"Casa Rodriguez. You ordered the spiciest thing on the menu and spent the entire night drinking milk." Her eyes light up with the memory, and she giggles slightly, her shoulders shaking. "I had to drive home because you were sweating so bad you couldn't see straight."
"I was trying to impress you." I firm up my gaze, but a smile slips through.
"You didn't need to try that hard. I was already impressed."
There it is—that thing that's hanging between us. The acknowledgment that what we had wasn't just some high school fling. It was real. It mattered. It still matters. I fucking hope we aren't divorced. I want to see where this goes. Even if we are, I'll just ask her to marry me again.
The waitress comes over, this tiny woman who looks like she could be somebody's grandmother but probably runs this place with an iron fist. "What can I get you folks to drink?"
"Corona for me," I say. "And whatever the lady wants."
"Margarita on the rocks, no salt," Cecily orders.
"Good choice, mija. You want to start with some queso?"
"Absolutely," Cecily answers before I can, and I grin at her enthusiasm.
When the waitress walks away, Cecily leans forward on her elbows. "So, Officer Carter, tell me about this new job of yours. You like being the guy who breaks up fights in the hallway?"
"It's more than that," I say, but I'm smiling. "Though I did have to separate two kids who were arguing about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie earlier today."
"It absolutely is."
"That's what I told them." I lean back in the booth, letting myself relax for the first time in weeks. "It's good, though. Working with kids, being part of the community. It's what I wanted when I came back."
"Is it what you expected?"
I think about it for a moment. "Yes and no. The job is what I thought it would be. Coming home..." I trail off, meeting her eyes. "That's been more complicated."
She nods, understanding without me having to spell it out. "Everything's changed."
"Not everything. It's just different than I expected it to be." The fact that we're still married is unspoken.
The waitress returns with our drinks and the queso, giving us a moment to step back from the edge of whatever we keep dancing around. We order our food—chicken fajitas for her, carnitas for me—and settle into easier conversation. She tells me about some of the characters she's dealt with in the ER, and I share stories about what I've done the last few years. The ones that aren't full of pain and danger, anyway. It's comfortable in a way I didn't expect, like we're remembering how to be friends before we were anything else.
"Remember when we used to talk about traveling?" Cecily asks, dipping a chip in the queso. "All those places we were going to see?"
"Still want to see them."
"Even after being deployed? I figured you'd had enough of foreign countries."
I shake my head. "That wasn't traveling. That was work. There's a difference between being somewhere because you have to be and being somewhere because you want to discover it."
"Where would you go first?"
"Italy. You always wanted to see Rome."
The fact that I remember surprises her. I can see it in the way her expression softens. "You remember that?"
"I remember everything, Cec." I say the words slowly and softly, hoping the reality of them hits her as much as it hits me.
That might be too much honesty for where we are right now, because she looks away, focusing on her drink. I'm about to change the subject when I catch sight of someone at a table across the restaurant. Blonde hair, sharp features, the kind of look that says she's got an attitude problem and isn't afraid to use it.
"Shit," I mutter under my breath.
"What?" Cecily follows my gaze and freezes when she sees what I'm looking at. "Is that…"
"Jenna Stevens. Yeah."
