Work Text:
By the fourth time Sydney checked her phone, the coffee had gone cold.
No message. No missed call. The little question she'd sent twenty minutes ago—You close?—sat beneath the address of the restaurant, looking increasingly pathetic.
She locked the screen.
Inside, beyond the glass, somebody was straightening a fork that had looked perfectly straight before they touched it. The lunch reservation was for twelve. It was twelve eighteen. Sydney had already gone in once to explain that the other person was on his way, and the woman at the host stand had been gracious enough to make it worse.
They could hold the table a few more minutes.
Great. Wonderful. Another few minutes of standing on the sidewalk with a notebook full of things she apparently cared about by herself.
She took a mouthful of coffee, regretted it, and looked across the street.
He was leaning against a brick wall beside a closed storefront, cigarette cupped in one hand, head bowed over his phone.
For a second, she just stared.
Then a bus moved between them. By the time it passed, Sydney was already at the curb.
“Seriously?”
He looked up as she crossed. Same eyes. Same mouth. A gray shirt instead of the white one, hair shorter than she remembered, but she was too busy counting all the things she'd like to throw at him to make much of either.
“Where the fuck are you supposed to be?”
His eyebrows lifted. “What?”
“Where are you supposed to be. Right now.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the locked storefront.
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“The—” She gestured at his face. At the entire infuriating performance. “The thing where I have to explain a plan you helped make. We have a reservation. I've been texting you. I've been standing over there telling somebody you're on your way, and you're literally across the street.”
He looked past her. The cigarette burned between his fingers.
“Hang on. I think you've got—”
“Can we please just go inside? You can tell me whatever it is while we're walking.”
Sydney turned before he could answer. Her tote caught against her hip; she hitched it higher and marched back to the crossing.
At the curb, she looked around.
He was putting out his cigarette against the metal rim of a trash can.
“You coming?”
He hesitated, then dropped the butt into the receptacle.
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
He fell into step beside her. She took the green light as permission to keep talking.
“They moved the scallop dish to lunch, which is why I wanted this one first. And I know we said we'd look at the set menu, but I think the à la carte makes more sense if we're actually going to make it to the other places.”
He made a small sound beside her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay. Because I'm not trying to eat six lunches. I just need to see what they're doing with the—”
She stopped at the door and made herself take a breath. The woman at the host stand smiled as though she hadn't watched Sydney retrieve a grown man from across the street.
“There we are, Sydney.”
“Yep,” Sydney said. “There we are. Sorry.”
They followed her between widely spaced tables. A pale strip of sunlight crossed the floor. Somewhere behind the pass, a spoon struck the side of a pan twice.
Beside her, he looked up at the lights, then down at the folded linen waiting at their table.
“Jesus,” he murmured.
Sydney pulled out her chair. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He sat opposite her, carefully, as though the chair might have additional instructions.
She got out her notebook.
“So, the scallops. I'm interested in the preserved lemon, because if we do something that rich with the pasta, we need—”
“Hey.”
She looked up.
For the first time, he was still. Both hands rested beside the menu. There was something dark worked into the skin around his thumbnail.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm not who you think I am.”
Sydney's pen stopped moving.
Outside, a car horn sounded. Somebody at the next table laughed softly.
“What?”
“I don't know anything about scallops. Or your reservation. And I haven't got any texts from you.”
She looked at his hands again.
The wrong tattoos.
Her eyes went to his hair. His shirt. Back to his face.
Oh.
Oh, no.
“You're not Carmy.”
“No.”
“You're—”
“Lip.”
That did not help. That was not a name that made this better.
She put the pen down. It rolled toward him. He caught it before it went over the edge and set it beside her notebook.
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah.”
Sydney stared at the menu. The words had become shapes. She could identify none of them, despite having read this exact menu four times last night.
“Why did you come with me?”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“You started walking. I was trying to figure out what the hell was happening, and then you asked if I was coming.”
“And you thought yes was, like, a reasonable answer?”
“At the time? Apparently.”
She looked up sharply.
He wasn't smiling now.
“I should've stopped you outside. I'm sorry.”
