“Anything but fish.”
He laughs. “Right. No fish.”
“How about homestyle cooking? Mac n’ cheese. Potatoes. Chicken fried steak.”
“You had me at the mac n’ cheese.”
“Mac n’ cheese it is then,” he says, eyeing our driver. “To Ruby’s please, Nelson.”
“Ruby’s it is, sir.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re at a wooden table, eating bread and drinking sweet tea, with our order already placed.
“You don’t live here, but you certainly seem to know how to choose the right spot for good food. The bread is delicious.”
“I’ve spent enough time here to know I don’t want to spend time here unless I’m eating.”
Our food is set in front of us, which for me is a dinner portion of mac n’ cheese, which is gigantic and bubbly with cheese. “It looks delicious.”
“It is,” the waitress assures me.
Kace smiles and he digs into his chicken fried steak while I do the same with my mac. We’re a couple of bites in when he catches my hand and stares down at the sunflower ring. “Girasoli, or sunflowers. The fields are filled with them in Tuscany. You’re Italian, aren’t you?”
“My father was Italian. My mother was American. He gave her the ring. They honeymooned in Tuscany.”
He settles my hand on the table, studying me a moment before he says. “They’re gone.”
“Yes.”
“As are mine,” he says, and rather than push me for answers, he offers his own. “My parents were killed in a plane crash twelve years ago. I was twenty-two. I wasn’t close to them, but there is something—” he hesitates, “safe about knowing your parents are alive.”
I stare down at the ring a moment, memories telling stories in my mind, knots in my belly as I look at him, as I offer my own answers. “There is. You’re right. But I was close to my parents. Very close. My father has been gone since I was eleven,” I say, hoping he won’t push for more and moving on to offer more about my mother for that very reason. And because this is Kace. I want to tell him. “My mother was mugged and killed in the city when I was eighteen. She was a merchandiser for Macy’s. She was only a few blocks from work when it happened.”
“And now it’s just you and Gio, and he’s missing.”
“I don’t know if he’s missing. The asshole just won’t communicate.”
His cellphone rings and he curses. “Sorry, baby.” He grabs it from the table to eye the number. “It’s Nix.” He declines the call and punches in a text message before he sets his cell back down. “I told him I’m here. That will be enough to calm him down.” He glances at my food, of which I haven’t touched much. “Eat. It’s a long flight out of here, though we’ll have snacks on the plane. Have you ever flown private?”
“Only commercial,” I say, picking up my fork. “Prior to my travels with you, I’ve been here and as you already know, to Italy. That’s it. Actually, Vegas, too, once when I was in college. Have I mentioned I fly in planes about as well as in choppers?”
He laughs and for the rest of our meal, I tell him about my freak-out over the air conditioning smoke in the plane on the flight to Vegas. “The flight attendant hated me by the time we landed. And I drank a Bloody Mary on the flight home and fell asleep. I think you might want to get me drunk on the way to Austin.”
“I’m sure I can find a way to keep your mind off the flight,” he says, mischief in his eyes.
“You’re bad.”
“I keep telling you that and here you are. You don’t listen.”
“I hear you. Every word. Every time you say it. In fact, you don’t get to keep saying it anymore. You are bad. You will make me run away. Spoken. Heard. No more warnings.”
He leans forward, close, his hand on my hand, and the room fades, the clink of glasses the sound of voices, gone, leaving only me and him. “Or else what?” he asks.
“Or else I’m going to think you want me to leave.”
“I don’t,” he says. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“And I don’t want to leave. Whatever it is you think—”
“I know. What I know is a problem.”
“Just tell me then. Put it behind us.”
“No,” he says. “No.” The words are steel, the air spiking with his shift of mood.
The waitress sets our check down, breaking the spell between us. I reach for my purse. Kace catches it in his hand. “Don’t even think about it.”
“You have spent so much money on me. Let me buy lunch.”
“No. I invited you. This weekend is on me.”
“Kace—”
“I have more money than I can ever spend. I choose, and want, to spend it on you.”
“Thank you, Kace.”
“I told you. It’s not your thanks I want.” The words are still hard, but he kisses the sunflower on my hand, and I have this sense of me being a sunflower, floating in a perfect blue sea of his making. I will eventually drown, but every moment before will be a perfect drink.