Page 37 of Triple Play

The server is watching our volley of conversation with a certain waitress-y impatience: interest in whatever small drama is happening mixed with a desire to go back to whatever she’d rather be doing.

I smile at her, the smile I use for fans and press that says, Please don’t ask what this is about. Then I rattle off the specifics of my order: two eggs sunny side up, grits, wheat toast, bacon. A side of hash browns smothered in cheese. A coffee and water and orange juice.

She turns to Felix. “I’ll take what he’s having,” he says gruffly. “Minus the OJ, plus a glass of milk.”

“Are you manifesting being an All-Star?” Shira asks.

“Sure, why not? It worked for Forsyth.”

So we’re still on a last-name basis. Huh. Maybe he’s just sore I was apparently mispronouncing his last name, even if I couldn’t hear much of a difference between how I was saying it and how he preferred it be said. Or maybe he’s just waiting for the same kind of permission he gave me. Blake, I practice saying in my head, you can call me Blake. And I don’t trust that I can say that here, with the server watching, without using a tone that might give something else away.

While I’m contemplating that, Shira folds her menu and offers it to the waitress. “I’ll take the pecan waffle.” And she pronounces it peh-khan.

“She wants the pee-can waffle,” I clarify.

“Y’all are cute.” The waitress flips her order pad shut. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

“Pee-can?” Shira repeats, when the waitress walks off.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about the South.” Or about me.

“So,” Felix says, looking between us, “how’d you two meet?”

“In a coffeeshop,” I say, just as Shira says, “At a Dunks.”

Shira howls a laugh. “Babe, do you think of Dunkin’ Donuts as a coffeeshop?”

“It’s a shop that serves coffee. What else would it be?”

Shira swipes her hand below each eye like she’s blotting her mascara. “He was standing ahead of me in line and asked my advice on what donut to get. I don’t think he was expecting me to give a top ten.”

“Or her to get in an argument with another customer when he disagreed with her rankings.”

Shira turns to me, eyes wide. “That wasn’t an argument.”

“Even when you told him to, uh, fuck off?”

“I was joking!” Shira’s eyes widen even further. “And I didn’t think you heard that.”

“Shira, I’m pretty sure everyone in the store heard that.”

“Then why did you ask me out if…” Shira bites her lip.

I brush a strand of hair back from her face. “I thought, this girl’s a firecracker. I gotta get to know her better.”

Shira still looks like she doesn’t quite believe me. That won’t do. I reach for her, my hands at her waist, and bring her into my lap.

“Hi,” she says a little breathlessly.

“Hi.” I kiss her. She tastes like those Listerine strips she sometimes uses. My hands drift lower, down the curve of her waist to her hips.

She leans closer, mouth at my ear. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Probably because I’m basically pawing her in public. “Sorry—” I begin.

Until she adds, “In sweatpants?”

Right. I’m in gray joggers. My interest in her is only growing more evident. We shouldn’t do this in public even if no one is paying us much attention.

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