A few minutes later we walk through the door of the Good Life, a café on the water that Matt says is my favorite.
The hostess gasps when she sees us and comes around from behind the podium. Hugs us both. “You two . . .” She shakes her head like she doesn’t know what to say. “I’m just so glad you’re okay.”
Behind her, a few people turn and look at us. Some lean into each other and whisper.
I try to pretend like I don’t notice.
“Thanks,” Matt says, shifting uncomfortably.
When I don’t say anything, it gets a little awkward.
“Well,” she says with a smile. “Let’s find you a table.” She starts to lead us back to the empty one near the window, but when people look up and watch us, she stops. “You know, it’s really nice on the patio. Would you rather sit out there today?”
I nod, wondering if I should know any of the people who all seem to be staring at us.
“That’d be great,” Matt says. “Thank you.”
Once we’re seated outside, on the empty patio, in the sun and salty fresh air, I feel like I can breathe a little easier. Across the table, Matt still looks a little tense, and I don’t know if it’s because of the people in the restaurant, or if it’s being here, alone with me.
I try to put him at ease. “So, is this what our first first date was like?”
He laughs. “A little, I guess.”
“How?”
“I was nervous. I’m pretty sure you were too.”
I nod. “How did it go?” I don’t say that Paige told me the story already. I want to hear how he remembers it.
Matt takes a drink of the water the busboy brought when we were seated. “Um, let’s see,” he says, leaning back in his chair a little. “I picked you up at your house. Before you came downstairs, your dad gave me the world’s scariest pre-date ‘talk,’ in his uniform, with his hand resting on his gun.” He laughs softly.
“I was nervous, so I didn’t eat anything. You ate a whole plate of lasagna while I talked and tried not to fidget.” He laughs at this. “I mean, it was a lot of lasagna. I’d never seen a girl eat that much. That sealed the deal right there, really.”
I try not to laugh. “Nervous eating, maybe?”
He shakes his head. “No. You just eat a lot. Always have.”
Now I can’t help but laugh. I know this is true. It’s a running joke in my family. “Fair enough. What else . . . ?”
“After that, we went for a walk on the pier, and I tried to impress you by telling you all the stories I could remember about the constellations.” He smiles. “Pretty sure I had them all mixed up, but you didn’t seem to notice.”
“And then?” I ask.
“And then I took you home.”
“Did we kiss?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
He shakes his head. Looks down at the table.
“Why not?”
He brings his eyes back up to meet mine. “I liked you too much to try that night. I didn’t want to rush anything.”
He looks out over the water, and in the tiny moment before he looks back at me, I feel something besides just nervous, and I hope Paige was right. Maybe it’s a spark. Maybe whatever we had is still here, hidden in all that emptiness.
“What else do you wanna know?” he asks when he looks back at me. “Ask me anything.”
I nod, and try to feel braver than I do. “When was our first kiss?” My cheeks feel hot almost instantaneously. I try not to look at his lips. Lips that I’ve kissed who knows how many times.
“I was hoping you’d ask me that,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because it’s one of my favorite stories.”
“Why?” I feel like a kid asking over and over, but now I’m even more curious to hear it from him. Maybe there’s something Paige left out that he remembers.
A slow smile spreads over his face. “Because you kissed me.”
He puts a hand up, like I might argue.
“And you always say it was the other way around, but it’s true. You kissed me the first time. At Paige’s house. We were all working on a project, and the power went out, and you asked me to go outside with you to see if it was the whole neighborhood.” He pauses, and looks right at me with those blue eyes of his, and smiles. “The entire town was dark, and it was freezing out, but you asked me to tell you about Cassiopeia again. And I started to, but then you got a little closer, and you turned and stood on your tiptoes, and you kissed me right there, on her front porch.”
“That’s not how Paige told it,” I say.
“That’s not how you tell it either, but that’s how it happened.” He smiles. “It was a bold move.”
I want to look away, but I keep my eyes on him, trying to picture it. Trying to picture myself doing something like that. “Did you . . . kiss me back at least?”
He laughs, looks down at the straw wrapper he’s twirling between his fingers. “Yeah. I did.” His eyes focus on something in the space between us, like he can see us standing there in his memory, and I wish, more than anything, that I could too.
“You were shivering,” he says, looking up. “But your lips were warm.” He pauses. Remembers something else. “They tasted like cinnamon gum and that vanilla lip gloss you used to always wear.”
As soon as he says it, I can see the little round tin of lip gloss with the vanilla ice cream cone on the lid. I gasp.
Matt raises hopeful eyebrows. “Liv? Did you—do you . . . ?”
He doesn’t say the word remember, but I know that’s what he’s hoping. I wish I could tell him that I do.
I shake my head. “No, I . . . I mean I remember it from before. I’ve used that lip gloss ever since middle school. It’s my favorite.”
“Mine too,” he says.
He looks at me now, and his smile fades the tiniest bit, and neither one of us knows what comes next. The quiet between us is so full with the things we don’t know how to say—that this is sad, and strange, and uncomfortable all at the same time.
“So,” I say, trying to get us back on track. “Apparently I have a summer job I’m going back to in a couple of days. Working at the Fuel Dock, with Sam?”
Matt smiles. “Yep. You actually really like that place—the boats, and all the different vacation people.”
“Do you work too?”
“Yeah. At the pool. I lifeguard and teach swim lessons.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After summer,” I say. “Are you going away somewhere to school?”
Matt looks taken aback. “Um . . .” He shifts in his chair, clears his throat. “We are—or were—going together.” He looks at me now. “To Cal Poly?”
Before I can answer, the waitress appears to take our orders.
“I heard you two sweeties were here,” she says, her voice warm and familiar, like she knows us. She puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It’s so good to see you’re okay—we were all so worried about you, I mean—that was such an ordeal you went through. It must’ve been just terrifying.”
I don’t tell her that I don’t remember it. Or her.
She brings her other hand to her chest and looks at Matt. “And to have it captured on video like that. Absolutely horrifying.”
“I . . .” I have no idea how to respond to this.