Heat climbed beneath the collar of her jacket. She folded the edge of her napkin over once, then unfolded it. She had yelled at a stranger. In public. Asked him where the fuck he was supposed to be, as if she had any authority over his entire afternoon.
And then brought him somewhere with linen.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“You didn't know.”
“Yeah, that's actually—that's the problem.”
He glanced toward the window. “I take it this guy's late.”
Her phone lit up on the table.
Carmy.
Can't make it. Sorry. You good to go ahead?
She turned the phone facedown so fast it clicked against the wood.
“Okay,” she said to no one.
Lip's gaze moved from the phone to her face. He reached for the jacket he'd hooked over his chair.
“Look, I'll get out of your way.”
“You don't have to—”
She stopped. He stopped.
Sydney looked at the empty stretch of table between their water glasses. They hadn't ordered. He could leave. She could spend the next several hours taking careful notes and remembering, at unpredictable intervals, how loudly she had said the word literally.
Or.
“Are you busy?”
He let go of the jacket. “Right now?”
“Today.”
“No. Shop's closed for a plumbing thing. I dropped off a part for my boss. That was pretty much it.”
She nodded as if this were information she'd requested for a sensible reason.
“Because I was already going to order a few things to share. And there are other places. After this. It's a whole—” She touched the notebook. “Thing.”
His eyes dropped to it.
“You want me to stay?”
“If you want to. You can say no. Obviously. I feel like I should make that very clear, given how this started.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
“I'd like to stay.”
“Okay.”
“But I really don't know any of those chef words.”
“You can eat, right?”
“Yeah. Usually manage.”
“Then that's fine.”
The server arrived with a bottle of water, and Sydney suddenly had to introduce the person sitting opposite her to the practical matter of lunch.
“We're going to share,” she said.
“Great. Any allergies?”
Sydney shook her head and looked across the table.
“None,” he said.
The server left them to the menus. Lip waited until she was out of earshot, then leaned forward.
“Sydney?”
Her stomach gave a peculiar little dip.
“How do you know that?”
“Reservation. She said it at the door.”
“Right.”
He offered his hand across the table.
“Probably should start over.”
She stared at it for a second before taking it. His palm was warm, the heel rough against hers.
“Sydney Adamu.”
“Lip Gallagher.”
His thumb shifted once as they let go.
She opened her menu upside down.
He looked at it. Looked at her.
“Don't,” she said.
“Wasn't gonna.”
But now he was smiling.
The scallops came in a shallow bowl, thin slices layered beneath shaved fennel and little glints of yellow peel. Chili oil marked the surface in red droplets.
Lip waited while Sydney looked at the plate.
“Are we allowed to touch it?”
“Yes.”
“Just checking.”
She took a bite. The scallop gave way almost without resistance; lemon arrived afterward, salt and bitterness tucked into the sweet. She closed her eyes for half a second.
When she opened them, he was watching her.
“What?”
“Nothing. Good?”
“Yeah. Really good.”
He took a piece with some fennel and chewed. His forehead creased.
“It's cold.”
“It's crudo.”
“Okay. That's one of the words.”
She laughed before she could stop herself, a small breath through her nose.
“Raw. Basically.”
He looked down at the remaining scallops.
“Pretty fucking good raw.”
Sydney reached for her pen.
“It's the lemon. Preserving it changes the peel, so you're getting this kind of rounded saltiness instead of just—”
She stopped.
He tilted his head. “Instead of what?”
“Just acidity.”
“Like squeezing one over it?”
“Exactly. You'd get the sharpness, but you wouldn't get this.” She pointed at a sliver of peel. “And with the sweetness of the scallop—”
“You do it with salt?”
“The lemons? Yeah.”
“Like, packing them in it?”
She nodded.
“So it pulls the water out, makes its own brine.”
“Yes.” Sydney looked at him. “You said you didn't know anything about this.”
“Don't know shit about cooking. I know how salt works.”
She tapped her pen against the page. “Right. Well, you leave them for a few weeks, and then—”
Her hand was moving now. She put it flat against the notebook.
“Sorry. You can just eat.”
“I am eating.” He took another bite. “You can keep talking.”
So she did.
