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“No. But I’ve also never been in love before. Not until now. Let me say this so that I’m very clear. I love you, Dylan.” She turned to Hunter. “And I love you too, Hunter. But I don’t want to spend time here in your lavish house, trying to build a relationship, if you don’t think you’ll ever feel the same way about me or ever consider my dreams important.”
“I do love you.” Dylan reached out and grabbed her hands. “Please don’t doubt my feelings on that score. I should have said the words sooner.”
Hunter echoed his words. “I love you, too. You must know that I do. But I don’t think us being in love with each other is the problem here.”
“Right. I need Dylan to trust that I won’t do the same thing to him as his psycho ex-wife.”
Overhead a song started playing that made Dylan chuckle in disbelief. “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits. How appropriate that the song he always associated with his ex was now punching him in the eardrums to match the dagger currently lodged in his heart from her odious memory.
The waitress suddenly marched up to their table with three small glasses of ice water. Setting them down carefully on the center of the surface, she then whipped her order pad out of a pocket and asked, “What else can I get for you folks to drink?”
Hunter said, “Coffee.”
Both Dylan and Lilianna nodded and said in unison, “The same for me.”
“Want to hear about the lunch specials?” she asked, pen poised over her order pad, and then started reciting them without stopping to listen for an answer. “We have a BLT sandwich on your choice of wheat or white toast, with fries. And for dessert there is a wonderful blueberry cinnamon cobbler with or without a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Are you ready to order now or do you need a few minutes?”
“We need a few minutes,” Hunter said.
Still focused on her notepad and without even a sideways look at any of them, the waitress nodded and promptly scurried off, presumably to get their coffee.
No one said anything for quite awhile.
Lilianna finally spoke. “I really think I should check into the motel for a couple of days. Just to think everything through and to get my head on straight.”
“Your head is on straight.” Dylan absolutely did not want her to check into the hotel. It would spell their doom, he just knew it.
Then Hunter sat up straight. “I agree with Dylan. Your head is on straight. Our heads are on straight. We’re merely at an impasse, and we need to look at this from a different direction to move on.”
“What direction?”
“We are like a BLT sandwich,” he said with all seriousness as if he’d just discovered the secrets to the universe and was anxious to share.
“What is wrong with you?” Dylan did not know where Hunter was going but didn’t like the analogy already. Was he a pig and thus the bacon portion of this coming comparison? Lilianna’s eyes narrowed, but her smile came back. That was an improvement anyway.
“Nothing is wrong with me. We are like the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. Great food, but it takes all three components to make it a whole perfect sandwich, right?”
No one said anything or moved.
Hunter continued, “And if we separate then we’ll never be the same.”
Dylan nodded. He got it. Strange analogy or not, Hunter was basically right. “I agree. And when it comes right down to it, I don’t want to lose you.”
Lilianna opened her mouth, but closed it when the waitress came back with three cups of coffee, and a large, cereal-sized bowl of plastic creamer cup containers.
Once her delivery was safely made she whipped out her notepad and asked, “Have you all decided on what you want to eat?”
The three of them stared at each other for several seconds in awkward silence, but the waitress wasn’t daunted, mostly because she was focused on the notepad and not them.
Lilianna said, “I believe I want to have the BLT special. It’s really the perfect sandwich.” She flashed a grin and suddenly the tense mood was lifted.
The waitress nodded. “Excellent choice,” she said, oblivious to the gigantic meaning behind her selection.
