He closes his menu and lays it on the table. “That might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I find that hard to believe considering I told you not three hours ago that I’m on a mission to deliver the human remains in my backpack to an elderly woman in Key West.”
Hollis’s arm reaches across the table and his long fingers flip my menu back open in front of me. “Figure out what you want,” he says.
I let out a huff of a sigh. Great. Another man who thinks he can make me more normal by telling me tosimply do the normal thingandisn’t that so easy. “Hollis. I just told you—”
“Figure out what you want,” he repeats. “And then tell me what it is. I’ll order for you so you don’t have to worry about panicking.”
“Oh,” I say. And there it is again. That kindness. A firefly-like ember of warmth flits around inside my rib cage.
“Don’t read into it. It’s only because I don’t want to hear you complaining for the next three hours about how you wish you’d ordered something different.”
“Right, of course,” I say, a smile stretching across my face. “You’re just being selfish again.”
“Yep.”
The menu is certainly eclectic. Like the focaccia and pico de gallo, everything is a hybrid of Mexican and Italian classics. My eyes keep returning to the appetizer section, where there’s a picture of fried ravioli arranged in a starburst pattern on a large red plate.Fried Ravioli Sampler: An assortment of cheese, chorizo, ground beef, and shredded chicken ravioli, fried golden brown, with a trio of dipping sauces.They look like a bunch of tiny empanadas, and I crave them with a burning passion.
“Fried ravioli sampler,” I announce, slapping my menu shut.
“Fried ravioli sampler it is.”
José brings my Shirley Temple. “I apologize for the wait,” he says. “I got a little carried away with the garnishes.”
He isn’t kidding; the glass he places in front of me has three of those tiny plastic swords protruding from the top, each speared with cherries and orange slices. It reminds me of when Mrs. Nash and I got tipsy on mai tais on New Year’s Eve and watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials on how to tie cherry stems with our tongues. She spent hours laughing at my vain attempts while she turned out perfect knot after perfect knot.
“Now,” José says, distracting me from the uncomfortable sensation the memory sparks—kind of like hundreds of those tiny plastic swords stabbing me repeatedly in the heart, “are there any questions I can answer for you?”
I’m tempted to ask him about the taxidermy bear’s provenance, but I assume he means questions regarding the menu.
“No, I think we’re ready,” Hollis says. “We’ll have a fried ravioli sampler and the fideo with meatballs. Brought out at the same time. Thanks.”
We hand our menus over to José, and he passes them along toMarco before he hurries to the kitchen. Marco stares at the menus in his hands and lets out the most teenagery sigh I’ve ever heard before plunking them on a random table.
“Thank you,” I say to Hollis.
He shrugs but doesn’t verbally respond.
I look around the restaurant. We’re the only customers here except for two men drinking and watching soccer at the big, U-shaped bar in the center of the room.
Hollis pushes up the sleeves of his hoodie and oh no, I can’t stop staring at his forearms. They look as if he writes his books by hand with a thirty-pound pencil. And they’ve got this dark brown hair all over them that reminds me of the bear out front, and now I can’t remember if I want my fingers in the bear’s mouth or in Hollis’s. He does have a really great mouth...
“Millicent,” he says, ducking his head into my field of vision. “Are you listening to me?”
My eyes jump to meet his. “Yeah, sorry. What?”
His lips do that thing where they curve only at the edge. “I said you should tell me more about Mrs. Nash and Elsie while we wait.”
That sure swats away the rest of my daydreams. My fists clench under the table, wishing they’d taken him up on his offer to let me do him minor bodily harm back at the gas station. For some reason, this man really makes my long-dormant bloodlust bubble to the surface. “Why? Why would I want to tell you more after the way you responded?”
“I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t my place to say those things.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“I promise I won’t let my—what did you call it? Lack of emotional fortitude?”
“I believe that is what I said, yes.”
