Twenty-Eight
We pull up to a small diner tucked into the corner of an unassuming street. It’s one of those places that hasn’t been remodeled since the seventies, complete with neon signs, chipped red booths, and a waitress named Carol who probably survived three marriages and one alien encounter.
Nathan opens my door before I can grab the handle.
“You’re such a showoff,”
I mutter as I slide out.
“And you’re still wearing pajamas,”
he says, glancing down.
Inside, the diner is blissfully empty. Just a trucker in the corner sipping coffee and a line cook whistling off-key behind the counter.
We slide into a booth, and a tired-looking waitress—definitely Carol—hands us two laminated menus.
“I already know what I want,”
I tell her.
Carol doesn’t blink. “Lay it on me.”
“Double cheeseburger. Extra cheese, bacon, no tomato. Fries. Coke. And—" I pause, “—a pickle spear. None of that pickle chip nonsense.”
Nathan raises his brows. “Demanding. I’ll have the same,”
he says, handing his menu back. “But with tomato because I’m not a monster.”
Carol disappears with our order, and Nathan leans back in the booth, stretching his long legs out under the table. One of his knees brushes mine. He doesn’t move it. Neither do I.
“You always this fun at one in the morning?” he asks.
“No,”
I say honestly. “I’m usually asleep or creating fake arguments with people in my head.”
The corner of his mouth curls before he leans back. “Are you going to tell me why you really couldn’t sleep?”
I blow out a breath, glancing down at the small tabletop jukebox beside me. “You got quarters?”
He fishes a few coins out of his wallet and drops them into my hand without question.
“Pick something good,”
he says. “I swear if you choose Nickelback—”
I shoot him a glare. “I was going to pick Landslide.”
That makes him pause. “Fleetwood Mac?”
“It’s always been my comfort song. Reminds me that it’s okay not to have it all figured out.”
I punch in the numbers, and the melody begins to spill from the machine, quiet and aching. I keep my eyes on the jukebox.
“I was worried,”
I say quietly.
“I told you not to.”
“Yeah, well. You don’t get to dictate my emotional range, Calloway.”
He chuckles under his breath, but I feel the weight in the air shift again.
His eyes burn into me. “Ask me something.”
“What?”
“You’ve got until the food gets here. Anything you want. I’ll answer.”
I study him, unsure whether I’m imagining the vulnerability in his expression or if it’s truly there.
“Has she always been like that?”
I ask softly.
He doesn’t need clarification.
“Yes,”
he says. “Since I was old enough to know what being scared felt like. She wasn’t always drunk, but she was always angry. Always blaming someone else.”
“And your dad?”
“Left when I was fifteen,”
he says. “Didn’t even pack a bag. Just…disappeared.”
I stare down at my hands. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
His voice is flat. “He wasn’t a good man, but I was more angry at him for leaving us with her. At least with him, we knew what to expect.”
The words hit like a punch, but his voice is calm. Steady.
“Nathan…”
He shrugs. “Honestly, my story’s not that unique, Sienna. Plenty of kids grew up with shitty parents. I just figured out early how to put on a good suit and pretend like none of it touched me.”
“And now?”
“Now I still put on the suit. But sometimes…”
He trails off. “Sometimes it still feels like I’m ten years old, standing in that house, wondering if I’ll ever get out.”
I meet his eyes. It’s clearly a painful subject for him, but his honesty is refreshing. Still, I don’t want to make him relive it if he doesn’t want to.
Before I can ask something else, he says, “You going to tell me why you really felt like you needed to bring a date to your brother’s wedding?”
I glance up, startled.
He holds my gaze. “I get we don’t know each other that well, but you don’t seem like someone still hung up on her ex. What’s the real reason?”
I toy with the paper napkin in front of me, the corner fraying under my fingertips. “I mean, yeah, sure, finding out he moved on so fast knocked the wind out of me, but that wasn’t it. Not really.”
Nathan says nothing, just watches me with that quiet intensity of his, and somehow, that makes it easier to keep going.
“It’s stupid, but I didn’t want to disappoint my family,”
I admit, my voice quieter now. “I got a lot of that growing up. Not angry—just disappointed.”
“You’re twenty-five and seem like you’ve got your shit together. What the hell is disappointing about that?”
I smile, but it’s weak. “You’d think, but it’s not about achievements. It’s about expectations.”
I take a breath. “I was the quiet one. Jeremy was always louder, more confident, better at charming people. I kind of faded into the background. I never really had a group growing up. I’d float. One friend here, another there. Never really found my people.”
I glance at him. “Believe it or not, I used to be painfully shy.”
I smile, trying to lighten the air between us. “Now I talk too much because I’m making up for all the years I didn’t.”
