“Regular,” she replies dryly.
His eyes dart to me. “What does that —”
“He’ll have herbal tea with lemon,” I say as I rip the menu out of his hands and hand it over. “Thank you, Ruth.”
She lets out a small grunt in response and walks away.
I can feel Oliver’s eyes on me, and I reluctantly slide my gaze back to meet his. He’s sporting an infuriatingly amused grin. I take a moment to imagine how good it’d feel to punch him in the face.
“What?” I snap.
He chuckles, and his levity has me clenching my jaw and crossing my arms as I lean into the booth.
“Come here often?”
I stare at him like he’s the stupidest idiot on earth. Because he just might be.
“I grew up here, remember? Anyway —” I immediately want to change the subject. “Shouldn’t you be in rehab? Or was thatalsoa lie?”
His nonchalant facade wavers, and he sighs.
“I checked out this week, I was there almost three months.” I catch the unspoken plea in his eyes as he leans his forearms on the table and clasps his hands together. “Look, Connie, I’m sorry … I really,reallyam.”
At the sound of his flimsy apology, I look away, laughing coldly as I tighten my arms across my chest.
“For what exactly? The cheating? You being a shitty boyfriend? Thepublichumiliation?”
Oliver is about to reply when Ruth comes back with our order. He pushes himself off the table, and we both give her a thin-lipped smile, mumbling our thank yous, the tense silence particularly stifling. As soon as she leaves, he leans back toward me.
“For everything,” he whispers harshly. “All of it.”
He tries to reach for my hand, now resting close to my coffee cup, but I quickly take it away. Exhaling slowly, he leans back into the booth and stares at me.
“I know there’s no excuse for what I did, but you have to believe me, Connie, I wasfucked up. I didn’t know what I was doing half of the time. I would never do anything to hurt you intentionally, youhaveto believe me.”
I scoff and pull out a sugar packet from the basket just for something to do with my hands. I give the packet a few hard snaps as I pin Oliver with my stare.
“Charming.” I rip the sugar packet open and dump it into my coffee. “A real fucking fairytale.”
I catch his eyes dipping to my coffee, then back up.
“Refined sugar?” he comments as if he can’t even help himself.
“Oh my god.” The words roll slowly and deliberately off my tongue as I look up to the ceiling, then I slam him with a death glare. “That’s rich coming from an addict.”
He squirms in his seat as he sucks on his teeth. I’ve clearly touched a nerve.
“Ex-addict,” he mumbles under his breath.
The conversation dies out as we both reach for our hot beverages. I addwholemilk to my coffee, and he squeezes lemon into his tea. The clink of the spoons hitting the sides of our cups fills the tense silence until, finally, Oliver speaks again.
“I love you, Connie.”
The words slice at my heart like a freshly sharpened scalpel. It feels like I’m bleeding out as I stare back at him, trying to keep my face as expressionless as possible.
When I speak, my voice is soft but shaky as I fight the familiar sting of unshed tears. “You have a cruel way of showing it.”
Oliver’s brown eyes turn mournful, and it’s the first time I see real hurt splashed across his face since we started speaking.
