He stood and walking around to her side of the booth, ignoring the waitress that was headed their way, held his hand out to her.
“Let’s get out of here. The drive through burger place has those onion rings you like.” The smile that she gave him was worth everything that he had to give her.
She didn’t know it yet, but he really was nothing without her.
He took her through the drive thru getting her a burger and onion rings.
He loved watching her dive into her food. Even after a year being out from under that motherfucker’s thumb, she always acted like a little kid at Christmas, digging into the bag pulling out each item like it was the best thing that she had ever seen.
He drove them across town to an overlook that they had been to before and parked, grabbing the bag from her lap.
“Hey,” she cried out, her eyes following the food bag.
“Come on, little bird.” He chuckled, as he got out and walked around to the back of his truck.
“Hop up.” She looked around, then up to him. She looked like she was about to say something, but then she climbed up in the back.
He climbed up after her and sat down next to her, handing her back her food.
With the sun out and the cool breeze flowing through the air, the view out over the town and the small lake out in the distance, it all made for a peaceful setting. There wasn’t even anyone else there. It was a pretty well-known spot with the locals and today they really had gotten lucky.
He wasn’t paying attention to any of that though.
He was watching her.
She dug in the bag grabbing an onion ring, dipping it in her mustard, and he tried not to grimace.
“You know you can’t act like it’s disgusting, if you’ve never tried it,” she said, not even looking at him and he chuckled.
“Come on just one. Please!” She begged, holding a piece out from her fingers.
He had an image flash in his head of leaning forward and taking the bite, letting his fingers lick away the extra mustard.
He wouldn’t care if he hated the condiment or not.
It would have been the sweetest bite that he would have ever tasted.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he reached up and grabbed the piece popping it in his mouth. Trying not to grimace again.
“Ugh” He grabbed his coke and took a huge swallow, as she started laughing.
“I don’t know how you eat that shit,” he muttered, as he finished eating the rest of his burger. Crumbling the wrapper up and chucking it to the side as she folded hers and placed it back in the bag.
