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“It was just… I was just telling Giorgio how I am barred from McDonald’s and, um...”
“She loves French fries. It is getting toward lunchtime,” Giorgio adds helpfully, as though that explains their conversational meandering.
“How does someone get banned from McDonald’s? Forever?”
“I can call CEO Steve Easterbrook for you if you want,” Irving offers. “He owes me a favor.”
“Oh, could you? That would be great,” she smiles. “I really do love their fries.”
“You will have to tell us what you did first,” Cal prods.
She blushes, pressing her lips together. I give her a small nod of encouragement, remembering that Irving is on the bad side of the Coast Guard, for crying out loud, so who is he to judge?
“Well, you know how they have those indoor playgrounds?” she starts sheepishly. “All multicolored? Where the kids are supposed to play?”
“I know of them,” Cal confirms.
“With the tunnels? Those tubes way up in the air? They should put a weight limit on those, is all I’m saying.”
Irving feigns shock and horror. “You’re not saying…”
“Oh yeah,” she says, slapping her ample thighs with her palms for emphasis. “These puppies had to be freed by the fire department! It was a scene!”
“Could’ve happened to anybody,” I say for the thousandth time.
Smiling and supportive. That’s me.
“Could have! But didn’t!” she laughs heartily. “So I got kicked out, you know, after the firemen and paramedics left. But I got a letter from the corporate office about a month later telling me I was not welcome on any McDonald’s property, ever. Ever!”
All eyes turn toward Irving expectantly. He raises his hands in the air.
“I’ll take care of it,” he grins.
“Fantastic!” Tabby exclaims, clapping her hands quickly underneath her chin.
She turns her attention back to Giorgio, and they resume their intense introduction. I really can see them falling for each other, which makes me think I was not very subtle about my attraction to Irving all this time. IthoughtI was being subtle, but I guess Veronica could see it. And does that mean she saw some attraction in him for me?
“What are you thinking about?” Irving asks in a low voice, noticing my reverie.
I turn my back to Tabby, so I can see only Cal and Irving. They both look at me the same way, curious and attentive. Unguarded and trusting. My body thrills in response, responding to the magnetic pull toward our secret, shared mental space.
“I don’t know… I’m just thinking how I’m glad you came back? I guess?”
“Yeah,” Cal chimes in. “I’m glad you came back too. What changed your mind?”
Irving scowls thoughtfully. “I didn’t have to change my mind. I just had to remove all the things that were keeping me from knowing my own mind.”
Silence falls between us. We all realize this makes sense.
“Also I had to get this…”
He reaches deep into his pocket, and withdraws his hand. My breath catches in my throat as a long, gold chain slips between his fingers. At the bottom is a heavy black stone, a teardrop-shaped weight that shimmers with lightning bolts of red and pink as it trembles in the light.
“Right…” Cal smiles. “That’s perfect.”
Irving approaches me with the necklace suspended between his fingers. The light inside the stone is captivating, practically moving of its own accord.
“That’s an opal,” I gasp, barely believing what I am seeing. “But I’ve never seen anything like it.”
