Several people turned to stare. Perhaps I had spoken too loudly.
'Yes, miss?" she asked, utterly confused.
“Can I have a menu?” I asked in a whisper. Both she and Whittaker just stared. The bread guy laughed and the water guy
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whacked the bread guy's leg. My face burned. “Oh. Sorry. Can I have a menu, please?”
Beth looked at Whittaker for direction. He smiled indulgently and nodded.
“One moment,” Beth said.
She smiled tightly, eyeing me as if I was a dog off the street, begging for a free meal. When she finally walked off again, I leaned in toward Whittaker.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh, no,” Whittaker said. “I like that you're so ... independent.”
“Because I want my own menu?” I asked, my shoulder muscles coiling slightly.
“It's just, this place is old school,” Whittaker told me. “Usually the man orders for the woman.”
“Well, that's archaic.”
“No. It's tradition,” Whittaker corrected.
I felt like a five-?year-?old. Instantly, resentment took over. I didn't want to be here. I didn't have to be here. He had some gall, talking down to me that way. Beth returned with my menu and I opened it without thanking her. I scanned the list of meals quickly and ruled most of them out because they either 1) contained seafood, to which I was allergic, or 2) were unpronounceable. I closed the menu and placed it on the table.
“Decided already?” Whittaker said, lifting his eyebrows.
“Yes.” My foot bounced up and down under the table.
“What would you like?” he asked.
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'You really need to know?" I snapped.
He blinked. “If I'm going to order for us, I do.”
“I can order for myself, thanks,” I said.
Whittaker let out an impatient sigh that curled my toes. He slowly lowered his menu and looked at me almost sternly over the flickering candles.
“Reed, at least let me order for you,” he said. “That's the way it's done here.”
I stared at him. What kind of guy was he? This was the way he wanted to spend his eighteenth birthday? At a restaurant so old school my grandfather would have felt out of place? I couldn't believe that this was his idea of a good time.
“Whittaker, can I ask you a question?” I said, leaning forward.
“Of course,” he said.
“Why are we here? Why aren't you out partying with Dash and Gage and those guys?” I said. “I'm sure they could have figured out something debaucherous for you to do tonight. I mean, isn't that what friends do on their friends' birthdays?”
Whittaker flinched ever so slightly and looked back down at his menu. He cleared his throat and made a big show of scanning the options. “Dash and Gage have . . . other things going on tonight,” he said. “And besides, I told you, you're the only person I want to spend my birthday with.”
In that moment it all became clear. It was a lie. All of it. It wasn't that he didn't want to hang out with Dash and Gage and Josh, but that they hadn't shown any interest in hanging out with him. For