But I couldn’t hear what she was going to say, because in that moment I began bawling. I bit my sleeve to stifle the sound, lest my manager, or Lucas, hear me, but this did very little. I looked up. Halie looked mortified.
“Oh, honey, no… no, you can’t do this to yourself, not this time.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, wiping my tears on my sleeve, although I was fairly certain I knew exactly what she meant.
“Passing up the good ones. Settling for the bad ones. Remember Daniel?”
I whimpered. “Fuck Daniel,” I whispered.
“Yeah, fuck Daniel! He did you dirty, and what’s worse, he wasn’t even cute! And from what you’ve told me, this guy is cute and rich? Come on, Nat! Do something nice for yourself for a change!”
Halie’s sermon ended, and I looked up from my moist sleeves. I smiled. “No, I know you’re right, you’re totally right. I’ll just… hear him out.”
“Exactly! Take it from there! And hey, even if it goes weird, or he ends up being a total douchebag, remember, you made it five years without him, and could make it another fifty if you wanted to.”
Wiping my face dry, I smiled. “Thanks for the pep talk, Halie.” Then, as I was about to exit the kitchen, “Ah! Menu!” I grabbed one and returned to the table where I’d left Lucas.
He looked at me and when he noticed my eyes were puffy, his demeanor softened, and he looked at me with genuine concern. “Natalie… are you alright?” His voice was so gentle, it was as if I were a baby, waiting to be cradled in his arms.
“I—yes, I’m fine. You just…”
“Surprised you?” Lucas asked, and I smiled despite myself—that he was invoking our past, that we were picking things up right where we had left them.
“Surprised,” I repeated, and nodded.
Lucas gestured toward the vacant seat across from him. “Join me?”
“I can’t, unfortunately, my shift’s about to end.” Then, realizing this meant the opposite of what I intended, I added, “and I have to rush home right after to—”
“Natalie, it’s alright, you don’t need to make an excuse.” My face grew hotter, and as if noticing this, he continued confidently. “I would like to see you again, though. Actually, scratch that, I would very much like to see you again, if that interests you. I have to be honest, I’ve thought about this, about you, about us running into one another, a great deal, maybe more than I care to admit. I didn’t know when, or where, or how, but I’ve always hoped for it. And I’m so glad that now it’s happened, especially while we’re still young,” he added with a subtle wink.
I froze. For whatever reason, the prospect of our relation extending beyond this moment was not one I had even stopped to consider. Of course he’d want to keep in touch, he wouldn’t have me blow him off twice. But then curiosity got the better of me.
“Lucas, how did you… find me?”
He raised an eyebrow, amused. “Find you? By fate, I suppose.” Then, after realizing how cliché this sounded, he added, “I have a vacation house… on Laguna Way. I just drove in for a little weekend getaway.” And then he smiled. “But maybe fate had something to do with it after all.”
He had another vacation house—and on Laguna Way, no less? Where was all this money coming from? Who was this man?
“Ah,” I managed. Then, realizing this was not an adequate response, I added, “I live in town, I mean, you probably already knew that, seeing as…” I gestured to my uniform, and he chuckled.
“Yes, indeed. Well, Miss Local, if you’d allow me the honor of taking you out some time, on a real date, or even just talking, you know, catching up, or anything, really, I’d love to give you my number.”
By this point I was by no means at peace, but I wasn’t agitated, either. Situations like these, which appeared too good to be true, always came with a catch. I didn’t suspect I had anything Lucas needed, but regardless I had to keep my wits about me. Then again, there was being open and there was being reckless, and what could be so reckless about giving Lucas my number?
And so I nodded. “I’d like that.” Then, I tore a piece of paper from my receipt book. “Here—I’ll give you mine, too.” I looked up at him. “So you don’t think I got cold feet again.”
At this he smiled, and it appeared to me he was not only happy but relieved. No doubt my reaction had been more aloof than he’d expected, but now I’d thrown him a bone.
I handed him the piece of paper with my number on it, along with another blank piece and a pen, and Lucas scrawled his number down almost compulsively before handing it back to me.
“To be continued,” he said.
“To be continued.”
And I walked away from Lucas—only this time, I knew our paths would cross again.
10