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“Hmm. Hmm.” She considers it again, glancing back and forth between me and the boys. “Hmm.” She bites her lip, looking awful troubled for five more long and excruciating seconds. “Fine. I’ll do it. Yes!” she decides at once. “Yes! I’ll just go and do it! Yes!”
“Yes!” I agree, not meaning to mimic her, my eyes lighting up.
“Yes!” She gives me a wrinkly-faced look. “Now wish me luck. I haven’t done anything like this before. Ooh, so exciting!” She goes off at once, cutting between the tables, heading straight for theirs.
I crouch down, as if trying to hide again—this time behind my steak and a modest mound of garlic mashed potatoes with skins—and watch my plan take root. The server reaches their table. The boys look up at her. They proceed to exchange some words. Then she lets out a musical little laugh, nods at them, and walks away.
The boys stay at the table, resuming their chat.
What the fuck.
I stare at the server incredulously as she walks away, then look back at the table, wide-eyed and frustrated. What the hell did she tell them? What did they tell her? Why isn’t that damned Malcolm fucking off yet?
Bobby looks my way.
I meet his eyes, hopeful. I lift my eyebrows encouragingly at him and give him my knowing, Strong-caliber smirk.
Without acknowledging me, he turns his face back to Malcolm just in time to hear something. It makes him smile, whatever the moron said, then nod in agreement before cutting another bite.
I frown across the room at them, certain that just my glare alone could set a fire between this table and that one.
The next instant, the server returns carrying a pitcher of ice water. Oh. She asked them if they needed anything, and they said refills. She’s literally doing her job. Okay, good. When she refills their glasses on the table, she seems to take an unnecessary amount of time to steel herself and gather some breath before, with a stiff and tragically awkward face, she says a few words to Malcolm. He frowns up at her—for the first time revealing half his face to my field of vision—and asks something back. She shrugs and gestures off toward nowhere in particular. Malcolm excuses himself curtly from the table—at which point I quickly turn away and shield myself by scratching at a spot on my face with my whole hand.
When I drop my hand and glance back at the table, Bobby is there, all alone, both Malcolm and the server gone.
And Bobby is staring right at me from across the sea of tables, suspicion burning in his eyes.
Let him be suspicious.
I rise from my table at once, cut hurriedly across the aisles, and beg someone’s apology when I half-hump their chair with my dick in trying to squeeze between two tables. (It’s an older woman of maybe eighty-five or ninety years of age; really it’s probably the most action she’s gotten in a while and she ought to thank me.)
I plop into Malcolm’s seat. “Bobby.”
He’s already at level-five mad. “Really? An emergency in the kitchen? Can’t you just leave me alone for one measly little date?”
“That’s exactly what I’m comin’ over here to tell you. He is a measly little date.”
“Jimmy …”
“I didn’t know your date was Malcolm-fuckin’-Tucci or else I’d have warned you not to come. I’ve known the twerp for years.”
Bobby sighs. “Yes, he’s a little twerpy. Yes, he’s full of himself. Yes, he’s annoying.”
I blink, startled. “Then why are you lookin’ like the two of you are laughin’ and havin’ a great time over here, cuttin’ it up? I keep watching the two of you.”
“Because I’m polite, Jimmy. Because I’m trying to have a good time, despite the fact that this date is just—”
“Awful? Terrible? Uncomfortable? Irritating? Dude, just ask me to come rescue you. You remember the signal, right?”
“Yeah. It’s like a white flag of surrender, practically.”
“Drop your napkin. Right. So, like, when you’re finally up to here with his pretentiousness, drop that damned napkin and let’s get our asses out of this town.”
“But maybe—”
“Maybe? There’s no maybe.”
“MAYBE—!” Bobby closes his eyes after that one outburst of a word—which silences me utterly, by the way—and after he takes a short breath, he brings his voice way down and finishes: “Maybe I want to live out the fantasy for a bit, alright?”
I stare at him, ignoring the one or two heads that just turned our way at his outburst. “Fantasy? … What fantasy?”
“That I actually do have options for love, even if they’re shitty. That guys actually do want to be with me, even bad ones. That …” Bobby blinks a few times, then wipes a finger at the corner of his eye. Was that a tear? Was that a fucking tear? “That maybe I could someday have a real and actual boyfriend. A special guy who loves me as much as I love him. Unconditionally. The forever thing.”
