Page 12 of His Vow

"Buenas noches," I said to the woman. She looked up from the pot and smiled. "Me da dos platos de sancocho, un orden de tostones, y — "

I glanced back at Nolan. He raised an eyebrow. I turned back to her. "Y dos maltas, por favor."

"Claro, mami." She winked at me and shouted toward the kitchen. A man's voice shouted back. She waved us toward a table by the window.

I pulled out a plastic chair and sat. Nolan looked at the chair, then the table, then the menu — all in Spanish, which he couldn't read.

"What did you order?" he asked, lowering himself into the chair across from me. His knees nearly hit the underside of the table.

"You'll see."

"That's not reassuring."

"Good." I grinned. "Trust is earned."

He shook his head, but the corner of his mouth gave a twitch. I was learning to track those — the ghost that lived at the edge of his lips, the one he kept killing before it could arrive.

The sancocho came in deep ceramic bowls, steam rising off the surface. Root vegetables, chunks of corn on the cob, tender beef, and a broth the color of gold. The tostones arrived on a separate plate, crispy and thick, with a cup of garlic sauce beside them. The Malta bottles were dark, cold, and sweating.

I picked up my spoon, dipped it into the broth, and brought it to my lips. The heat bloomed through my chest. "Oh," I whispered. "Oh, that's good."

Nolan picked up his spoon. He took a sip. His eyes closed for half a second — involuntary, I was sure, because when they opened, he looked almost annoyed at himself for reacting.

"Well?" I leaned forward, my elbows on the table.

"It's good."

"It's good? That's what you're giving me?"

He took another spoonful. His jaw relaxed as he chewed through a piece of beef. "It's very good."

I tore a tostón in half and dipped it in the garlic sauce. "You know, I keep waiting for you to use more than four words at a time."

"Why would I use six when four works?"

I laughed. He watched me laugh — his eyes on my mouth, then my eyes, then back to his bowl. He picked up a tostón and bit into it. His eyebrows lifted a fraction. He dipped the other half in the sauce without being told.

"So," I said, pushing a piece of corn around my bowl. "Serious question."

He looked up. A drop of broth sat on his lower lip. He wiped it with his thumb.

"Do you own a single piece of clothing that isn't black?"

He shrugged. "Black goes with everything."

"Black is the absence of color."

He set his spoon down and leaned back, his arms crossing over his chest. "Are you talking about light or pigment?"

I blinked. "What?"

"In pigment, black is every color combined." He tilted his head. "The opposite of absence."

I put both palms flat on the table. "Did you just out-art-nerd me?"

The ghost made it further than usual. His lips parted, the corners pulling, the muscles in his cheeks shifting — and then he picked up his spoon and took another bite, and the moment passed. But I saw it. The whole thing, start to finish.

"Tell me something," I said, reaching across and stealing a tostón from his plate. He tracked my hand but didn't stop me. "Something that isn't about work or art or pigment theory."