I’m sorry.”
At the same instant, he opened his mouth and said, “I’m sorry.”
A moment of surprise passed between us before we both smiled.
“I think I got mine out like a whole tenth of a second faster,” I said.
“Yeah, but I think I hit just the right balance of sincere meets apologetic, so let’s call it even.” He scooted out the chair beside him and motioned at it. “If you’re not scared to sit with the leper in the room, please.”
“Since when have I been scared of sitting next to you?” I brushed his shoulder with my hand on my way to the chair. He was still tense.
“Since never,” he said, resting his fork and knife on his plate. “And that’s what I always loved about you, Clara, or what’s made you so special to me. You didn’t care what anyone thought because you wanted to sit by me, or wanted to be my friend, or wanted to be my girlfriend. You had my back when everyone else was taking stabs at it, and I’m sorry I forgot that when I went off on you tonight. I know you’re not concerned with things like keeping to one’s own kind or not seeing someone who’s supposedly below or above you, so I’m sorry for accusing you of that earlier. Like I said this morning”—he thrust his thumb into his chest—“I’m a prick.”
I took a drink from the water glass in front of me, which had remained untouched tonight. Along with the other nine glasses circling the table. “No, you’re not a prick. At least not all the time. Just some of it.”
He shot me a disparaging smile before shoving a plate toward me. “I got you some crab legs. You know, as a kind of peace offering if you made your way over.” Then he scooted a not-so-small bowl beside the plate. “And I didn’t forget the butter, because I still remember the way your mouth dropped when I forgot it the first time.”
I studied the plate of crab and the bowl of butter in front of me. Something so simple, but it meant so much more given the context. Boone had been thinking about me, remembering what I liked and how I liked it. Fresh on the heels of an argument, he’d still thought to save me some food in the event I missed out.
I felt something tighten around my throat. Something that wasn’t the dreaded collar of The Thing. Something that felt a lot like an emotion I hadn’t felt in years, and one I wasn’t eager to feel again for the man who’d left me without an explanation.
“What are you doing over here all by yourself? Is it by choice or by circumstance?” I asked as he slid a drink in front of me too.
This one wasn’t a mojito like what Ford had brought me. I hated mojitos. Had Ford thought about it or asked me, he might have remembered, but Boone had remembered one of my favorite drinks from when I was a kid. It was my favorite even as an adult—Sprite with a splash of grenadine and two cherries.
“Both,” he answered, waving toward my dad, who was trying very hard to ignore the two of us sitting together. “You know, there’s that whole issue of your family hating me and me not feeling so fondly about them. Then there’s that whole thing about them holding onto a grudge better than they do the past, and let’s face it, when it comes to you and me, there’s no shortage of topics to hold grudges on, especially from a father’s perspective.”
I was in the middle of taking a sip of my drink when I shook my head. “Please, Boone. I can’t go back there. I can’t keep kicking at it.” I set the drink down, my eyes squeezing shut as I fought to keep the memories where they belonged—locked away. “I know it’s asking a lot, and given what happened between us, I know I don’t have a right to ask . . . but how would you feel about killing the past when it comes to you and me?” I forced myself to open my eyes and get on with the present, instead of fighting the past. When I did, I found Boone’s face looked similar to the way I guessed mine did—tortured. “I’m not sure I can get through the next five days with my family clinging to it in every conversation like we know they will. If we could check our baggage at the door and pretend we’ve just met and from this moment on is the only history we have, it would make things a lot easier.”
Boone searched my face for a moment, then he searched the room. Whatever he was looking for in these places, he seemed to find neither. “Are you asking or telling?”
“Asking.”
He nodded to himself, and when his eyes drifted back my way, there was something new in them. Something I didn’t recognize. This time when he searched my face, he seemed to find whatever answers he was looking for.