“Regular,” Helen said with a smile. “Cream, too, if you have it.”
The waitress put a handful of creamers on the table in front of Helen. “You know what you want?” the waitress asked like she really couldn’t give a shit. Micah loved it so much. He caught Helen smiling and loved that too.
“Garbage plates,” he said.
“Fries or home fries.”
“Home fries.”
“Macaroni salad?”
“Of course.”
“Cheeseburger, burger or Red Hots?”
He looked at Helen, trying to judge if she was a burger person or a hot dog person. “You’re not vegetarian are you?” he asked, which for some reason made her howl with laughter.
“A little late for that,” she said.
“One cheeseburger. One Red Hots,” he answered. “With everything.”
Their waitress grabbed the menus and left.
“Macaroni salad?”
“It’s weird, I’ll give you that. But the sweetness kind of rounds the whole thing out.”
She made an unbelieving noise in her throat. “You’ll see,” he said, stretching out his legs. His knees bumped hers and they both recoiled too hard, too fast. “Everyone loves garbage plates in the end.”
They fiddled with their coffee mugs. Adding milk and sugar and taking long sips and setting the cups down in just the right spot.
“Are you—”
“I should—”
They spoke at the same time and then laughed.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“I was just going to ask you—what happened tonight?”
“Why I got arrested?”
She nodded and sipped her coffee.
“That is a long and complicated story.” He gave her his most disarming grin, but she was not disarmed.
“Well, we’ve got a lot of time.”
Right.
“My brother and I went into a bar, for a beer.” He shrugged. “Some guy said something. My brother said something back. And here we are.”
She blinked at him and then laughed. “Where is your brother?”
“Jo gave him a ride back to White Plains.”
Her eyes went wide, and it reminded him so painfully of her at age fourteen that he had to look away. “But not you?”
“I was getting a ride in a cop car.”
“So why didn’t she stick around and bail you out? Or why didn’t your brother?”
“You’re getting mad on my behalf?” he asked, his lip curling in a smile. This was a rare treat.
“Someone should.”
Quickly, he looked out the window, recovering from words that hit far too close to home, aware of her green-eyed gaze seeing more of him than he’d expected.
“I would think for a guy who gets in trouble a lot, you might have a body man or something.”
“I used to, and I take umbrage to the phrase a lot. I get in trouble some. And a lot less than I used to. But it’s hard to lie low when you’ve got a guy with no neck following you around wherever you go.”
“So, there you are, lying low with your brother,” she said. “A guy at a bar says something. Your brother says something back and you’re the one arrested. Make it make sense, Micah.”
“Well,” he said, loving her smile. Loving the way she was all lit up on the other side of the booth. “First of all, my brother is fast. And he has no problem sacrificing me so he can get away. Once, when we were kids…well, he was a kid and I was old enough to know better, he ran his mouth off to, I swear, a hockey team. A good one. A big one. He says something about the goalie’s mother and I am trying to keep the rest of the team from pummeling him into mush, when I hear him running. I look over my shoulder and he’s a blur in the distance.”
“Did they pummel you to mush?”
“No. Broke my nose,” he touched the curved bridge of his nose. “I’m not as fast as my brother, but I was faster than those guys that day.”
“And tonight? You’re saying your brother ran away?”
“He doesn’t actually run anymore. He slips away because a lot of people don’t know who he is. He enjoys some relative peace and quiet with which to be mouthy. They get one look at me and a certain kind of asshole is, like, all right, I’m gonna get bragging rights forever.”
“And you fight them?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“Why don’t you walk away with your brother?”
“Have you ever been in a fight?” he asked, because she clearly didn’t understand the rules.
“No! I mean…once. Sort of. This girl in middle school thought I kissed her boyfriend at a party and she stood up in home room and threw this note at me. And the worst part was that it got all tangled in my hair…and I had to, like, try and fish it out. It was embarrassing and everyone was staring. But the note said Meet me after class. I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Did she mean to rhyme?”
“I’m going to go with no.”
“So, what?” he asked with a smile. “You didn’t go after school and it just blew over?”