“Why?”
“He’s had a hard time finding a girl who can handle his energy, I think. He’s erratic and so full of ideas it’s annoying. A lot of women find it . . .”
“Unstable?” she ventured.
I laughed. “Definitely that.”
“Well, gossip around the town speaks highly of both of you, if you must know. Of the two of you, you’re the more mysterious.”
At that, I laughed harder. Pineville had always been very small. But then, we’d always given reasons for people to talk about us. “Good, I’m glad. And there are a lot of reasons I haven’t dated, but Stacey is the main one. And my parents’ divorce,” I tacked on with a grimace. “That hasn’t felt good.”
Lizbeth leaned back a little. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. If it’s easier for you, we can just call this lunch. Doesn’t have to be a date.”
“It’s a date,” I said immediately.
Lizbeth’s lips twitched. The bunched-up muscles in my neck relaxed. A waitress handed us plastic-covered menus, rattled off specials, and disappeared. I skimmed the menu, grateful for a few moments to recover my wits.
“Their butternut ravioli is amazing,” I said. “I’ve tried to mimic it, but I can’t.”
When I glanced up, she was cautiously eyeing her menu.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“No.” She waved a hand. “I just . . . had a weird experience with a date recently when we went to order.”
“Tyler?” I asked. She fought off a smile when I muttered, “Idiot,” under my breath.
“Anything else you recommend?” she asked.
We tossed favorites back and forth, unable to decide, until I set my menu down and said, “Let’s share. I’ll get the butternut ravioli, you get the chicken parm. I hear it’s breathtaking.”
Her gaze tapered. “But you’re vegetarian.”
Taken aback, I stared at her for a moment. “How did you know that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Must have come up in conversation at some point at the coffee shop, or something. I’ll get something we can really share.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can have some of the pasta. Mark says it’s the sauce that really makes it legendary.”
She smiled at me over her menu. “I want to.”
Stunned, I simply leaned back. When was the last time anyone had made a concession to my belief systems? Almost never. Point for Lizbeth, because that could almost be called romantic. After we ordered, she leaned forward. Strands of glimmering red hair tumbled onto her shoulders. I wondered how soft it felt.
“Tell me about your day,” she said.
“My day? Oh. Ah . . . I think Mark spoke with the contractors today. It’s official that he’s accepted—”
“No. Not about Mark. About your day.”
Stupidly, I had to pause for a second. Unzipping myself from Mark wasn’t a natural process, but I appreciated her calling it out so gently. “Right. Well . . . I’m trying out a new recipe.”
She brightened. “Oh?”
“Madeleines. They’re finicky, but delicious.”
“Have you always loved baking?” she asked.
Her question forced me to think. Did I enjoy baking? Yes. I enjoyed the challenge and precision of it, just like climbing. Not to mention a delicious and tangible end result. Most of all, I liked that it enabled me to live at Adventura and climb as much as I wanted. Climbing was the real queen here.
“I like baking.”
“Like.” Her eyebrows rose. “Not love?”
Ah, perceptive.
“There’s not much I truly love. I don’t apply the word as liberally as you,” I said with a quick wink. She smiled, but I sensed deep thought behind it. “I’ve only really concentrated on baking lately, though. Once I stopped traveling in a van and lived in one place long enough to focus.”
“You should sell everything you bake.”
I almost choked on my water. “Yeah.” I coughed. “Maybe one day.”
The conversation turned to her thoughts on working with Mark. My only regret was that I couldn’t hold her hand from across the table.
“Has it been weird for you to have me there all the time?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said.
There was a lot I left out. That it felt nice to have someone else around. That I didn’t mind having a grateful person to pamper a little bit, because Mark was like a black hole. We’d been together our whole lives and had fallen into our patterns, like rivets in rock. Water flowed easiest downhill. I couldn’t stop watching out for him, simply because it’s what I had always done.
But it felt nice to see a far more beautiful face at home.
The waitress set a plate of black bean enchiladas in front of Lizbeth and handed the butternut ravioli with a sage and brown butter sauce to me. As soon as the waitress disappeared, we swapped half of our portions.
“Thanks.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve never shared on a date before.”
“A travesty.”
“Can we swap something else?” she asked as she sliced into a piece of ravioli with the edge of her fork.
“Depends.”
“If I tell you what I think is romantic, will you tell me what happened with Stacey?”
Hearing Stacey’s name from Lizbeth’s lips sent a shudder through me. Did I want to revisit that day? Definitely not. But did I want to know what Lizbeth found romantic—since she obviously didn’t like rich guys who overflowed with all the stereotypical trappings of romance?
Definitely yes.
Full of thoughts I didn’t quite understand, I turned back to my ravioli. She gave me a little space to think. To weigh out whether I wanted to dredge this back up. I hadn’t spoken about Stacey in eight years.
But I had a feeling it would be worth it.
Finally, I looked at her and nodded. “Exchange accepted.”
Lizbeth grinned. “I’ll go first,” she said. “With a caveat. I don’t know if any of this is real.”
My eyes almost bugged out of my head. She didn’t know if romance was real?
Before I could clarify, she continued, “I mean, if I really find these things romantic. There have been a few times lately that should have
