Page 32 of Beautiful Lies
Ava’s face crumpled. “I feel like I lost the boy I loved. There were so many times I was scared for your life. And I never ever want to feel like that again.”
I reached for her hands and clasped them in mine, my thumbs tracing lazy circles over the thin skin of her inner wrists. “I’m done with that life. It’s over. I worked too hard to get out to fall back into it. I never want to go through that again, and I never want the people I care about to suffer because of it.”
She looked down at our joined hands but didn’t try to pull hers away. “We’ll try this. As friends though … nothing more.”
I released her hands as the waitress transferred the plates of food from her tray to our table. “Thank you,” I told the waitress.
“Uh huh,” she said, tucking the tray under her arm. She was middle-aged with pasty skin and thinning brown hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, her lips pressed in a flat line. I wondered when she’d last smiled or lit up with joy. As she walked away, I saw defeat in the slump of her shoulders, like life hadn’t gone easy on her. She looked as worn down and battered as this old diner, frayed around the edges, patched together with duct tape.
“I don’t think she’s found job satisfaction,” Ava said.
“When you have six kids and an unemployed husband to support, it can’t be easy,” I said, falling into one of our old storytelling games, wondering if Ava would play along like she used to.
Ava picked up an empanada and took an enormous bite. Chorizo juice dripped down her chin. I reached across the table and wiped it away with my thumb. She didn’t seem to notice or take offense. It probably felt familiar. “The man never leaves his La-Z-Boy,” Ava said, continuing our story. “Remote in one hand. Beer in the other.”
“He’s a champion bowler though. His team won the cup last year.”
In between shoveling food into our mouths, Ava and I filled in more details about our waitress and her fictional husband and kids.
I watched in amusement as Ava devoured her empanadas then dug into the rice and beans like she was still starving. For such a tiny girl, it had always amazed me that she could put away so much food. I loved her huge appetite. Not only for food but for life. Back when this girl was mine, she loved me with her whole heart and didn’t hold anything back. That was what I strived for now, to somehow get back to that magical place where she could love me like that again.
When we finished eating, she leaned back in her seat and rubbed her flat stomach, groaning like she always did after she ate enough food to feed a football team.
“You good?” I asked.
“I’m about to go into a food coma. Other than that, it’s all good.”
I chuckled.
“One more rule…”
I raised my brows. She looked at the jukebox in accusation as Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel” started playing. Another one of my choices.
“This thing is rigged. It didn’t even play my songs.”
I laughed and shook my head. “We can stay longer.” I settled back in my seat in no hurry to leave. Hell, I’d stay here all night if I could, just to hang out with her and keep talking about everything and nothing. No girl had ever intrigued me like Ava did. On any given day, she was a mixed bag. I liked it that she always kept me guessing.
“I have a rule, too,” I said. “No more kicking me in the balls.”
“That was a one-off.” She pointed her finger at me. “You provoked me.”
“You could have punched me in the nose.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Hindsight is twenty/twenty. Don’t try to convince me to watch a horror movie with you,” she said. “I’ll have creepy dreams for weeks, and I’ll be convinced that slashers and zombies lurk around every corner. Trust me, you don’t want to go there.”
I didn’t want to go there. I had to hear about it for weeks. “That’s funny … I seem to remember one Halloween whensomeonethought it would be a great idea to watch back-to-back slasher and zombie flicks. And who suggested that midnight visit to the cemetery afterward?”
“I think that was you.”
“That was all you. I was the poor schmuck who went along with it.”
“Poor schmuck? You grabbed me in the dark and scared the shit out of me.”
That was funny as hell. Until she nearly split my eardrums. “Your screams were loud enough to wake the dead.”
“I got them dancing on their graves.”
“It was the monster mash.”
