Loretta winked, then poured a splash more coffee into Ansel’s mug before heading off toward the kitchen, muttering something about “goddamn kids and their shy love eyes.”
He looked at me over the slice of pie — the lemon pale andcreamy, the meringue golden-toasted, the crust already starting to flake apart. “You heard her.”
“What, that I’m not allowed to pretend I’m not hungry?”
“That we’ve got ‘shy love eyes.’”
I tried to shoot him a glare, but I was pretty sure my cheeks were pink and my smile gave me away. “She says that to everyone.”
“She didn’t say it to the couple in the corner, who haven’t spoken since we walked in.”
“…They might just be tired.”
“They might just not be in love.”
His voice was soft again. All of him was. I didn’t know how he managed it — to be sogentlewith me, even when he was hurt, even when the world was loud and cruel. I wondered if he’d always been like that, or if it was something he’d only recently learned to carry.
I thought I knew him. Thought that over the years, I had learned whoAnsel Barlowewas through interviews, press junkets, tabloids and movies. But I didn’t know him at all. I knew the mask he put up for the world to see.
But this man?
MyAnsel?
There was a tiny sliver of me that flushed with greed, knowing this was just for me. That no one else would get the chance to know him this way.
He slid the plate a little closer to me, then scooped up a bite and offered it on his fork. My hand brushed his as I leaned in. The lemon was tart and bright; the meringue soft as air. His eyes didn’t leave me while I chewed.
“What,” I asked through the bite, “are you staring at?”
“You,” he said.
And it was so easy. Just that. No performance. No tease.
I could feel my pulse in my mouth, in my throat, in the places his leg touched mine beneath the table. I wanted to curl into thespace between us and live there. I wanted to tell him that this — this stupid diner booth with one slice of pie and Loretta eavesdropping from the counter — felt like more of a home than most places I’d lived in the last five years.
The diner door creaked behind us, Loretta’s voice trailing off in a final, “Y’all come back now,” before the screen slammed shut.
Outside, the wind had teeth — not cruel, just brisk enough to make me burrow deeper into Ansel’s coat. He didn’t say anything when I pulled it tighter around me. Just stepped close enough that our shoulders bumped as we walked.
The parking lot gravel crunched beneath our feet. The moon was low and full and gold. Everything smelled of fried food and someone’s cigarette a few blocks away. I should’ve been tired, but I just felt… quiet.
We didn’t talk. Not much. Just the soft rhythm of our steps, the wind weaving through telephone wires overhead, the click of his keys when he unlocked the car. He opened the passenger door for me, and I slid in without thinking. That had started to happen a lot — little things, automatic, like I already knew he’d be there on the other side.
When he dropped into the driver’s seat and shut the door behind him, the silence inside the car feltsafe. Not heavy. Just… ours.
He didn’t start the engine right away.
Instead, he leaned back, fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel, eyes watching something out across the empty lot. I watched him in the dim glow of the dash lights. The curve of his mouth. The way his hair curled a little behind his ears.
“I liked that place,” I said.
He glanced over at me. “Yeah?”
“Felt…” I reached for the word. “Uncomplicated.”
His hand reached for mine without ceremony, without looking.Like it belonged there. And I let him. Iwantedto let him. “Not everything’s gonna be complicated,” he said quietly.
“It’s just hard to believe that, sometimes.”
