Olive Juice

“Do we need to pack some of this up to go?” she asked.

“In my experience,” Phillip said, “fish is never good reheated. No offense, please. Our eyes were apparently bigger than our stomachs.”

“It happens,” Melissa said with a jovial little laugh. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in any dessert?”

“No,” Phillip said.

“Coffee?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to clear the plates?”

“That would be fine, thank you.”

And she did just that. She was about to leave when she frowned and looked down at David. “Sir, I seemed to have grabbed a receipt. Was it something you needed?”

Sure enough, the receipt with Matteo’s phone number was stuck partially to the underside of the plate. For a brief, vicious moment, David thought about snagging it back, maybe even saving the number in his phone right in front of Phillip. Hell, maybe he’d even use it. Maybe he’d fuck the kid who apparently had a fetish for sad middle-aged men with a receding hairline and sunken eyes. Or maybe Matteo had thought he was doing his good deed for the day, hitting on the old fart, making him feel good about himself. The number was probably fake.

Even so.

Phillip wouldn’t know that.

He touched the ring in his pocket instead, underneath the table, where no one could see.

“No,” he said. “I don’t need it.”

Her smile widened as if it was the greatest thing she’d ever heard. Then she left.

He didn’t look back up at Phillip. The ring grounded him. God, Alice had been smiling so wide that day, her dress beautiful, and—

“This needs to stop,” Phillip finally said.

David thought about ignoring him.

Instead, he said, “What does?”

“This.” He sounded frustrated. “You. Existing like this. Like you have nothing else. Like everything was taken from you.”

It might as well have been, but David didn’t say that aloud. He wasn’t cruel. At least not anymore. “I don’t know how else to be,” he said, admitting more than he wanted to. “This is all I’ve got right now. I’m sorry if that’s not enough for you.” Okay, yeah, maybe a little cruel.

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“David.”

“I wasn’t the one who texted you,” David said, wondering when he’d been backed into this corner. He felt his hackles rise, like he needed to lash out. Like he needed to scratch and bite and draw blood until Phillip backed away. “I mean—I didn’t try and—”

“No,” Phillip said. “You didn’t. That was me. And I meant it, buddy.”

I want to see you.

“Why?” David asked. “Why do you even—”

“Why?” Phillip asked, sounding incredulous. And here it was, the anger that he hadn’t ever wanted to see again. “You really have to ask me why?”

Which, okay. That probably hadn’t been the best question to ask. But while it hadn’t exactly been radio silence between them, it hadn’t been like this. David’s days were regimented: get up, eat breakfast, don’t drink, go online, check the website’s e-mail to see if any tips had come in, get to work, break for lunch even though he didn’t eat anything, check the e-mail again, go back to work, finish for the day, make dinner, check the e-mail for the last time, scour the Internet for anything remotely similar to Alice’s disappearance (and hadn’t that been a rabbit hole the first couple of years because just how many people disappeared without a trace every year? A staggering number as it had turned out, and only a small percentage of them were ever found), and then go to bed. The next day, it would start all over again. Mondays were the only days that were ever any different, because those were the days he’d call Detective Harper at three on the dot. She’d say, “Detective Harper,” and he’d say, “Hi, it’s David,” and she’d say, “Hey, David, how are you?” like they were just shooting the shit.