Something about saying that makes my throat catch. I glance down at my hands, suddenly aware of how tightly I’ve curled them into fists.
“I remember being a teenager, lying in bed, wondering why I didn’t look like the other girls. Why I didn’t have a boyfriend. Why my body felt like something I had to apologize for.”
His jaw tenses, but he says nothing. He just listens.
“And when Daniel cheated, after six years together, I didn’t just wonder how I missed it. I wondered if deep down… I knew. Knew I wasn’t enough. That maybe I didn’t expect I could find better, so I looked the other way. I think I was so used to not being chosen, I mistook being tolerated for love.”
The words hang there, heavier than I expected. I don’t look at him right away. I can’t.
“Remind me to find Daniel later and run his car off a cliff.”
A choked laugh bubbles out of me. “That’s… not entirely legal.”
He lifts a brow. “Neither is what I’d prefer to do, so be grateful I started with the car.”
That makes me laugh again, watery and a little shaky, but real.
I chew my bottom lip, needing to switch things up before I smother on the lump in my throat. “Okay, new question.”
His brows lift. “Hit me.”
“What age was your first kiss?”
“That’s your follow-up?”
“You gave me an opening. I’m taking it.”
He huffs a laugh. “Fourteen. Her name was—God, what was her name—Rachel? Rebecca? She wore grape lip gloss and told me I tasted like I could ruin her life.”
“Wow.”
I snort. “Solid review.”
“Your turn.”
“Thirteen,”
I say. “Truth or Dare. He missed and kissed my nose instead.”
“Did you cry?”
“No, but I did tell everyone he had some rare disease.”
“Brutal.”
I lean in, lowering my voice. “Okay. Next one. How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
“That’s bold.”
“You said anything.”
“Sixteen,”
he replies smoothly. “In the back of someone else’s car. Romantic, I know.”
I burst out laughing. “Wow. That’s—”
“Don’t judge me. You haven’t answered yet.”
I hold up a finger. “First, I’ll need a detailed description of this car. Was it at least a nice car?”
“It was a Toyota Camry. Beige.”
“Oh my God.”
He shrugs. “We do what we must.”
“Tell me there were leather seats.”
“Cloth. Sticky. Middle of July.”
I double over in laughter. “You’re killing me.”
He watches me, his smile softening as I laugh, something unguarded in his expression now. He’s relaxing. Unwinding. And it’s pathetic, but I feel stupidly honored.
I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye. “Okay, okay,”
I say, still breathless. “I was seventeen. In Daniel’s basement.”
“Classy.”
“Hey, at least there was air conditioning.”
He hums. “Points awarded.”
“I think his parents were watching Wheel of Fortune upstairs.”
“How was it?”
he asks, more gently now.
I grimace. “It was… fine? Quick. Confusing. Very educational in a this cannot possibly be what all the songs are about kind of way.”
He chuckles. “I think that describes most people’s first time. Disappointment set to music.”
“Did you even have music?”
“No. The radio was broken, but I had the sound of thighs sticking to cloth upholstery. That’s practically a symphony.”
I cackle again, but I can’t help it. Across the diner, the trucker glances up and shakes his head like he regrets ever being here.
Our food arrives too quickly. I’m almost disappointed I don’t get to ask him more questions, but this burger looks delicious, so my disappointment is soon forgotten.
Carol slides two plates onto the table with a tired smile.
“Two burgers, extra cheese, bacon, no tomato for the lady. You, tomato man, enjoy.”
I pick up the burger and take a bite so big I’m sure it’s in no way attractive, but I’m too hungry to care.
Nathan takes one look at me and bursts out laughing. “Are you… okay?”
“I’ve ascended,”
I mumble around a mouthful of cheese and beef. “This is my final form.”
“I’ve seen people cry at weddings,”
he says, taking a bite of his own. “But never over a burger.”
We eat in silence for a bit, but the good kind. The kind that’s warm and full and heavy with something I don’t have a name for.
When we’ve devoured our food, we sit back, full and sleepy and entirely too content.
Nathan sighs. “We should get back.”
“Yeah,”
I agree, a delirious smile spreading across my face.
I keep that stupid smile all the way to the car, and as we drive back in silence.
When we get back to the house, he walks me to the door. The porch light casts soft shadows across his face. We stop. Face to face. Too close again.
I don’t kiss him.
He doesn’t kiss me.
But our eyes linger.
“Thanks for the burger,” I say.
“Anytime.”
I step inside, still smiling as I close the door behind me, only to hear him call out, “Next time, I’m choosing the pajamas. I feel like I just brought an escaped cult member for burgers.”
I choke on a laugh, flipping him off through the glass as he backs down the steps, grinning like he just won something.