Chapter 5
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The food is incredible. My ravioli sampler looks just like the menu picture—big red plate and everything—and Hollis keeps making these throaty mmm noises with each bite of his fideo and meatballs. I’m finding it both incredibly weird and incredibly arousing.
“Do you always eat with such... gusto?” I ask.
“What?”
“You sound like you’re constantly coming a little over there.”
Hollis struggles to swallow his next bite and grabs for his water. “No, I don’t.”
“Mmm,” I say, doing my best impression. “Mmm. Mmm. Ahhh. Mmm.” I increase the volume with each iteration. The men at the bar both turn to check out what the hell’s going on.
“Practicing my audition for a When Harry Met Sally reboot,” I explain.
The men nod and turn back to their bottles of Modelo. Bits and pieces of a conversation about how Hollywood must be out of ideas drift from the bar to our booth.
“For someone who appreciates her privacy, you sure don’t mind making a scene,” Hollis says in a sharp whisper.
“Me? I’m not the one getting it on with my dinner.”
He puts his spoon down in the bowl with a small clang as the metal hits ceramic, leans back in the booth, and folds his arms over his chest. His body language says two can play this game , and I feel my skin heat under his stare.
“Been a while since you had a good meal, Millicent?” And shit, he smiles .
A real smile, not the horrifying forced thing he flashed at the gas station or the nearly imperceptible hints of amusement from the car.
This is the genuine article, and it causes these deep parentheses to bracket his mouth.
Like the pleasure he’s taking in this conversation is an extra bit of information he wants me to note.
“I... eat,” I say. How is it possible that my throat feels too dry while my mouth feels too wet? I swallow hard, and he must notice because his grin widens.
“But who cooks for you?”
It is entirely unacceptable that he is throwing me off with his handsome face and this convoluted metaphor.
Two can play this game. Put me in, coach.
“Oh, I prefer to feed myself these days. Otherwise I find I usually leave the table still hungry.” I consider winking, but that’s always a gamble for me since half of the time I full on blink instead.
I’m going for playful and sexy, not bewildered or like I have something in my eye.
So I pick one of the plastic swords from my Shirley Temple and run the tip of my tongue up the side of the cherries before sliding them all into my mouth.
It has the desired effect; Hollis’s Adam’s apple bobs. He clears his throat and regroups, the smile returning as he comes up with his next line. “Maybe you just haven’t found someone who knows their way around a kitchen.”
“Well, we can’t all have private chefs waiting for us in Miami,” I say, biting into one of my raviolis.
And that does it. The smile falls from his face, leaving his mouth in a perfectly straight line, no parentheses in sight.
Sure, part of me regrets putting an end to the sexy banter, but most of me is glad it’s over because it wasn’t going anywhere, and truly I haven’t had a good.
.. meal... since Josh. Before Josh, in truth.
His idea of cooking was opening a can of off-brand SpaghettiOs.
Half the time he couldn’t even get the lid off fully before trying to shake me out into a saucepan.
This is getting entirely away from me. The point is Josh was bad at sex, I haven’t been with anyone since we broke up in September, and Hollis’s flirting doesn’t feel fair when he’s on his way to spend a week in bed with someone else.
“Millicent,” Hollis says. “I wasn’t trying to...” He pauses. He squints and his jaw visibly tenses. “Is that a guitar?”
I look up from where I’ve focused my eyes on my plate to find five men wearing black suits and giant, red-ribbon bow ties approaching us, instruments in tow.
Sure enough, the guitarist is strumming the beginning chords to a song.
When they reach our booth, the music pauses, and the man in the center takes a deep breath and belts out in a clear tenor voice, “En Nápoles, donde el amor es rey...” Hollis stares unblinking at his food as a trumpet joins in, and his jaw tenses further.
As they play, I recognize the tune, if not the words. I don’t laugh so much as cackle as a mariachi version of “That’s Amore” fills the mostly empty restaurant.
The band comes to the end of the song, and I give them my fervent applause. “Thank you so much,” I say, “for providing something I didn’t even know was missing from my life.”
The tenor smiles. “Another song, senorita?”
“No,” Hollis says, a little too vehemently. “We’re... we’re good here. Thank you, though. Thanks.”
