Page 26 of Once Upon a Boyband
We mostly agree, but I love that when we don’t, Adam argues about the greatest cover of all time like it’s a matter of life and death.
“I’ll give you ‘Hurt’ by Johnny Cash,” I say. “But the top five has to include ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T.’ Otis Redding said himself that Aretha did the song better than he ever could have.”
“But that would knock out Cake’s ‘I Will Survive,’” he argues.
“Good! It’s not even that great of a cover.”
He narrows his eyes. “Those are fighting words, Laney.”
I grin. “Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’?”
“Okay. Thatisa good one. But that means our list has to be top ten instead of five.”
We take a break when our waiter shows up with our dinner, placing a plate of pork tenderloin with raspberry chutney in front of me and a pasta dish with chicken and sun-dried tomato in front of Adam. I feel a tiny pang of regret when I see his plate. It’s the dish Ididn’torder, and it looks delicious.
Without saying a word, Adam takes his bread plate and scoops a generous helping of pasta on the plate before sliding it over to me.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I watch him.
He shrugs. “I heard you debating between the two dishes when you were ordering. Now you can try them both.”
I think back to when we ordered our entrees. Adam showed the waiter the menu and pointed, something I noticed because I wondered if there was something he couldn’t pronounce.
But that’s not what was happening. He hid his order because he was ordering whatIwanted.
There has to be a catch somewhere.
He likes dogs, he brought me flowers, he knows music even better than I do, he loves his sister,andhe paid attention enough to know what dinner options I was considering?
“Would you have ordered this had you not heard me say it sounded good?” I ask.
“Itdidsound good,” he says, mostly avoiding the question. He takes a big bite and closes his eyes as he lets out a little groan. “And it’s absolutely delicious.” He nudges my plate a little closer toward me. “Try it.”
“Adam, just tell me. Do you even like pasta?”
“Who doesn’t like pasta?” he says through another bite.
“But I want you to eat whatyouwant. Did you order this just for me?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I huff. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
“There’s nothing to tell! I love pasta. And this dish is delicious.”
I pick up my fork, suddenly feeling overwhelmed, maybe even a little emotional. It isn’t truly a big deal. There aren’t that many things on the menu, so Adam very well could have been considering the pasta. But just the possibility of him making a choicefor mefeels so genuinely kind and considerate, I’m not sure how to process it. A lump forms at the back of my throat, making my first bite of pasta difficult to swallow.
Itisdelicious. Creamy and a little tart but not too heavy. I haven’t tried the pork yet, but it’s hard to imagine it being better than this.
I’ve only ever had one serious boyfriend in my life—a guy I dated through most of vet school. Shane was nice. Or…nice-ish, maybe? In retrospect, I realize he was mostly just nice when he wanted something. Attention. Food. Someone to pick up his drycleaning. When he wanted to be sweet, he knew how to turn it on. But when he didn’t, he was distracted. Always on his phone—he worked in finance which meant there were always things he said “had to be dealt with immediately”—and I just never got the sense he was fully invested inme.
Turns out, he wasn’t. He called things off a month before I graduated and was dating a woman he worked with less than three weeks later.
Two years down the drain, just like that.
I’m only halfway throughonedate with Adam, and I could kick myself for having wasted even a single day with Shane. I remember trying so hard to make himseeme—tocare about what I had to say, how I felt about things. Maybe if I wore a little more makeup or wore his favorite color or suggested we eat athisfavorite restaurant, he might take notice.
It took a few months of post-break-up therapy to realize I had never been the problem. That with the right person, I would never have totryto be seen.
