“I guess we’ve already established that you wouldn’t date me though,” I say.
His brow lifts, tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Oh, we’re going to do this now?” He fails to hide a pouty smirk behind his beer bottle. As he sips, the crease under his lip deepens, and my insides start fizzing.
“Do what?”
“The thing where we pretend I rejected you.”
“You exactly rejected me,” I say.
“You said wait,” he challenges.
“Yes, and you apparently heard I’m going to tase you in the crotch.”
“You said it was a mistake,” he says. “Fervently.”
“You said that first!” I say.
He snorts. “We both know”—the woman between us has finally left, and Charlie slides onto her abandoned seat—“all that was for you was a checked box on your extremely depressing list, and that’s not a game I’m interested in playing, Nora.”
“Oh, please. You don’t even qualify for the list. You’re as city-person as it gets.” Immediately I regret saying it. I could’ve pretended the kiss was calculated; now he knows I just wanted it.
The way his beer bottle pauses against his parted lips, like I’ve caught him off guard, almost makes it worth it. Whatever game we are playing, I’ve won another round: the prize is his chagrined expression.
He sets his bottle down, scratches his eyebrow. “I’ll let you get back to your date.”
I check my phone. Libby has replied: Headed home. I won’t wait up for you. She had the audacity to include a winky face.
I look up, and Charlie’s watching me. “Is there a way out of here,” I ask, “that doesn’t take me past Blake?”
He studies me for a beat and says dryly, “Nora Stephens, MOM is not going to be happy with you.” Then he holds his hand out. “Back door.”
* * *
Charlie tugs me away through the crowd and behind the bar, and we duck through a narrow door into the kitchen, only to be immediately cut off.
“Hey! You can’t—” the pretty bartender cries, throwing her arms out to her sides. She clocks Charlie and flushes. Somehow it makes her even prettier.
“Amaya,” Charlie says. He’s gone a little more rigid, like he’s just remembered he has a body and every muscle in it has tightened reflexively.
I’ve been thinking of Amaya’s smile—and her tone with Charlie—as flirty, but that was before I knew their history. Now when that smile makes an appearance, I parse out shades of hurt and hesitancy, a wispy beam of hope shining through it all.
Charlie clears his throat, his fingers twitching around mine. Amaya’s gaze judders toward the motion, and just like that, my face is on fire too.
“We need the back door,” Charlie says, apologetic. “Blake Carlisle thinks he’s on a date with this woman.”
Her eyes flicker between us again. After a moment of weighing her options, she sighs and steps aside. “Just this once. We’re really not supposed to let anyone back here.”
“Thanks.” He nods, but doesn’t move for a second. Probably too stunned by the return of her brilliant, hopeful, I-still-love-you smile. “Thanks,” he says again, and leads the way through the door. Out in the alleyway, the air feels cool and dry, and with the sudden rush of oxygen to my brain, I remember to jerk my hand from his. “Well, that was awkward.”
“What?”
I cut him a glance. “Your jilted lover and her X-ray vision.”
“She wasn’t jilted. And as far as I know, she has no superpowers.”
“Well, maybe she wasn’t jilted,” I say, “but she’s hung up.”
“You’re misinformed,” he says.
“You’re clueless,” I say.
“Trust me,” he says, leading me to the cross street. “The way things ended left no room for hang-ups.”
“She looked haunted, Charlie.”
“She heard Blake Carlisle’s name,” he replies. “How else was she supposed to look?”
“So Blake has a reputation.”
“It’s a small town,” Charlie says. “Everyone has a reputation.”
“What’s yours?”
His gaze slices toward me, brow lifting and jaw muscles leaping. “Probably whatever you think it is.”
I look away before those eyes can swallow me whole.
A few people are smoking in front of Poppa Squat’s, a couple more shuffling toward an ivy-wrapped redbrick Italian restaurant, Giacomo’s. Until now, I haven’t seen it open.
Tonight, the windows are aglow, the awnings twinkling, servers in white dress shirts and black ties whizzing back and forth with trays of wineglasses and pastas.
I tip my chin toward Giacomo’s. “I thought that place was closed down.”
“It’s only open on Saturday and Sunday nights,” Charlie says. “The couple who run it retired a long time ago, but everyone talked them into keeping things going on the weekend.”
“You mean the whole town banded together to save a beloved establishment?” I prod. “Exactly like the trope?”
“Sure,” he says evenly, “or they showed up with pitchforks and demanded their weekly cacio e pepe.”
“Is it good?” I ask.
“Actually, it’s very good.” He hesitates for a moment. “Are you hungry?”
My stomach grumbles, and his mouth twitches. “Would you like to have dinner with me, Nora?” He heads off my response with, “As colleagues. Ones who can’t fulfill each other’s checklists.”
“I wasn’t aware you had a checklist,” I say.
“Of course I have a checklist.” His eyes glint in the dark. “What am I, an animal?”
14
WELL, IF IT isn’t young Charles Lastra!” An old woman with a pile of silvery-gray hair on top of her head and a dress whose neckline tops her chin comes toward us. “And you’ve brought a date! How lovely!”
Her hazel eyes twinkle as she gives Charlie and me both squeezes on the arm.
He looks downright adoring, by Charlie’s standards. Even Amaya didn’t get this smile. “How are you, Mrs. Struthers?”
She holds out her hands, gesturing to the bustling dining room. “Can’t complain. Just the two of you?”
When he nods, she takes us to a white-clothed table tucked against a window lined with candles dripping wax down wicker-wrapped wine bottles.
“You two enjoy.” She taps the table with a wink, then returns to the host stand.
The smell of fresh bread is thick and intoxicating, and within thirty seconds, a bottle of red wine appears on the table.
“Oh, we didn’t order that,” I tell the server, but he tips his head in Mrs. Struthers’s direction and hurries away.
Charlie looks up from the glass of wine he’s pouring for me. “She’s the owner. Also my favorite former substitute teacher. Gave me an Octavia Butler book that changed my life.”
My heart gives a strange flutter at the thought. I jut my chin toward the wine. “You have to drink all of that. I’ve already had two drinks, and I’m a lightweight.”
“Oh, I remember,” he teases, sliding my glass toward me, “but this is wine. It’s the grape juice of alcohol.”
I lean across the table, grabbing the bottle and tipping it over his glass until it’s full to the brim. As deadpan as ever, he hunches and slurps from the glass without lifting it.
I burst into laughter against my will, and he’s so visibly pleased it gives me a full-body twinge of pride. He wants to make me laugh.
“So how bad should I feel,” I ask, “about ditching Blake?”
Charlie leans back in his chair, his legs stretching out, grazing mine. “Well,” he says, “when we were in high school, he used to take my books out of my gym locker and put them in the toilet tank, so maybe a three out of ten?”
“Oh no.” I try to stifle a giggle, but I’m slaphappy, high on adrenaline from my escape.
“How many dates are left?” he asks. “On your Life-Ruining Vacation List.”
“Depends.” I take a sip. “How many more high school bullies did you have?”
His laugh is low and hoarse. It makes me think of the satisfying snap sound of a tennis racket delivering a perfect return.
His voice, his laugh, has a texture; it scrapes. I take another sip of wine to dull the thought, then switch back to water.