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Esther wobbled on her stool as she shifted to face him more. “How much older is she?”
“Four years. And Rachel is four years older than Sarah. My parents wanted us well spaced out.” A shadow passed across his face, as it always did at the mention of his parents.
“I’ll bet your sisters mothered you a lot.”
“You bet right.” His knee was jiggling under the counter, like he was restless. Or bored. “What about your brother? How much older is he?”
“Three years.”
“Did he try to parent you?”
“We kind of parented each other. It was always me and Eric against the world. Until he left for college, and then I was mostly on my own.”
Jonathan’s eyes softened behind his glasses. “That must have been hard.”
Esther shrugged, regretting the conversational path she’d chosen. “I was used to fending for myself by then. It’s kind of funny—you basically grew up with three mothers, and I grew up with none.”
It wasn’t really funny at all, and Jonathan’s nod was half-hearted at best. There was another lengthy lull before he broke the silence. “You grew up in Seattle, right?”
She nodded. “I moved here after college when I took the Sauer Hewson job.”
“What’s Seattle like? I’ve never been.”
“Rainy.” She missed the rain. There was a lot to be said for Los Angeles’s weather, but there was something special about a rainy day. “What’s Newport Beach like?”
He looked down at his hands, intertwined in his lap. “Like LA, only whiter.”
The conversation stuttered to another halt. It didn’t come as naturally to them as it used to. They both squirmed on their stools, staring at everything except each other.
None of this was going the way Esther had wanted it to. They used to talk so easily. What had happened to that? Had she ruined it all? What if they couldn’t get back to where they were? What if she’d broken them irrevocably?
The food was bland and mediocre. But they were both ravenous and grateful for the distraction, so they tucked into it like it was a five-star meal.
When the check came, Jonathan tried to reach for it, but Esther snatched it away. “I asked you out, remember? It’s my treat.”
“We could split it,” he offered, like they were on some sort of business lunch.
She didn’t want to split it. She was trying to woo him, and wooing didn’t include going halvsies on the check. “Let me do this. Please.”
He let her pay without further protest.
Esther’s feet objected strenuously when she hopped off the stool and shoved them back into her shoes. Not only did she have blisters on both heels now, but her feet had swelled while she was sitting on that godforsaken stool, making her shoes feel even tighter.
The night seemed darker when they stepped out of the restaurant. Bleaker.
“You okay?” Jonathan asked as they started the six-block trek to the car.
She forced a smile and tried not to limp so noticeably. “Yep. Fine.”
“It looks like your feet are hurting.”
“I shouldn’t have worn these stupid shoes. I wanted to look nice, but I forgot they give me blisters.”
He reached for her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “You’d look nice no matter what shoes you were wearing.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest, and she squeezed his hand back, holding on tight in case he had any thoughts of letting go again. “Even my fuzzy Chewbacca slippers?”
His face split into a grin. “Even your fuzzy Chewbacca slippers.”
