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“I don't know a lot about my mom.”
They both stare together at the slice of cake. It's chocolate, one that Marcus had made earlier today for service.
He takes the candle that he brought in from Richie's setup and pushes it into the center of the piece and uses the lighter from the tabletop and flicks it on.
“What about you?” she asks him.
He watches the flame flicker for a moment, holding it in the air between them, then lights the candle.
“Probably too much?” he says to her and then smiles in a thin line.
“Like, I know things about her,” she goes on. “Stories. But I don't remember, like, the way she smelled? The perfume, yes, but not what it was like when she wore it. Or what it felt like to see her laugh, or-”
Her dad is out of town visiting relatives. She said they'd been in kind of a funny place since she signed the partnership agreement. Mainly because she'd been avoiding him. And he can't but help think it's probably his fault.
“I'm older than she was now,” she tells him, getting a little introspective. “When, you know...”
He nods at her, not sure what to say. He's never had a moment where he didn't feel the force of his mother in his life, even from a long distance. Things would remind him of her, and he'd stay busy to shut that out.
He stayed busy to shut out a lot of things, he's realized.
He'd even told Syd to take the day off. For her birthday. But instead, she said she just wanted to be here at The Bear, treat it like a normal day.
Service is over, and they're sitting together in the FOH in a booth. Both avoiding talking to their parents, it seems, about the biggest things going on in their lives.
“You really didn't have to do this,” she tells him, smiling in a self-depreciating way, watching the candle start to melt down onto the piece of cake.
“Syd,” he tells her, like it's the most important and the only thing that matters. Because right now, it is. “It's your birthday.”
“Yeah, well, you have a birthday, too, and we never celebrate that.”
He laughs a little under his breath. This is different. It's Syd, and he's just satisfied she's here. It was probably an excuse to spend more time with her after service, he knows that. He'll take whatever he can get at this point.
“Yeah, well, I'm a hypocrite,” he tells her, raising his eyebrows at her. “Happy Birthday! Now blow your candle out.”
She just sucks on her teeth, shaking her head at him with a grin, then she leans forward and blows the candle out, leaving them alone in the darkness of the FOH again.
“What did you wish for?” he asks her, after a long moment of silence lingers between them, hovering. When it's service, they're communicating; everything is dialed lately, like it used to be. When they're not-
“I didn't,” she tells him. “You left that out of the instructions.”
He makes a disappointed face at her. She always does this where she comes in so close to him and then starts to pull back again. Like the water at the edge of the lake. He remembers watching it, alone, the tide moving in and out, hypnotically.
He stops thinking and reaches forward and takes the candle out and lays it on a napkin and then slides a fork over to her.
“Are you ever going to talk to your mom?” she asks him, as she lifts the fork and slices into the cake.
“Are you ever going to talk to your dad?”
“I'm going to tell my dad. I'm just...you know...waiting for the right moment,” she says, with a gentle gesture of her hand.
“You mean when we're not dead broke,” he answers, trying to keep the guilt out of his voice, as she takes a bite.
He can see the immediate effect of it in her expression, imagines her toes are probably curling inside of her clogs at the taste of it, as she sinks down into the booth, her eyes closed.
“That good, huh?” he asks, watching her, probably a little too closely, but it's dark enough in here.
“Carm, when's the last time you talked to your mom?” she asks him, her eyes still shut.
He sighs, and runs a hand through his hair, knowing what he's in for when he answers. But he's done running from this stuff, and Syd has always been able to say the right thing the right way in order to motivate him.
Jimmy's words, telling him to talk to his mom, are still there in the back of his mind. But he'd also kind of bailed on them, and as much as it was his fault for spending the restaurant money so shitty, just more of the house of cards that is family falling down around them.
God, he's such a Berzatto.
He stops staring at the ceiling now and looks over at her, as she sits up in the booth again. Waiting.
“It's been, like, five years or whatever-” he says, smoothing his hand over the table, avoiding her eyes and tapping his fingertips on the table before he glances up at her again.
“Five years?” she asks him, her entire face animated now. “Holy shit, Carm,” she starts laughing, and not in a funny way. “My dad would fucking disown me.”
“No, he wouldn't,” he tells her, because he knows that's such bullshit. “Maybe we should switch? I can talk to your dad, and you can talk to my mom?”
