I laugh. “I can’t believe you remember that, but yes.”
“Maria, I used to go with you to that little diner near the public library after school because you were obsessed with their chicken sandwiches. Extra pickles on the sandwich and extra pickles on the side,” he repeats my old order. “I even recall a few times you convinced me to play hooky at lunch just so I could help you satisfy your crazy pickle cravings.”
“Excuse me? Crazy cravings?” I put a hand to my hip. “Pickles on chicken sandwiches are everything. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs their head checked.”
Remy just grins. “Well, let me be the first to introduce you to the best fucking pickles that you’ll ever taste in your life.”
My eyes go wide. “I hope you realize those are some big promises.”
“Promises I stand by, Ria.”
Not Maria or Ri. But Ria. That’s what Remy always used to call me back in the day. He was the only one to use that nickname, and when I was a high school girl with first love in her eyes, it felt like everything.
It still kind of does.
I let Remy guide me inside the restaurant, and in a matter of minutes, we’re seated at a cozy booth in the back corner. A request made specifically by the man still wearing Izzy on his chest.
“Here,” I say and hold out both of my hands. “I can hold her while we eat.”
“Ah-ah.” He shakes his index finger at me. “She’s still sleeping. So, we’re good just like this.”
“But how are you going to eat with her strapped to your chest like that?”
“I’ll manage,” he answers without hesitation and hands me a menu. “And you work on figuring out what you want to eat.”
“Are you sure? Because I can—”
“Ria, can you do me a favor?” he asks, and I tilt my head to the side.
“What?”
“Will you try to relax and just…enjoy this meal?” His eyes turn soft, and he reaches out to place his hand over mine. “Don’t worry about me or Izzy. Just…order all the fucking pickles your heart desires,” he says while grinning. “And relax. You deserve it. You’re a great mom, and great moms deserve a break sometimes, okay?”
For some insane reason, I want to cry at his words. But not because they make me feel bad. Actually, they make me feel so good the relief they provide is overwhelming.
All I can do is swallow hard against the emotion and nod.
“Okay. Deal.”
“Lovely doing business with you.” He gently squeezes my hand before letting it go to grab his menu. He peruses the dinner options, and I just sit there, looking at my own menu.
But mostly, my mind races and wonders, How, after all these years, is Remy Winslow here, with me?
In the blink of an eye, he’d gone from someone I hadn’t seen in so long to the first person I called when I felt like everything was falling apart.
The only person I wanted to call, actually.
Rem tilts his head away from a still-sleeping Izzy on his chest and carefully lifts the rest of his chicken sandwich to his lips, all the while avoiding inadvertently dropping food onto an incoherent baby’s cute head.
Izzy stirs ever so slightly as he takes one final bite, but her tiny cherubic face stays lax and her sweet little body just keeps on snoozing.
I don’t know if it’s exhaustion from giving me hell today or if Remy has cast some kind of secret baby voodoo on her, but somehow, someway, she stayed asleep through the entire meal.
“Okay, let me hear it.” Remy wipes his hands off with a napkin and tosses it down onto his now-empty plate. “What did you think?”
“You want my review on Jacob’s Pickles?”
He nods and rests his hands at Izzy’s back. “You bet your cute ass I do.”
My cute ass? I kind of want to tell him my ass isn’t looking all that cute after having a baby six weeks ago, but I bite my tongue and focus on his real question.
“Well…” I feign a small frown. “It was…okay.”
“Okay?” He narrows his eyes and nods pointedly toward my plate. My very empty plate that used to hold seven different flavors of pickles, French fries, and the best flipping chicken sandwich I’ve ever had in my life. “My surprise was just…okay?”
“Yeah.” I shrug and bite my lip to fight the urge to smile. “I mean, I appreciate the thought behind the surprise. So…I definitely give that five stars. But the food?” I shrug again. “It was…okay.”