Rend (Riven 2)

It was the glass door of the brightly lit, chrome-clad, twenty-four-hour diner on the corner. I looked up at Rhys and narrowed my eyes in question.

“I love a diner,” he said simply. His low, rough voice curled around me. “You hungry?”

I shrugged. I was always vaguely hungry and never particularly inclined to do much about it.

“Well, I’m starving,” he said. “Keep me company?”

“I thought, uh . . . I thought we would . . .”

“Go have sex and never see each other again?” he finished.

“Basically.”

He nodded, and for a moment I thought he might turn and take me . . . wherever. But he shrugged and held out a hand to me instead.

“So, keep me company?”

And before I realized what I was doing, I slid my cold hand into his and let myself be led inside.

He apologized to the host for tracking in slush, was friendly to the waiter, and smiled easily at other diners. Was he for real?

I kept an eye on him while I scanned the menu, trying to decide what would be cheapest without drawing attention to its cheapness. What would be filling that I could stomach with the constant knot of anxiety in my gut.

When the waiter brought waters and dropped a handful of straws between us, Rhys said brightly, “Okay,” and then proceeded to order enough food for five people. Pancakes, eggs and hash browns, a burger and fries, cheesecake, onion rings, a chef salad, grilled cheese. He went on and on, and the waiter looked at him like she feared he might be pranking her. But he just smiled and thanked her, winking and saying he was famished and everything looked too good to choose.

“Can only afford to pick people up on dollar-drink night, huh?” I said when the waiter had left.

Rhys grinned at me and said, “Why didn’t you order anything? Won’t you be jealous looking at all my food?”

He was clearly teasing, but I felt very much like I didn’t quite get the joke. My first thought was that he could tell I was strapped and was trying to get me to take home leftovers, but it was so supremely unsubtle that I dismissed it.

And, whatever his intention, I’d felt the strangest freedom the moment I’d realized I wouldn’t have to decide what to order.

I wasn’t sure if he’d done it on purpose—how could he have known?—but he’d effectively removed the stressor I carried with me every minute: the fear that if I had to choose, I would choose wrong and something terrible would happen.

“What . . . are you doing?” I asked.

He bit his full lower lip, and for just a moment as he looked at me I saw something nervous and hopeful underneath his shiny confidence.

“I wanted to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with you, but I was worried you might turn me down, so I thought I’d go for all three at once,” he said.

I gaped at him. It was a ridiculously cheesy thing to say, especially since we’d only known each other for half an hour. But his expression was so open that I thought he might have actually meant it. I found myself smiling at him, and his eyes lit up.

The food came, dish after dish unloaded from the waiter’s huge tray, and Rhys tucked in. I hadn’t noticed how hungry I was before, but I started pulling food toward me because there seemed to be a real possibility he might eat it all before I got any.

“I think you must have a tapeworm,” I said after a few minutes of watching him. “You should really get checked out by a medical professional.”

Rhys threw his head back and laughed, a deep belly laugh so loud that people at nearby tables turned around to look at us. I just stared at him, but it had broken the ice.

After fifteen minutes or so, Rhys slowed down enough to actually converse.

“So, what do you do when you’re not hanging out in diners and bars?” Rhys asked, and I realized how little I ever talked with the men I picked up; how long it’d been since I’d talked with . . . anyone, really, beyond the logistics of rent money and utilities-splitting with my roommates.

“I got a new job a couple of months ago, actually,” I found myself telling Rhys, because his interest seemed genuine. “It’s a nonprofit that works with folks transitioning out of the foster system. Helps them get jobs, apply to college, learn a trade. Or sometimes we teach life skills.”

“Like what?”

“Like stuff that people usually learn by watching their parents but wouldn’t know if they bounced around a lot or were in a foster care facility. How to open a bank account or apply for a lease. How to get credit. Learn to drive, get a passport, apply for financial aid or a loan. That kind of thing.”