The next plate was a little square of pork belly with charred cabbage and an apple sauce Sydney thought was sweeter than it needed to be. Lip took one bite, then scraped some of the sauce away before taking another.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yeah. You lose the burnt part with all that on it.”
She glanced down at the plate.
“The char.”
“Sure. The char.”
She wrote that down.
He tried to look.
“Did I get that one right?”
“It's not a test.”
“You wrote something.”
“Because you're right.”
His grin appeared slowly, and she regretted giving him anything so usable.
“First day. Already killing it.”
“You got here through fraud.”
He laughed, then held up a hand. “Fair.”
They split the last piece of pork. He cut it unevenly. Sydney pointed at the bigger half, and he slid it toward her.
“Chef's privilege?”
“You were taking too long.”
He looked at her over his water glass. She concentrated on the cabbage.
When the check came, he reached for it too.
“I invited you,” she said.
“Still ate half.”
“It's work research.”
“I can pay for my lunch, Sydney.”
There was no edge to it. He was already getting out his wallet.
She let him.
Outside, he tipped his head back and breathed in the air with theatrical relief.
“You survive?” she asked.
“Barely. That bathroom had towels you're supposed to throw away. Actual cloth towels.”
“I think they wash them.”
“Hope so. Almost put one in my pocket.”
She tucked her notebook into her bag, smiling down at the zipper.
“Where next?” he asked.
She brought up the list on her phone.
Lip stepped closer to see. His sleeve brushed hers. Tobacco lingered on his jacket, but beneath it was something clean and faintly medicinal, like the soap in a shop bathroom.
“This place,” she said. “For the dumplings. Then the bakery. There's a wine bar, but mostly I wanted to see their small plates, so we could—”
“I don't drink.”
She looked up.
He said it easily. His eyes stayed on the screen.
“Okay.” She scrolled past the wine bar. “There are better options anyway.”
“You can go.”
“I know.”
She selected another address and held it out for him to see.
“This one does a mushroom sandwich I want to try.”
He studied the screen, then her.
“All right.”
The crossing signal changed. This time, she waited for him before stepping off the curb.
At the dumpling place, there was one stool left by the window.
Sydney started to suggest taking the food outside. Lip had already put their tray on the narrow counter and stepped aside for her.
“Sit. I'm good.”
“We can switch.”
“You planning to take notes standing up?”
She sat.
He stood beside her with one forearm on the counter, close enough that she could see a small healing cut near his wrist. She passed him chopsticks. He separated them, checked the ends, and stole one of the pickled cucumbers before she'd finished arranging the tray.
“Those are for both of us.”
“Yeah. I'm one of both of us.”
She gave him a look and picked up a cucumber herself.
Outside, somebody was trying to parallel park. Lip watched the car make its third attempt, his mouth tightening in sympathy.
“You're a mechanic?” she asked.
“Motorcycles.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. That explains the—” She indicated his hand.
He looked at his thumb, then tucked it beneath his other fingers.
“Scrubbed it. Doesn't all come off.”
“I wasn't saying—”
“I know.” He nudged the tray toward her. “Eat your dumpling before it gets cold.”
The wrapper was thin enough to show the filling. Sydney bit into it and bent quickly over the tray when broth escaped down her chin.
Lip handed her a napkin without comment.
She accepted it without looking at him.
“Thank you.”
“Mm-hm.”
He took a whole dumpling into his mouth.
She turned just in time to see his expression change.
“Hot,” she said helpfully.
His eyes watered. He chewed with furious determination.
Sydney covered her mouth.
“You could've warned me.”
“I thought you knew how to eat.”
He pointed a chopstick at her. She laughed properly this time, shoulders lifting, and somebody farther down the counter glanced their way.
She didn't stop quite quickly enough.
They took the last two dumplings outside in a little paper box. At the next corner, Lip opened it for her and held it while she reached in.
“So this place you're opening,” he said. “What's it gonna be?”
Sydney swallowed before answering.
“Still figuring out some of it.”
“Okay.”
“A tasting menu, hopefully. Something small. Focused. We want it to feel like—”
She shifted the dumpling between her fingers, trying to keep the oil off her jacket.
