Page 23 of Full Tilt
Kacey gnawed her lip.
“Order,” I told her. “Unless you’d rather we go back to my place and fire up some Lean Cuisines?”
“When you put it that way…” Kacey turned to the waitress and said in a deep voice, “Yes, very well, I'll have a Bloody Mary, and a steak sandwich, and a steak sandwich.”
The waitress gave her a look and I frowned at the Bloody Mary.
Kacey flashed her eyes, looking between us. “It’s fromFletch? The movie?” She jabbed a finger across the table. “You, JonahFletcher,can’t tell me you haven’t seen the greatest Chevy Chase movie of all time?”
“Sorry, I missed it,” I said.
“It’s a classic,” Kacey said. “I have a thing for eighties movies.”
The waitress cleared her throat. “So do I, honey, but I don’t have steak sandwiches or Bloody Marys.”
Kacey ordered a cheeseburger and fries, and I ordered a Cobb salad, hold the bacon, and a side of wheat toast, no butter.
When the waitress moved on, Kacey shook her head. “No bacon? The only good thing about a Cobb salad is you get to put bacon on it.”
I shrugged. “Not on the list.”
“That sucks. What else can’t you eat?”
“No red meat, no chocolate, no salt on anything…”
Kacey nearly choked on her coffee. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nochocolate?”
“I miss salt more,” I said. “And butter. Nothing fatty, nothingdelicious.” I laughed dryly. “In summation, I’m not allowed to eat anything delicious.”
Kacey shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Not like I have a choice. And there are worse things.”
“I’m trying to imagine something worse than not being able to eat chocolate.” She froze, then set her coffee mug down, her smile vanishing. “Oh my God, that’s a terrible thing to say to someone with a heart condition. I’m sorry. I do that a lot—just blurt out whatever pops into my head.”
“Hey, it’s cool. I can’t do cocaine anymore either, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise for all the money I’m saving.”
Her embarrassment fell away with a smile. “Yeah, you look like the cocaine type to me.”
“Total cokehead. Reformed.”
Kacey relaxed and sat back in her seat. “So, you went to UNLV? That’s where you studied industrial arts?”
“Yes, my brother and I both studied art there.”
“And then Carnegie Mellon?”
I sipped my coffee. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”
“You have a lot of photos and diplomas on your wall. Before I decided to cool off my boobs in your freezer, I had some time to kill.”
I set my cup down before I spilled it. “That’s not something you hear every day.”
“It is in my world,” Kacey said with a rueful smile, as if it was an old joke she’d gotten tired of hearing. But she waved it off.
“Carnegie Mellon is…where?” she asked.
“Pennsylvania. Talk about a weather shock. The first winter I was there I wanted to hibernate.”