She starts laughing now at his idea, shaking her head. “Yeah, no, you don't want that.”
“What?” he asks her, leaning in now. “Your dad hate me or something?”
“No,” she tells him. “I never said that.” He watches her fingers toy with the fork again in front of her, the way she does when she's thinking about something, as he watches her face change in the dim light from the street outside, and sees her eyes get suddenly big. “It's complicated.”
“Fuck me,” he says, sliding down in the booth, resting the back of his head against it.
“You should have some cake?” she asks him weakly, as he slides his eyes over to her, and sees her attempt a smile at him now. He just shakes his head and shuts his eyes again, then rubs a face across his hand. “It's really, really good.”
He knows it's good, because Marcus made it. But Syd's usually right. He sucks in a deep breath through his nose and sits up and looks for another fork on the table. Then he realizes he only brought one.
Fuck it. He takes her fork, the icing from her bite still on it, and digs into the cake, raises the piece to his lips, and he can feel her watching him. Her eyes light up when she hears him moan, and he nods at her in gratitude, and then pulls the rest of the icing off the fork between his lips before he sets the fork back down on the table.
“I know, right?” she says to him with a toothy grin.
He feels something come loose a little, the sweetness of the cake, of her voice, and her smile. The headscarf she's wearing, on rotation so he kind of knows what day of the week it is. That they're sitting in their restaurant. Theirs, because she signed the agreement. It used to be Mikey's place. He always wanted to be a part of this, and now-
“Carm, you okay?” she asks him, leaning forward, her fingers on his shoulder now and he feels the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, tries to hold back the feelings he's having, and just finds that he can't.
“I'm great,” he says, trying not sound like a baby, and feels a tear slide down his cheek. He laughs at himself and then wipes it away and laughs again. Too fucking much, but he's...he's....
”I'm happy.” They're broke, and he doesn't know what's going to happen, but right now? “Yeah,” he tells her, and nods, watching her expression change as he stares at her. God, he wishes it wasn't so dark in here.
“My dad, he'll like you, Carm,” she tells him, biting at her bottom lip.
“Yeah?” he asks her, as she silently nods at him, and it makes him feel warm inside. “You should talk to him,” he says to her. “Don't hold onto that for too long. It's not good for you to hold back whatever you're feeling inside.”
He knows he's talking to himself just as much as he is to her, and she moves her eyes away from his, staring down at her hands for a moment, then her smile turns sideways.
“I-I lied, you know,” she tells him, hiding her eyes. “About not making a wish for my birthday?”
She presses her lips together and meets his eyes again, her face going unreadable for a moment, and he thinks about this. About how, maybe, he thinks she only lies when she's feeling unsure and she really, really wants something?
The kind of thing that can change everything.
Syd can be really impulsive, too, and he feels his heart skip a beat for a moment as he studies her, and then it starts to race, as he watches her eyes move across his face.
He closes his, just before he kisses her. Like she's made a dare, and he can't resist; the push and pull of her, just like water by the lake, lapping, and it has its own rhythm.
She doesn't kiss him back, but he feels it. That something has changed, again. It feels huge, and it makes him feel alive, and then she is kissing him back, and then they're moving, frantically trying to make some room, to let them fit together in the space of this booth.
They laugh after they somehow make it work, and then her weight is on him, and he is holding onto her so tightly, her lips touching his again, softer this time as they move together, too many clothes in between them, caught up in the moment. Already grasping for something further ahead.
He groans, pressing his lips against her cheek, hearing her breathing turn high-pitched as his fingers thread through the braids in the middle of her back, moving down to the edge of her white t-shirt, and then the softness and warmth of her skin beneath, and she leans forward, trying to get her hands down below his waist, and her elbow bangs against the edge of the table.
The table is in the way, her trapped in between him and it. He laughs and pushes against the base of it with his foot, trying to move it away, already knowing it's not going anywhere.
“This isn't going to work,” she tells him, sounding disappointed, using one hand to slip her braids that have fallen forward back over her shoulder. “Not here, anyway.”
He stares up at her, knowing he's as easy to read as a book. Syd. Outside of the restaurant?
“Do you want to, uh, go to my place?” she asks, blinking back at him.
“Yes,” he replies immediately, reaching up to kiss her.
“Let's get out of here.”