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“These are proper restaurants too. And I bet the food is amazing.” He rubbed his hands in delight. “Every greasy bit of it.”
I stared at his mountain of food. Between us both, we had enough to feed a small family. He turned slightly away from me. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Don’t look.”
“Scottie.”
After a few seconds, he turned back around, snapping his jaws. He’d removed the elastics from his braces.
“Normally, I don’t remove them for eating but they’ll be too restrictive while I’m eating a burger.”
I nodded my understanding and pointed at his food. “You’ll eat all that?”
“Watch me.” He took up the gourmet burger. When I did just that, his cheeks turned pink. “I didn’t mean for you to really watch me. How can I eat with you looking at me like that?”
“I like watching you.”
“And with you saying things like that.” He dropped the burger back onto the tray and took a long drink from his fruit smoothie.
“What’s the matter, Scottie?” I teased and peeled back the wrapper from my burger. “You’re still sore, remember?”
“Exactly.” He squirmed. “So stop looking at me like that and making me want things I can’t have tonight. Why’d you think I ordered so much food?”
“Why?”
His cheeks turned puffy and redder. “I don’t want to say it. I’m sure you can figure it out.” He ducked his head and snagged a handful of fries, which he munched on like it was his last meal.
Then it hit me. “Oh.”
“Yes.”
I smiled. “Eat up. There are a lot of other things we can do. I remember in one of your letters you said you liked action movies. Is that true?”
“Yes. I never thought I would, but then Jay roped me into it.” He snorted. “Your son has roped me into a lot of things over the years.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
He propped his elbows on the table. “Like the time this jock used to make fun of me in high school. I had pimples up the wazoo. An ugly duckling kids used to make fun of, but he took it too far. So one day, Jay talked me into snatching his clothes from the locker room.”
“And you did?”
“I didn’t have a choice. Jay’s quite persistent. Jeez, any idea where he got that from?”
The thought of my son taking after me made my heart flutter. Did Scottie mean it, or was he trying to make me feel better?
“What else did you get into?”
Scottie was obviously feeling comfortable around me now. He stammered only twice while he chatted about the shenanigans he and Jay had gotten into. Once about mooning a teacher and another about kissing Jay to make his ex jealous when he caught the guy cheating on him.
As we talked, I discovered most of what he’d told me about himself was true. No wonder I felt like I already knew him and being around each other was so easy.
The food was good too. Scottie devoured everything on his tray and didn’t look like he struggled with it either. He must have been pretty hungry. At least I’d taken him somewhere he could fill up. Those fancy restaurants never served a grown man’s portion.
“Ugh, I think I ate too much.” Scottie burped behind his hand. “Excuse me.”
“Want to walk it off?”
“Good idea.”
