“Tell me what’s wrong.” She drew a deep breath and her breasts pressed against her top. “No way have you been living on the streets for long. I swear you haven’t aged.”
Damn. She wasn’t going to give up easily. Maybe it would help if she thought he were crazy.
He patted his full belly. “Thanks for the breakfast. I hadn’t eaten since 1824.”
She smiled. “Funny.”
“Might be, if it weren’t the truth.”
Her expression hardened. Not what he’d aimed for, but angry would do. Time to toss lighter fluid on to the flames.
“You want more truth? Well, here it is.” He pushed his plate to the side and leaned on to the table. “On my thirty-second birthday, a hippy in the park gave me a tab of acid. Like an idiot, I took it, and ever since then, no matter where I am or what I’m wearing, no matter what I’m doing or where I fall asleep, I wake up every morning in that same spot, on the same day, but a different year, in the same fucking clothes, with the same fucking things in my pockets.”
He slapped his palm on the table. “I can’t even count how many days I’ve endured since this started, or how many different years I’ve been to. Can’t keep track, because the paper’s never there when I fucking wake up.”
He’d never used the f-word in front of a lady. His mom would’ve been disappointed. Dad would’ve slapped him. He barely cared.
Her posture had stiffened during his rant, but she softened and stretched her hand out again. “Why are you telling me this crazy story?”
“Because it’s true.”
“Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Explain to me how one thing you’ve said is even possible.”
He pounded the table. “You think I know? You think I understand how, even if I change out of this suit, even if I tear it or burn it, I wake up in it every morning as if it’s brand new? You think I know why, even if I go to bed with cuts and bruises from a beating, or fall asleep in the arms of a whore, I wake up alone and in the exact same state of health as I was in 1967, the last year I lived a fucking normal day?”
Face burning, he thumped back in the booth and realized he’d shouted and a few heads had turned.
Worse, her eyes had glassed over. She was trying so hard to help him, to recapture the closeness they’d felt when they’d met before.
And he was an asshole.
He reached for her hand, still resting on the table, but she jerked it away and blinked back the tears.
One escaped and she swiped it away, clearly angry at its unwanted appearance. “How dare you yell at me? All I did was ask a question and you act like a jerk. You might look the same, but you’ve changed.”
He wanted to apologize, but what was the point? Civilized conversations were something from his past. He focused on the table’s scratched surface.
“Is being cruel fun for you?”
Shame swarmed around him. “I’m sorry.”
She slid her hand on to the table again. “Please, at least tell me why you were sleeping in the park. Fifteen years ago, you told me you had a job on Wall Street. Did you lose everything in some hedge fund mess?”
He hadn’t been to that job in forty-two years. What could he possibly tell her?
Transfixed by the long slender fingers of her hand, he wondered how skin-on-skin contact would feel. Her hand looked so soft and it’d been so long since he’d touched a woman, touched anyone. He craved the sensation, yet knew it would prove a mistake. “There is no way to explain my life.”
“How bad can it be?” Her hand reached an inch further towards him. “Are you on the lam? A spy? A terrorist? In a witness protection programme, or something?”
“All those options sound terrific.”
“I know.” She grinned. “You’re Osama Bin Laden.”
“Who?”
“OK, OK. I give up.” She raised her hands. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
The sun had come around to stream through the window and her hair, her skin, shone. Lord, she was beautiful. And was still as kind-hearted and generous and funny as she’d been as a kid. If only he could stay here, in this time. But it wasn’t possible and seeing her today had made his life worse.