The mariachi band strolls over to serenade another table, where José recently seated a family with two small children.
“Let it never be said José Napoleoni isn’t fully dedicated to this restaurant’s fusion concept,” I say.
Speak of the Mexican-Italian devil, the proprietor himself comes to check on us.
“The dessert menu is there, when you’re ready,” José says, gesturing to a laminated trifold propped between the caddy of sweeteners and the salt and pepper shakers.
“We’re doing a special right now to celebrate our recent grand opening.
If you post a photo of yourselves on social media using the hashtag JoseNapoleonis, dessert is on the house.
Trying to get the word out there.” He gives a little wink before going to take the other table’s order.
Hollis checks out the desserts and his eyes go wide as they land on something he must find particularly interesting. The man appears to have a major sweet tooth. “Sopaipillas with cannoli dip,” he says, his voice filled with longing.
“Do you have an Instagram account?” I ask.
He sounds uncertain as he responds, “Yes?”
“Okay, so let’s take the picture and have the post ready to show José when he gets back.” I slide out of my side of the booth and into his.
He scoots farther in toward the wall so our legs aren’t touching. “No, it’s fine. We can pay the eight dollars or whatever to buy it. I know how you feel about social media stuff.”
“But I owe you. You ordered for me to ensure I got my raviolis, and sugar seems to be your preferred gratitude currency. Besides,” I say. “Josh probably follows you, right? If he sees us together, it’s going to make him so mad.”
“Oh, I see,” Hollis says, turning to face me. “Using me to get to Florida isn’t enough. You’re going to use me to get back at your ex too.”
The smile that crept onto my face while imagining Josh’s annoyance fades.
“I’m kidding.” His words fall out in a hurry, as if realizing how fiercely accusatory he sounded. “Just kidding. Besides, now that I know what Josh did to you, I’m extra into anything that will piss him off.”
“Even if it might make you straight-up enemies instead of frenemies?”
“Especially if it might do that.”
“Okay. Cool,” I say, trying not to let Hollis’s apparent allegiance to me make me feel anything stronger than mildly pleased. “Let’s earn us some dessert.”
Hollis flips the camera on his phone to face us. I take the opportunity to rest my head on his shoulder. To get more of the restaurant’s decor into the frame. Not because he smells like the human embodiment of the perfect way to spend a day.
“Smile!”
I grin and watch the screen, waiting for him to join me. But he still looks like a kid who got coal for Christmas.
“No,” I say through my teeth like a terrible ventriloquist. “You need to smile or it looks like I’m holding you hostage.”
“You kind of are, though, aren’t you?”
“Ha ha, very funny. Blame your conscience for not letting you leave me at the airport.”
“You would’ve been perfectly happy winding up on a missing-persons list, yeah, I know.”
Another photo attempt. Another former TV star smile from me and nothing at all from him. “Hollis. Come on. Smile. Or I’m going to have to tickle you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Don’t be so certain,” I say. “You really don’t know me very well.”
Oh god, there’s that awful grimace-smile thing again.
It’s like in medieval times when people tried to draw lions without ever having seen one and created all sorts of un-lionlike abominations.
Except Hollis is managing to do it with his lips and teeth.
How can such a handsome face morph into something so horrifying so quickly?
“Ah! No. That’s even worse. Jesus. Gimme that.
” I take the phone from his hand, hold it in front of us.
“Okay,” I say. “Spitfire dad jokes. Here we go. What do you call a pig who does karate? A pork chop.” The Hollis on the phone’s screen only looks grumpier.
“Why do seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over the bay, they’d be bagels.
” Nothing. Not even the tiniest lift of the corner of his mouth, even though that joke is hilarious .
“Man, you’re a tough crowd. Time to pull out the big guns.
Where did Napoleon keep his armies? In his sleevies.
” There it is! A response, a slight one, but it’s good enough.
I take the picture in the split second before he wipes all evidence of amusement from his face.
“There we go,” I say, handing him back his phone.
“Now was that so hard, Grumps McGrumperson?”
Hollis ignores me and focuses on typing a caption. “What do you think?” he asks, holding it up for me to see.
