Chapter 7 #3
"We can come back," I offered. "Whenever you want. They're open year-round."
She turned to look at me then, and the shifting lights played across her face like she was underwater with the jellyfish. Safe behind glass that no one could break.
“Come. Let’s get some food.”
Junior's Restaurant squatted on Flatbush Avenue Extension like a time capsule that refused to acknowledge the last forty years had happened.
Red leather booths cracked from decades of use.
Black-and-white checkered floors that had seen everything from first dates to mob meetings.
The famous cheesecake displayed in the window like the Mona Lisa of diabetes.
The whole place smelled like sugar and grease and that particular New York nostalgia that came from surviving when everything around you got demolished for condos.
The hostess—sixty if she was a day, red hair that definitely came from a bottle—looked at us like she'd seen everything and we didn't even rank as interesting. "Two?"
"Corner booth," I said, slipping her a fifty. "If you have one."
"Sugar, for fifty bucks you can have whatever booth you want."
She led us through the maze of tables, past families destroying plates of pancakes at two in the afternoon, past old men reading newspapers like the internet hadn't been invented, to a corner booth that felt like a fortress.
High backs that blocked the view from other tables.
Position where I could see the entrance but Anya was hidden from anyone walking by. Perfect.
Anya slid in across from me, and something about the way the red leather creaked, the way the table was slightly sticky despite being wiped down, made her relax fractionally.
This wasn't her father's world of white tablecloths and crystal.
Wasn't my world of carefully curated modern furniture.
This was neutral territory where the only thing that mattered was whether you wanted your eggs over easy or scrambled.
The waitress appeared—different one, younger but with the same exhausted efficiency—and I ordered before Anya could overthink it.
"Grilled cheese with tomato soup for her. Burger, medium rare, for me. And a chocolate egg cream to share. Two straws."
Anya's eyebrows rose slightly at my presumption, but she didn't object. Maybe she recognized what I was doing—making decisions so she didn't have to, giving her structure when choice felt overwhelming. Or maybe she was just too tired to argue about sandwiches.
"You know what an egg cream is?" I asked after the waitress left.
"No eggs. No cream." Her lips twitched slightly. "Chocolate syrup, milk, seltzer. New York's most misleading beverage."
"You've had one?"
"I've read about them." She traced patterns on the sticky table with one finger. "My father thought Brooklyn cuisine was beneath us. We ate French. Italian. Japanese. Nothing that came from neighborhoods where people actually lived."
The food arrived faster than should have been possible, but that was Junior's magic.
Kitchen that moved at light speed despite looking like it hadn't been updated since the Carter administration.
The grilled cheese was perfect—golden brown, cheese oozing out the sides, cut diagonally the way it should be.
The tomato soup steamed in a bowl big enough to swim in.
The egg cream came in a tall glass with two straws, chocolate foam on top like edible clouds.
Anya stared at the spread like she'd forgotten what food was for.
"Eat," I said gently. "It's physically impossible to have an anxiety attack while eating a grilled cheese."
"That's not scientifically accurate."
"It's Junior's accurate. Different kind of science."
She picked up one triangle of sandwich, hesitated, then took a small bite.
Her eyes closed as she chewed, and she made that sound again—the soft, wondering noise from the aquarium.
But this time it was deeper. Throatier. The kind of sound that made me think about sounds she might make in other contexts if she ever trusted me enough.
"Oh," she breathed. Then she took another bite, bigger this time. Dipped the corner in the soup. Made the sound again.
I focused on my burger and definitely not on the way her tongue caught a drop of soup on her lower lip.
"My mother used to make this," she said suddenly, surprising me. She'd mentioned her mother exactly once before—at our first dinner, talking about her grandmother. "Grilled cheese with tomato soup. Called it 'sick day food.' Said it could cure anything from a cold to a broken heart."
"Did it?" I kept my voice casual, not wanting to spook her out of sharing.
She took another bite, considering. "The soup helped. The attention helped more." A pause. "She used to cut the crusts off even though my father said it was wasteful."
