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“Listen,” Magnolia starts to say, a more serious tone now present in her voice, laced with something that sounds like an ending you don’t want to hear.
I’m saved by the waiter, who comes just then to ask her what she’d like to drink. He knows her by name. Everyone around here seems to know everyone by name.
Griffin wasn’t wrong about that.
“The Green Tea,” she answers and the second the waiter is gone, I don’t give her a chance to continue whatever she was going to say before.
“Green tea? You don’t want a drink?” My gaze travels from my beer, the beads of condensation growing on the tall glass, and then back to her.
“The Green Tea is a cocktail,” she tells me with a smile before taking a sip of water. “With vodka.”
“Ah,” I say then lean back in my seat and nod. “That’s more like it.”
There’s a moment of quiet. It’s comfortable at first, but then just like when she sat down, her smile fades.
“There’s something I have to tell you.” Her voice cracks at the very end and I can’t stand the look in her eyes. Maybe she doesn’t notice that her hands fall to her lap and her shoulders hunch inward at whatever she thinks is so damn important. But I notice and I hate it.
“Now hold up,” I say, thinking as fast as I can on my feet, all those jitters I was feeling coming back to me. “I have a proposition.”
“A proposition?”
With a single nod, the smile is weak on her beautiful face, but it’s there, just barely.
I clear my throat when the waiter comes back. I think his name is Nathanial. Tall and lean, with dark scruffy hair but everything thing else on him is clean cut.
“Do you two need another minute?”
“Yes please,” Magnolia answers for us and I can only stare at her. Whatever’s on her mind feels like an ending. Like the last page of a story that never really had a chance.
I don’t accept it.
Before she can say whatever she was going to say with those beautiful lips parted, I make my move.
“Pretend it’s all new. Would you tell someone you just met whatever you’re about to tell me? Like it’s okay for first date conversation?”
“But you aren’t someone I just met,” she says insistently. Her small hands come back to rest on top of the table as she squares her shoulders, dead set on telling me whatever it is that’s on her mind.
“Look,” I say, cutting her off before she can speak again. “I want a chance, Magnolia.” I don’t know why I’m begging her. I question my own sanity. There’s just something about her. There always was. And I see how she smiles when she looks at me. That has to mean something. “All I want is an honest chance. I’m a different guy than I was back then and there are things you don’t know about me. Just get to know me, give me a shot before you say whatever you’re about to say.”
“How do you know what I’m going to say is bad?” Magnolia asks me, but she can’t even look me in the eye. Instead she lifts the menu on the table and stares at it. The one with the chef’s specials for the evening.
“Because it takes your smile away … Because you look like you’re going to tell me no.”
With a gentle shake of her head, the loose curls sway slightly as she says, “It’s not a no.”
“But it’s not an honest shot.”
She doesn’t deny my statement. A moment passes and Nathanial comes back with her drink and then takes out his pen and paper. Before Magnolia can ask for more time, I order. Appetizer included. Which gets a mumble of something from Magnolia, but I don’t make out exactly what she says.
She follows my lead, ordering the item on the menu I was kicking around getting, but I decided on the ribeye instead. The second he’s gone, Magnolia glances at me, really debating something.
Setting the menu down, Magnolia leans forward, her forearms braced on the table, looking all types of businesswoman as she stares at me.
“All you want is a chance but you don’t know what you’re getting a chance at,” she finally says.
“Then tell me about yourself. Tell me what I’ve missed. And I’ll tell you the same. Just don’t shut me out before it’s even started. Because the way you look at me, it’s like you have something that’s going to end this thing. And we haven’t even gotten started.”
My plea is just that. Griffin would laugh his ass off if he saw how much this woman had me by the balls. Shit, any grown-ass man would. That weekend Griffin called me up to watch his place … I know he did it because I needed to get away. And there she was, the distraction I needed.
