The Player Next Door

Mom always loved a good greasy breakfast after a night of drinking. We came here dozens of times while I was growing up. But it was just a fun, fifties-style diner to grab a burger or a cheap plate of eggs and bacon and drop a few quarters into the old-time jukebox in the corner.

Then Shane and I had our first date, and everything changed. The memories tied to the Patty Shack changed. After we broke up, I couldn’t hear the chime of the door without thinking of him. And then I spotted Shane and Penelope sitting in a booth, hand in hand, and I stopped coming here.

“What’s so funny?” Shane asks, and I realize I’m smiling.

“Nothing. Just …” It’s easy to forget how consuming and volatile emotions can be at that age. When I was in the midst of that heartbreak, I couldn’t think of anything but Shane; I couldn’t imagine how I would ever move on. Looking back, it seems so melodramatic now. But my world was smaller, my experiences limited. “Didn’t we sit somewhere around here, that first night?” I ask casually.

“It was this booth. Why do you think I picked it?”

I know it was this booth, but I’m surprised he remembers.

He smiles through a sip of his Coke. “I told you, I remember a lot from that summer.”

“Like what?”

“Like …” His beautiful eyes drag over the diner’s tacky metal pendant light as he searches his thoughts. “That night, you didn’t know there was bacon on your burger until you bit into it and you looked like you were going to puke. Or cry.”

I laugh through a wince. “My anti-pork phase.” I’d watched a late-night documentary on pig slaughterhouses six months before that and had sworn off all support of the industry. “I’m over that.”

“I figured, given the full frying pan of it in your house that weekend.”

“That was more Justine’s doing.” She could be a bacon spokesperson for the amount of it she eats. “What else do you remember?”

“You loved Dr. Pepper.”

“Still do, but I’ve cut out soda.” I wave the glass of water to prove my point.

His gaze flickers to my fingers with the act. “You loved wearing black nail polish but you’d always pick at it.”

I groan, absently fumbling with my freshly manicured nails that I did myself last night. “Light as a Feather” the color is called—white, but with a gray undertone.

“And you get insanely competitive when you play Jenga.”

He’s referring to that night at Phil Moaz’s house, when it was pouring rain outside and someone had the bright idea to get into the games cupboard. “What was the point? They were all so drunk, they couldn’t stack the blocks right to start,” I declare with indignation, earning his laugh.

I like reminiscing with Shane about that summer, now that bitterness over the aftermath isn’t invading my every thought.

Does that mean I’m finally letting go?

He glances around us, checking the other tables. It’s Tuesday night—only three are occupied and none of them nearby. Still, he lowers his voice. “And I remember that cute little dress you were wearing on our first date.”

I frown, vaguely recalling the casual pale-pink floral sundress I’d settled on. It seemed perfect for the summer. “What about it?”

He reaches across the table and steals a fry from my plate, having finished his. “The material was so thin, I could see your panties through it.”

I gasp. “You could not!”

“Yeah, I could.” He grins devilishly. “They were dark. Navy blue or black, I couldn’t tell, but I made a bet with myself that they were black. I was hoping to find out.”

I can’t remember what color panties I was wearing that night. He could be lying. Something tells me he isn’t, though. “So, you’re telling me you were a pervert back then?”

“Then … now …” His grin widens. Beneath the table where his legs stretch out, his knee rubs against mine.

The simple contact sends a shiver running through my entire body. “And there you were, pretending you were the perfect gentleman.”

He shrugs. “Hey, I didn’t expect anything, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t hoping for it.”

I grab one more fry before I push my plate aside, my stomach full. “You never did find out.”

“No, I did not.” He laughs. “First time I’d gotten nothing more than a chaste good-night kiss since I was fifteen.”

“Were you disappointed?” I ask somberly.

“Not for a second. It gave me something to look forward to.” He wipes his face with his napkin and, finished with eating, folds his hands on the table in front of him.

I feel the impulse to reach across and collect his hands in mine. But I remind myself that we’re two old friends out for dinner, catching up on life. Friends don’t hold hands.

The server, a cute teenage girl with a fresh face and a long, brown ponytail, comes to collect our dishes. “Anything else?” she asks, her chocolate brown eyes lingering on Shane. She can’t be more than seventeen. Does thirty-year-old Shane have as much appeal for a girl her age as the seventeen-year-old version did?