“How can I be a liberal when my father has a hedge fund?”
Just then, the door opened, and Lucas walked in on a rush of cold air. He wore a lumberjack coat, and his ears were pink from the cold. Something in the fine tilt of his head, the athletic way he carried himself—bulky and graceful at once—caught her eye and reminded her why she’d taken him to her bed last fall. They’d never finished what they started, had they?
“Yo, what up, Timmy?” she heard him say to the kid behind the counter. The kid smiled so hard his whole face stretched, and Kate saw that Lucas must be some kind of hometown hero. Figures.
Kate turned to Griff. “You’re off the hook, buddy. The guy who just walked in goes to Carlisle. I’ll get him to walk me back to Whipple.”
Griff looked pissed. If he didn’t want Kate walking home alone, he certainly didn’t want her going with that good-looking stranger. The Three Rs started pulling on their coats and hats and shuffling sideways to get out of the booth, taking a long time about it. Eventually, in his drug-addled state, Griff got carried along with the crowd. He waved to Kate wistfully as the door shut behind them.
Lucas sat down on a stool at the counter, waiting for his order. The townie kid had gone into the back to prepare it. Shecky’s was empty now; the two of them were the only customers in the joint. Kate carried the red plastic basket with her burger and fries over to the counter and sat down on the stool next to Lucas. He was flipping through the leaves of a coin-operated jukebox.
“So,” she said, barely glancing at him, as if they were continuing a conversation from a moment before. She picked up her Sheckyburger and took a bite. Mmmm. Maybe it was the weed, or the burger, or maybe it was the boy, because in that second, the planet turned on its axis and she felt like she was exactly where she was meant to be.
Lucas took a quarter from his pocket and put it down on the counter. “You like the Violent Femmes?”
She dabbed at her lips with a napkin and looked more closely at the writing inside the jukebox.
“I know that song. ‘Why can’t I get just one fuck,’ right? Is that supposed to be like my theme song?”
He laughed. “No, I just feel like hearing it. It’s an angry song. I’m an angry guy tonight.”
“Yeah, I tend to bust an attitude when the going gets tough, too. Makes me feel better,” she said.
“Exactly.” He looked at her in surprise, nodding. His eyes were beautiful, a rich brown flecked with gold.
“Anyway, I suppose it’s my own fault if you think I’m an easy lay,” she said.
“I don’t think that.”
“No? I took you home like five minutes after we met.”
He shrugged. “I went, didn’t I?”
“What, no double standard? Most guys think it’s okay for them to sleep around, but if girls do it, they’re sluts.”
His food still hadn’t arrived, so he took a French fry from her platter and dipped it in ketchup. “Maybe some girls. Not you.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged.
“I’ll tell you why not,” Kate said. “Because normal rules don’t apply to me.”
Lucas smiled. “You think highly of yourself.”
“Don’t you think highly of yourself?”
“Maybe.”
They gazed at each other, a challenge hanging in the air between them. The kid came out with Lucas’s burger. He stood there, looking from Lucas to Kate and back again, like he wanted to say something.
“Thanks, Timmy,” Lucas said, grabbing the platter from his hands. It was a dismissal. The kid shrugged and walked away.
“God, this music,” Kate said, flipping through the jukebox leaves. “Country Western and oldies. Shoot me.”
“I bet you listen to hip-hop, because you grew up on the streets,” he said.
She couldn’t decide if he was mocking her or flirting with her, or both, but she liked it.
“Hip-hop’s great,” she said. “You like Tupac? ‘I’m the rebel, cold as the devil, straight from the underground.’ The guy’s a friggin’ genius if you ask me.”
“He’s a criminal.”
“So what, they’re all criminals. Everyone’s a criminal, really. My father’s a criminal when you think about it.”
“Your father the trustee’s a criminal?”
“Oh, so you know who my father is?”
“Don’t act all modest. Everybody knows.”
“Well, he is. I mean, he breaks laws. I do, too.”
Lucas laughed. “How could I forget, rules don’t apply to you.”
“Like you don’t break laws? You never speed, or smoke a little weed on a Saturday night?” She picked up the quarter. “Pick a song, or I will.”
“All right.”
Lucas flipped a few more pages, then pressed the old-fashioned buttons, and Elvis Costello started singing “My Funny Valentine.”
“Good choice. Just right for the dead hour in the middle of the night,” she said.
“My favorite time of day,” he said.
“Mine, too.”
They finished their burgers in silence. By the time the song ended, their food was gone, and crumpled napkins filled the red baskets. The restaurant was quiet except for the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the whirring of the pie refrigerator. The white noise cast a cloak of intimacy over them. They turned toward each other at the same moment on the rotating stools, and their knees touched. Neither one of them moved away. Kate tossed her head and played with her hair, catching sight of herself in the mirrored backsplash behind the counter. She was flirting shamelessly, and for the first time in a long time, her heart was in it. She had butterflies in her stomach; her armpits were moist.
“Tell me a thing,” she said.
“What kind of thing?”
“Mmm, something I don’t know about you.”
She looked at him, waiting. He swirled the ice at the bottom of his glass and leaned back, pouring it into his mouth. He had one of those great jock necks, thick as a tree trunk. She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
“I used to come here all the time in high school,” he said, crunching the ice between his teeth. “After a game especially. Fuel up, you know. This place reminds me of that time. My team, my friends.”
“You sound nostalgic.”
“I am.”
“Aren’t you a little young for that?”
“Not really,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “See, it turns out I can’t play hockey anymore. I haven’t told anybody yet. I just found out. So, kick me, I’m sad tonight.”
“Why can’t you play hockey?”
“I had a lot of concussions. Just got another, and the doc says it’s my last. One more, and my brain might not recover.”
“So no hockey. Don’t you have other sports?”
“Yeah, football and lacrosse. I have to give those up, too. But hockey’s the one I care about.”
“Ah. The old Carlisle hockey obsession.”
Hockey ruled at Carlisle, which had the strongest team in the Ivies but was outclassed in football and many other sports by bigger schools like Harvard and Princeton.