"You don't have to do anything with it. You just have to let me."
He swallows.
"...let you."
"Yes."
He looks down at our hands. Looks up at me. His eyes are slightly wet at the corners.
"Okay."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He takes a sip of wine. His eyes move slow around the room with the careful attention he gives to things he's going to write down later. The candles. The molding. The single rose in the cut-glass vase Henrik put there because I told him it was a romantic occasion.
"Read the menu, sweetheart."
He reads the menu the way he reads everything—finger moving down the list, pausing on three things, weighing them against each other.
Old Max would've ordered the cheapest entree and lied that he wasn't hungry.
Tonight he orders the duck.
Henrik writes it down, glances at me to confirm my order and the wine pairing, then disappears.
Max waits until the door shuts behind him.
"I've never had duck."
"...no?"
"No." He takes a sip of wine. "I've never had this wine either. I've never been in a restaurant where the menu didn't have prices. I've never sat down at a table where I knew, going in, I wasn't going to be the one paying for it." He looks at me. "I'mthirty seconds from making this list go on for a while. Stop me when it gets sad."
"Don't stop."
He laughs.
"Keep going. I want to know."
He looks down at his glass and turns it once on the tablecloth.
"I've never owned a piece of furniture. I had a bed in three different houses growing up and not one of them was mine until Margot. I've never had a passport. I've never been on an airplane. I've never had a haircut from a place that asks how I want it cut—there was a barber on the corner who did the same thing to everyone for fourteen dollars." A small embarrassed laugh. "I've never been on a date."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Define date."
He thinks about it.
"I went to a movie with someone when I was in tenth grade. I think she liked me. I was so worried about her noticing I wasn't really watching the movie that I sat through the whole thing convinced she could hear me breathing. I don't think it counts."
"It doesn't."
"...okay."