She was giving me more pieces. Bigger ones now. Her mother who'd died too young. The attention she'd craved and lost. The way food could be love if someone cared enough to make it that way.
"I'm sorry you lost her," I said. Inadequate words for inadequate circumstances.
"My father got worse after she died." She dipped her sandwich again, watching the soup drip. "Like she'd been the only thing keeping him human. Without her, he just became . . . well, you know what he is."
A monster. She didn't say it, but we both heard it.
She ate steadily, methodically, like her body had finally remembered it needed fuel.
Half the sandwich. Most of the soup. Sips of egg cream that left foam on her upper lip that she'd lick away unconsciously.
Each bite seemed to unwind something in her shoulders, her spine, the careful way she'd been holding herself since the wedding.
"Thank you," she said when her plate was mostly empty. "For today. For—" She gestured vaguely at the remains of lunch, the booth, the world outside the penthouse. "—not making me sit in that place thinking about everything bad."
The words hit like a slap. Everything bad. That's what she thought. That our marriage was bad, that not consummating it was bad, that somehow she'd failed by not spreading her legs for a stranger who'd confessed unwanted attraction.
"Nothing is bad." My voice came out harder than intended, firm enough that she looked up from her plate.
"You're safe. Your father has no power here.
And last night—" I made myself continue even though the words felt like chewing glass.
"—was fine. More than fine. We did exactly what we both needed to do. Which was nothing."
She studied me with those dark eyes that saw too much. "You don't believe that."
"I do."
"You wanted—"
"What I want doesn't matter if you don't want it too." I leaned forward slightly, needing her to understand this. "Consent isn't just about saying yes, Anya. It's about wanting to say yes. Being ready to say yes. And you weren't. Aren't. Maybe never will be. That's okay."
"The treaty—"
"Fuck the treaty." The profanity made an old man two booths over glare at me. I lowered my voice. "I told you. We wait. However long you need. Forever if that's what it takes. I don’t mind."
She was quiet for a long moment, spinning the empty egg cream glass between her hands. The chocolate foam had settled into something less appetizing, but she took another sip anyway.
"What if forever is actually forever?" she asked quietly. "What if I never—what if I can't—"
"Then we're married roommates who go to aquariums and eat grilled cheese." I tried for lightness but probably missed by miles. "There are worse fates."
"For me, maybe. For you—"
"For me, knowing you're safe and not terrified is worth more than any physical anything." The truth of it surprised me. But sitting here, watching her eat actual food, seeing color in her cheeks, I knew I meant it. "That's all I want, Anya. For you to be okay. Everything else is negotiable."
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she pushed the egg cream glass toward me, offering the last sip. A small gesture. Probably meaningless. But it felt like trust, or at least the beginning of it.
"The jellyfish were beautiful," she said softly.
"We'll go back," I promised. "Whenever you want."
The check came. I paid in cash, overtipped enough to make the waitress double-take. We slid out of the booth and back into the October afternoon, where the world waited with all its complications and treaties and threats.
But for now, Anya had eaten. She'd shared memories. She'd smiled at jellyfish.
It was enough.
Back at the penthouse, to my surprise, she chose to sit beside me. That simple decision—Anya abandoning the Eames chair for the sofa cushion eighteen inches from where I sat—felt like watching the Berlin Wall come down.
No announcement.
No discussion.
Just her walking past her usual spot with Anna Karenina clutched against her chest and settling into the charcoal fabric close enough that I could smell her shampoo. Something floral. Jasmine, maybe.
The city had turned dark while we were eating dinner—Thai takeout that she'd actually finished, progress measured in empty containers—and now Manhattan lit up beyond the windows like a circuit board.
Thousands of lives playing out in those illuminated squares while we sat in careful silence, pretending this proximity was normal.
I had my laptop open to legitimate construction contracts that needed review.
The Williamsburg project required adjustments after the latest environmental inspection.
The Queens warehouse renovation was behind schedule.
Normal business that my brain refused to process because every atom of awareness had shifted to the woman beside me.