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“Truth or dare?” he asks and pulls me back into the game.
“Truth.”
“Why did you turn Noah down?”
I look away and sink my teeth into my bottom lip.
Now that’s a loaded question that I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to answer. Still, I don’t exactly have to elaborate on it, so with that in mind, I decide to keep my response as direct and evasive as possible. “Because I have feelings for someone else.”
“Who?” he barks, practically making me jump out of my skin, and I shoot him an incredulous look.
“Only one question at a time, remember?”
His eyes narrow and bore into mine as if trying to extract the answer by using some kind of Jedi mind trick on me, and I have to stifle a laugh at the effort.
“Truth or dare?” I ask, pushing the game forward.
He flops his head back against the shelf and lets out a huff of irritation. “Truth,” he grumbles.
“Why did you move back to Clark Falls?” I ask.
His eyes slowly slide to mine, and something profound flickers across them, making my heart skip a beat. “I mean, I heard you were a sous-chef at one of Chicago’s best restaurants. Why would you give all that up to work in my dad’s diner?”
“Only one question at a time, remember?” He throws my words back at me with an arched brow, then turns away and takes a moment to ponder my question.
“There were two reasons,” he finally says. “First, the big city life wasn’t really for me. Sure, the job paid well, and I enjoy cooking, no matter where I am. But the people around me were faceless. I didn’t really care whether they liked my food or not because they didn’t matter to me. But here, in my hometown, watching the people who I grew up with enjoy the meals I cook for them or get excited when I create something new gives me more gratification than any fancy job ever could.”
I nod my head in understanding. Sure, there is nothing glamorous about living in a small town, and yes, it does get boring at times, but receiving praise from the people with whom you have shared a lifetime holds more significance than a bunch of strangers.
Silence ensues for a moment as I wait for the second reason. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask, but knowing that if I do, it will break the rules of the game and perhaps derail the conversation, I keep my mouth firmly clamped shut.
“But the main reason,” he finally speaks, and I wait with bated breath. “Was because of a girl.”
Jealousy barrels through me, but luckily, hope is right there along with it. The green-eyed monster wants to find out who this girl is and rip her to shreds, but hope is attempting to calm the raging beast with the possibility that the girl he is talking about is, in fact, me, and if I don’t play by the rules of this game, I may not find that out.
Whoever she may be, the fact that he’s still single proves that it hasn’t quite worked out for him. And as much as I’m dying to ask who it is, if I ask him directly, I’m unlikely to get an answer. So with that in mind, I try a different approach.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you,” I say, watching him carefully as I await a response.
“It’s my fault. I’ve been a jerk to her.” He sighs, resting his head against the metal shelves and training his gaze on the other side of the room as if deep in thought.
“I remember this one time in third grade,” he continues, looking reminiscent as his mind wanders back to that certain passage of time. “Leroy Hutchins stole Wyatt’s juice in the cafeteria while he was eating his lunch. No one did anything about it because they were too scared to stand up to the little shit. But she wasn’t. She marched right up to him, took the juice out of his hand, and dumped it over his head. She told him that if Wyatt couldn’t have the juice, neither could he.”
My heart rate kicks up a notch at his retelling of the day I put Leroy Hutchins in his place. The kid was an evil bully who thought he could do whatever the hell he wanted without any consequences. He was about twice the size of Wyatt, and when I saw that look of utter helplessness on Wyatt’s face, something inside me snapped.
“She shocked the shit out of me that day,” he adds with a soft chuckle, the profound admiration in his tone making my heart flutter. “It was the first time I’d ever really heard her speak. She was so shy that she barely spoke to anyone and always tried to blend in with the background so that no one would notice her… but I noticed her. And all I wanted was for her to notice me too. So I started doing stupid shit to get her attention.”
My chest heaves as my breathing seems to fall in sync with the rapid thumps of my heart, and placing a hand on my chest, I rub it soothingly, trying to calm the chaos currently ensuing within.
“It was a thrill at first,” he continues with a small smile playing on his lips as he recalls the memory. “My teasing brought her out of her shell. It brought out that same fire in her that I’d witnessed in the cafeteria that day and I quickly became addicted to it because when that fire was shot in my direction, all of her attention was focused solely on me.”
My bottom lip trembles as my heart pounds, pumping a surge of emotions through my body with an intensity I’m not entirely sure I will survive.
“But I realize now how stupid I was. I was a dumb kid who didn’t understand how to handle what he was feeling. And by the time I did realize it, things had gone so far that there was no way of turning back. She hated me, and I didn’t know how to change it.”
“Maybe you should’ve tried talking to her,” I suggest, fighting to control the emotion threatening to consume my tone. His eyes meet mine, and something intangible passes between us, so swallowing hard, I continue, “You know, maybe say something nice?”
He glances away, his chest rising and falling with a deep breath. “I wanted to. So many times. But by the time I pulled my head out of my ass, it was too late.”
