She looks up at the waiter with an unreadable expression. “Yes,” she says flatly.
The waiter smiles and relaxes with her response. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head in fascination. “How awesome is that? To have the Max Epcott for a father?”
She doesn’t smile or flinch. Nothing on her face indicates that this is a question she’s heard a million times before. I wait for her sarcastic reply, because based on the way she responded to her father’s senseless comments, there’s no way this poor waiter is leaving here unscathed.
Just when I think she’s about to roll her eyes, she releases a pent-up breath and smiles. “It was absolutely surreal. I’m the luckiest daughter in the world.”
The waiter grins. “That’s really cool.”
When he turns and walks away, she faces me again. “What kind of class?” she asks.
It takes me a moment to process her question because I’m still trying to process the bullshit answer she just fed the waiter. I almost inquire about it, but think better of it. I’m sure it’s easier for her to give people the answers they hope to hear, rather than an earful of the truth. That, and she’s probably the most loyal person I’ve ever met, because I’m not sure I could say those things about that man if he were my father.
“Creative writing.”
She smiles thoughtfully and picks up her fork. “I knew you weren’t an actor.” She takes a bite of her salmon, and before she swallows the first bite, she’s already cutting into it again. The next several minutes are spent in complete silence while we both finish eating. I clean my entire plate, but she pushes hers away before she even finishes half of it.
“So tell me something,” she says, leaning forward. “Why’d you think I needed you to come to my rescue with that fake boyfriend crap?”
And there it is. She’s upset with me. I kind of thought she might be.
“I didn’t think you needed rescuing. I just sometimes find it difficult to control my indignation in the presence of absurdity.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You’re definitely a writer, because who the hell talks like that?”
I laugh. “Sorry. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I can be a temperamental idiot and I should have minded my own business.”
She pulls the napkin from her lap and sets it on her plate. One of her shoulders rises with a little half-shrug. “I didn’t mind,” she says with a smile. “It was kind of fun seeing my father so flustered. And I’ve never had a fake boyfriend before.”
“I’ve never had a real boyfriend before,” I reply.
Her eyes shift to my hair. “Believe me, that’s obvious. No gay man I know would have left the house looking like you do right now.”
I kind of get the feeling she doesn’t mind the way I look nearly as much as she’s letting on. I’m sure she receives her fair share of physical discrimination, so I find it hard to believe she would be the type to list physical appearance high on her list of priorities in a guy.
But it’s not lost on me that she’s teasing me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was flirting.
Yep. Definitely should have walked out of this restaurant a long time ago, but this is one of the few moments I’m actually thankful for the plethora of bad decisions I tend to make.
The waiter brings the check, but before I can pay it, Fallon scoops up the wad of cash her father threw on the table and hands it to him.
“You need change?” he asks.
She waves it off. “Keep it.”
The waiter clears off the table and when he steps away, there’s nothing left between us. The imminent end to the meal leaves me feeling a little unsettled, because I’m not sure what to say to keep her here longer. The girl is moving to New York and chances are, I’ll never see her again. I don’t know why the thought of that makes me anxious.
“So,” she says. “Should we break up now?”
I laugh, even though I’m still attempting to discern if she’s got an incredible deadpan wit, or absolutely no personality at all. There’s a fine line between the two, but I’m betting it’s the former. Hoping it is, anyway.
“We haven’t even been dating an hour yet and you already want to dump me? Am I not very good at this boyfriend thing?”
She smiles. “A little too good. It’s weirding me out, to be honest. Is this the moment you break the ultimate boyfriend illusion and tell me you knocked up my cousin while we were on a break?”