Page 82 of Dirty Ink

“Um, I went out and got breakfast,” I said lamely in the end, holding up the plastic bag as if I needed to show proof.

Rachel tapped her fingers along the toothbrush. She was wearing one of my shirts. Open down the middle. One foot was on top of the other as she leaned against the door frame of the bathroom. I could see her toes curling atop one another.

“Hey, um,” she said hesitantly, a little flicker of a smile on her lips, “do you remember…no, never mind.”

She waved her hand at me and disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the faucet squeak as she turned on the water. I crossed the room and took the place she had had in the door frame. Her eyes met mine when she lifted her head, hair held back at the nape of her neck with her hand to keep it from her face.

“Denny’s?” I asked.

Her smile was beautiful but fast. A bloom that has only one morning. It was like she wouldn’t allow herself more. More openings. More mornings. Her eyes went to the plastic bag.

“Is that?”

I shook my head. “It’s the closest I could get in Dublin.”

Rachel turned around. Her hands rested on the pedestal sink. She leaned back.

“Shitty pancakes?” she asked.

“Cold bacon.”

“Burnt coffee?”

I nodded, our eyes lingering over one another. Rachel drummed her fingers against the aged porcelain.

“I guess we both remember then,” she said softly.

I didn’t tell her that I remembered it every night. And wished I hadn’t every morning.

We ate our food in silence. Somehow the fact that it was cold was made alright by how close Rachel’s toes were on the bed. Criss-cross apple sauce just inches from mine.

When I plugged my nose to down the last of my coffee, I found Rachel fiddling with her Styrofoam cup. I didn’t want the morning to end. Me to work. Her to…her waiting for Day 30 I supposed.

So I went on a limb. Took a daring plunge. Put myself out there more than I should have.

“Now what?” I said.

I thought I might die when Rachel looked up at me, eyes sparkling.

And grinned.

Rachel

Mason was grumpy, which was perfect. Just perfect.

“Look,” he said as we weaved through the crowded shopping district of Henry Street, shuffling forward like cattle to the slaughter, “I love playing hooky as much as the next guy. I really do. Add in a smoking-hot chick and what could be better? There’s fooling around on a blanket at St Stephen’s Green with a bottle of champagne. There’s lying in bed all day fooling around. There’s fooling around at the National Museum or the bank—”

“You’d rather be at a bank than here?” I asked.

I leaned back to avoid getting smacked in the face by an armful of shopping bags. Mason was not so lucky. He set his jaw and inhaled to steady (sort of) his breathing.

“I think you missed the common theme,” he said, looking miserably down at me.

I smiled innocently up at him. “Which is?”

Mason’s hand slipped down to squeeze my ass and he leaned down to whisper, “Fooling around, love.”

I swatted his hand away and pushed his chest back. We got off the elevator and were hit with the wafting aroma of stale pretzels circling in a heater, chain curry, and teenage hormones. I grinned.

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