Superb dinner with my favorite redheaded time traveler. #JoseNapoleonis
His favorite . The word is like a surprise hug—warm and welcome, but briefly disorienting. Except that’s an extremely specific category... “Oh, I’m your favorite redheaded time traveler, but not your favorite time traveler in general?”
“Well, I mean. There’s Scott Bakula. The entire cast of Hot Tub Time Machine . And the guy in that short-lived show where he gets with Paul Revere’s daughter...”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I get the message. So this is fine, but...” I take his phone again and add #PenelopetothePast , #MillicentWattsCohen , #roadtrip , and a row of heart-eye emojis. “Now it’s perfect.”
“You really don’t need to play it up like that. We’ll get the dessert with the one hashtag, and I’m sure you don’t want the extra attention your name will bring to the post.”
“Usually I wouldn’t, but... I think today I do.
It’ll give José some extra exposure, and I really like this place.
Plus, do you know how jealous Josh is going to be when he sees this?
It will absolutely kill him that I’m using my fame to help you.
And he knows I love heart-eye emojis, so he’ll probably realize I had a hand in writing the post. What he stole from me, I’m giving his competition freely. ”
Hollis’s eyes trail over my body, their difference in color stark again now that we’re sitting close together.
“I do believe there’s a bit of a storm brewin’ under all that sunshine,” he says.
And for a split second there’s a different cadence to his voice, a drawl that wasn’t there before.
Or maybe I’m imagining it. I don’t know.
I’m too distracted by the fact that I’ve got him smiling for real again.
···
As we leave, I give the taxidermy bear and its yawning mouth a longing look.
“It’s not exactly consistent with the rest of the decor,” Hollis says, following my gaze.
“I want to know what its mouth feels like.”
“Sorry, what now?”
“I’ve been wondering since we got here what it feels like inside its mouth.
Like is that its real teeth, do you think?
And are the insides of his cheeks squishy, or like plastic, or is there fabric in there?
Would it be silk? Felt? I have a lot of questions and I think a good feel around would answer most of them. ”
Hollis shakes his head and sighs. “Well, go ahead. I’m not going to stop you. Just make it quick so we don’t get stuck explaining to José why we’re molesting his stuffed bear.”
“I can’t, though,” I say, and demonstrate my inability to reach the bear’s mouth. “I’m too short. Like so many things in life, I’ll just have to be okay with never knowing, I guess.”
“For god’s sake.”
Hollis’s body is suddenly pressed against mine. Except the parts are all misaligned—my pelvis is against his chest, his arms are tight around the backs of my thighs. And oh, my feet aren’t on the ground.
“Now,” he says, “hurry it up.”
“Are you... Did you just pick me up so I can literally poke a bear?”
“No, I’m training for a petite-woman-lifting competition.
Nationals are in Albuquerque this year.” I can’t tell if he’s more annoyed with me than usual or if his eyebrows just look extra stern from this elevated angle.
“Any more stupid questions or are you going to put your damn fingers in that bear’s mouth so we can go? ”
Hoisted up like this, the bear and I are practically the same height.
I have to admit, it’s a little uncomfortable looking into its vacant glass eyes.
“Sorry for the intrusion, sir. I’ll only be a minute,” I say as I extend my hand toward it, gently press my fingers against the varnished teeth, run them over the hard plastic tongue and reach deep inside to where the throat would be in the usual circumstances, encountering only a smooth, cool dead end.
Equal parts satisfied and skeeved out, I mumble a quick “Thanks for your cooperation,” then remove my hand and place it on Hollis’s shoulder.
“Okay, I’m done.”
Nothing happens. “Hey, I’m done.” I look down, expecting to find him staring back up at me. Instead, I find his gaze focused straight ahead, which is exactly where my chest is.
“I hope you’re not expecting more desserts for this,” I say.
“Huh?”
“I think being in close quarters with my tits for the last thirty seconds straight is payment enough for this good deed.”
Hollis’s head tilts up and his eyes meet mine at last. He blinks twice. “Fair enough,” he says. “Come on, let’s get a move on. My friend’s expecting me tomorrow, and you have an elderly lady in Key West to bother.”
My feet are on the ground again before I can respond. A small part of me was hoping for a long, delicious slide down the front of his body. But an uneventful descent was probably for the best. Hollis is right: I’m on a mission, and I can’t let myself forget that time is of the essence.