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But there is a sly smile tugging at his lips and a glint in his eyes as he nonchalantly looks down at the menu instead. Letting out a grudgingly amused huff, I glance down at the menu as well.
Panic immediately surges up inside me. I flick a quick look up and down the page, but I don’t understand what I’m supposed to order because there are no dishes that actually say ‘waffles’ on the menu.
As if he can feel my panic, Rico looks up from his own menu and points towards mine. “Here’s how it works. You get a stack of waffles. Just tell him if you want a large or a small stack. And then you order some toppings for it.” His finger moves down the rows on my menu. “From here. You’ll get them in a bunch of small bowls on the side, so you can mix and match the toppings differently on each waffle when you eat them.”
Relief washes through me. Okay, that explains the strange menu.
But the relief is short-lived as I stare at the sheer number of toppings. How am I supposed to pick something that would make sense? How many should I even get? What would be a normal thing to put on waffles? Is all of this normal or are some things more normal than others?
I think I must have frowned or something because Rico chuckles.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “There are a lot of options. But just… What do you normally put on your waffles?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never eaten waffles before.”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I snap my gaze up from the menu to find Rico staring at me in surprise.
“Seriously?” he asks.
Since I can’t take it back, I just shrug as if it’s no big deal. “Yeah.”
“Alright. Uhm…” He runs a hand over his jaw while casting a look down at my menu. “We’ll get you some whipped cream then. It’s a good neutral one. And…” He squints down at the mass of choices. “Some ice cream too.” His gaze flicks back up to me. “What kind of ice cream do you like?”
Cold panic crackles through my veins as I quickly glance down at the list of ice cream flavors. There are like ten of those alone. “Uhm…”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten ice cream either.”
My gaze slowly returns to Rico’s face. And this time, I can almost feel the incredulity radiating off him as he stares at me in complete bafflement. I get ready to lie. To evade. To laugh and then joke my way out of it.
But I just… can’t.
I don’t know if it’s because he offered me that tiny bit of truth earlier, the comment about my eyes that made my stomach flip and my heart ache, but I just can’t bring myself to lie about this.
So I hold his gaze, my pulse pounding in my ears, and admit, “No.”
Deafening silence falls over our table as Rico just stares at me. Somewhere on our left, the sound of clanking pots drifts through the air and joins the murmur coming from the other guests.
Then the spell breaks and Rico abruptly flips his menu closed. Reaching over the table, he grabs mine and closes it as well.
My heart sinks like a stone into my stomach as he stacks them and places them at the edge of the table while signaling to the waiter.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have said anything. He tried to do something nice for me and take me out for waffles, and I’m such a fucking shell of a human that I can’t even tell him what kind of ice cream I like. And now, he’s frustrated with me instead. Pain stabs through my chest. Gods above, why can’t I just be normal? Or at least be better at pretending to be. I’m usually excellent at passing for a normal human being. But there is just something about Rico that throws me off. That makes the real me slip through the cracks in my carefully constructed mask.
“Yes, sir?” the waiter replies, looking to Rico, as he comes to a halt next to our table.
“A large stack of waffles for both of us,” he begins. “I’ll have whipped cream, mango sorbet, raspberries, and chocolate.”
The waiter scribbles furiously in his notepad. I just sit there, feeling completely deflated, because I have no idea what I’m going to order when the waiter turns around and asks me.
Once he’s done, he looks up at Rico for a second before his gaze starts sliding to me. I open my mouth, but Rico cuts me off.
“And she’ll have one of everything.”
The waiter blinks. I do too.
Turning back to Rico, he flicks a confused glance between the menu and Rico’s face, “I’m sorry?”
Rico just looks back at him with a steady gaze. “One of each.”
