“You guys live in the neighborhood?” Michelle had a bit of an English accent that had been flattened by many years living in the States.
“Yeah, we both live a few blocks from here. I had no idea this was your place until I saw your name on the menu.”
“Did I hear correctly that you’re making pastries for cats now?”
“Well, not just for cats, but I work at a cat café. You should come by sometime! It’s over on Whitman Street.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Michelle said, touching Brad’s shoulder. “Are you the one who ordered the toad-in-the-hole?”
“Guilty.”
“I hope my Yorkshire pudding is up to snuff. I know you have strong opinions about them.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” said Brad with a wink. “Aren’t you actuallyfromYorkshire?”
“I am! It’s delightful that you remembered.” Michelle smiled wide. “I gotta get back to the kitchen, but it was great seeing you. The crumpets are on the house.”
Once she and the waitress were gone, Lindsay was seething. She glared at Brad with her arms crossed.
“Are you going to murder me with your butter knife?” Brad asked.
“I’m thinking about putting the knife through your eye, yeah.”
Brad let out a breath. He’d been friendly with Michelle, but Lindsay couldn’t really be jealous, could she? He said, “All right. Lay it on me.”
She sighed. “No, whatever. Damage done. Nice of you to introduce me as your friend.”
Brad caught the snotty note in her tone and was irritated that she wasn’t really letting this go. “Now hang on a minute. How was I supposed to introduce you? Are we even together? Is this a date? Or did you just ask me to dinner because all your friends were busy and you didn’t want to eat alone?”
Lindsay’s eyes went wide and she looked chastened, so Brad guessed he’d hit the mark.
God, why was he trying this hard? He was tired of her scraps. Ever since they’d reconnected, Lindsay kept showing she was interested in getting back together, but she was too stubborn to admit it. And she was doing it to him again now. If they had any hope of making this work, she had to meet him in the middle. He couldn’t do all the work.
“Isthis a date?”
“Do you want it to be a date?”
Brad let out a breath. He’d ordered an appetizer that was a plate of Irish cheddar with house-made crackers and a little tub of apricot jam, so he spread some jam on a cracker and tasted it. It was very good, probably also house-made. He glared at Lindsay, irritated now.
“What do you want, Linds? Because I’ve made my feelings pretty clear, I thought.”
“You want it to be a date. You want us to be together.”
“I’ve wanted you back since the moment you walked out of my life, that’s true. But I also want you to trust me, and I want you to be willing to try to make this work. It can’t just be me doing all the work and hoping you’ll come around anymore. I’m… I’m tired of trying to prove myself to you, if I’m honest. Am I perfect? No. Will I fuck up sometimes? Probably. But you have to trust that at the end of the day, my priority is you—us.”
Lindsay stared at her appetizer—a chopped salad with bacon and crispy chickpeas—and then said, “Oh.”
“If we get back together, I’m going to talk to other women. And other men. And, yeah, I know a lot of chefs in this city. And probably I’ll flirt with people in all of those categories sometimes. But you have to trust that I will always choose you, always come home to you, and always be faithful toyou. If you don’t trust that, then I guess we have nothing else to talk about.”
He watched her wrestle with that, so at least he’d gotten through to her. He didn’t want to bail on dinner—he really wanted to try that Yorkshire pudding now—but he was feeling pretty steamed.
Lindsay started eating her salad, so Brad dove into the cheese plate.
The rest of dinner was tense. Brad figured Lindsay was thinking through what she wanted while she ate, so he didn’t push her. The Yorkshire puddingwasgood—fluffy and eggy and exactly what it was supposed to be—and the chicken sausage was a nice complement to it.
After a few minutes of silence, Brad said, “How’s the bangers and mash?”
“Good. Really good pork sausage. Nice snap to the casing.”
