“Sure,” Nick said easily. “But let’s have dinner first.”
Without giving her the chance to object, he skidded through traffic, whipped down several narrow alleys, and finally pulled up at a bizarre building. Once again, he was out of his door and holding hers open for her before she could say anything, leaving her with no graceful alternative but to get out.
She stepped out of the car and stared incredulously upward. “What is that?”
Nick stated the obvious. “It’s a building with a giant fake hotdog wrapped in giant fake bacon on the roof.”
“And why does the building have a giant fake hotdog wrapped in giant fake bacon on the roof?”
“Because this is Big Bacon.” Grinning, Nick beckoned her to the order window, which overlooked the sidewalk. “You said you wanted to do American things. Big Bacon is as American as it gets.”
Raluca was certain that he was getting revenge for every cold look she’d given him. On the other hand, the one thing she’d heard about America was that it was big and full of big things. If anyone had told her about Big Bacon, she’d have thought they were teasing her. But there it was, with its looming giant fake hotdog.
Raluca was faced with a choice: go along and pretend this was all normal, or outright order Nick to take her to the hotel. Part of her wanted to push him around for a change. But she had said that she wanted to do American things. And despite her annoyance with him, his boyish grin was hard to resist.
In fact, she realized, right now and while they’d been having sex had been the only times when the anger and tension had completely gone from his face. She liked the way he looked now, teasing but not malicious. Playful.
I’ll go along with it, she decided. She couldn’t brin
g herself to wipe that smile off his face. Let’s see how far he’ll go.
After all, he’d have to eat at Big Bacon too.
Nick ordered for them both. It seemed that Big Bacon only served one item, and it was to be eaten standing right on the sidewalk. He watched her closely as the man in the window shoved their order at them. If anything, his grin was even wider.
Raluca couldn’t help but blink at the gigantic, bacon-wrapped sausage piled with condiments in colors not found in nature. Then, looking straight at Nick, she crammed the largest bite she could fit into her mouth.
His astonished stare made it all worthwhile.
You didn’t think I’d really eat it, did you? Raluca thought.
Swallowing, she announced, “Delicious.”
Nick blinked. “Really?”
“We have such things in Viorel.” Raluca determinedly ate another bite, then stared at Nick until he did too. “The concept of meat wrapped in meat is not unique to America, you know.”
“Well...” Nick laughed suddenly. If his smile changed his face, his laugh transformed it. Raluca wondered if she was catching a glimpse of the boy he had once been, before... Surely something had to have happened to him, to make him so angry. “Yeah, you got me, princess. Meat wrapped in meat. Fucking universal.”
“I’m not a princess any more. And please don’t say that word.” Then, seeing his smile begin to fade, she quickly added, “I once traded my lunch with that of my maid. She had a sausage wrapped in ham and baked into a bun. It’s peasant’s food, not the sort of thing ever served at the royal table. I was curious.”
“How was it?” Nick asked.
Honestly, Raluca said, “Far better than Big Bacon.”
“Yeah.” Nick tossed the remains of his meal in a trashcan. “You don’t have to finish it. Big Bacon is more of landmark than...”
Delicious, Raluca thought, gratefully discarding the rest of hers. It tasted primarily of chemicals. In fact, she was not entirely convinced that it was not made of plastic wrapped in plastic.
“...fine dining,” Nick finished. “I’ll take you to the hotel. You must be beat.”
By the time she’d figured out that he meant “tired,” it was too late to agree. Once he’d mentioned it, the exhaustion of the entire day came crashing down on her. She fell into something of a doze as he drove her to the hotel, took a duffel bag out of the trunk and got a bellboy to collect the shoe boxes and her bags, checked them both in, and then escorted her to the hotel shop and bought all the necessities that a guest might have forgotten to pack — toothpaste, a nightgown, a hairbrush.
“Thank you. I was so weary, I would have forgotten,” Raluca said.
“No problem.”
Nick escorted her to her two-bedroom, two bathroom suite. He put the bag down on one bed as she glanced around the rooms. It was an average five-star hotel, nothing special— Raluca had stayed at converted castles and palaces— but for a modern hotel, it was quite adequate.