“Sorry. That sounds so annoying.”
“Haven't said anything yet.”
“I know what I'm about to sound like.”
He waited, holding the open box between them.
“I want it to feel like somebody thought about you,” she said finally. “Like, all of it. The food. The plate. Whether you're still hungry when you leave. I don't want someone to spend that much money and then go get a slice of pizza because we got too excited about making something look good.”
Lip looked at the dumpling left in the box.
“That's why you asked me if I was full back there.”
“Partly.”
“Thought you were worried I'd eat the table.”
“Also partly.”
He handed her the box while he wiped his fingers. Then he took it back, folded the lid closed, and dropped it into a bin.
“I'd come to that,” he said.
She adjusted her bag.
“You haven't had any of my food.”
“Should probably fix that.”
For a moment, she couldn't find anything to do with her hands.
Then her phone buzzed.
Carmy again.
You get the scallops?
She stared at the message. Lip had moved a little ahead to make room for a woman pushing a stroller, and now he stood at the corner, waiting for her.
Sydney typed, Yes. Good. Will show you notes tomorrow.
She sent it and put the phone away.
“Bakery?” he asked when she caught up.
“Bakery.”
The bakery was warm enough to make Sydney unzip her jacket. Butter hung in the air. Trays of laminated pastry lined the case, their cut edges showing all the layers she'd come to see.
She bent slightly to look at a pear tart.
Lip bent beside her.
“That one?”
“Maybe. I want to see the bottom.”
“What're you looking for?”
His mouth was very close to her ear. She straightened too fast and nearly bumped his chin.
“The bottom tells you if it's baked properly. You want it to have color. Otherwise you get this sort of gummy layer under the fruit.”
“Could just buy it.”
“I was going to.”
“Okay.”
She bought the tart and a savory pastry with sesame scattered over its surface. Lip added two coffees before she could reach for her card.
“My turn.”
There was a bench outside, most of it in the sun. They sat with the box between them. Sydney eased the tart from its paper and turned it over.
“Well?” he asked.
“Good color.”
“Thank fuck.”
She broke off a piece for him. Flakes fell onto his jeans.
He caught one with his fingertip and ate it.
“Would've eaten it even if the bottom was bad.”
“I know. You're very brave.”
His phone rang while she was cutting the pear filling in half with the little wooden knife.
He looked at the screen and sighed.
“Gotta take this. Sorry.”
He stood and moved a few steps away.
Sydney studied the pastry, giving him somewhere private to have his conversation even though she could hear most of his side.
“Debs. Slow down.”
A pause.
“Did you check the bag?”
Another pause, longer this time. He rubbed his forehead.
“Side pocket. The one with the zipper. Yeah, I put 'em in there this morning.”
His shoulders lowered.
“Okay, there you go.”
He moved the phone a little closer to his ear. The crease between his eyebrows eased, and Sydney looked down at the pastry box before he could catch her watching.
“Hey, Franny.”
He crouched on the sidewalk, elbow resting on his knee, listening to a small voice she could hear only as a tinny rise and fall.
“Yeah? What color?”
He glanced back at Sydney, then at the pastry box.
“Pink's good. Yeah, I know you like pink.”
Sydney moved his coffee into the shade so it wouldn't sit in the sun.
“I'll see you later, okay? Put your mom back on.”
He returned a minute afterward and sat, checking whether he'd tracked anything from the sidewalk onto the bench.
“Sorry. Family.”
“It's fine.” She handed him his half of the tart. “Franny?”
“My niece. My sister couldn't find her shoes.”
“And you knew where they were.”
“I was the one who had to put 'em somewhere she wouldn't feed them to the dog.”
Sydney smiled into her coffee.
“How many siblings?”
“Five.”
She lowered the cup.
“Five?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Wow.”
“That's one word for it.”
“Do you all live together?”
“Some of us. Oldest sister left a little while back.” He brushed crumbs from his thigh. “House is still loud as shit. Just different loud.”
She knew the way a room could keep making space for somebody. The chair nobody moved. The cupboard her father still called her mother's, although everything inside it belonged to him now.
“Yeah,” she said.
Lip took a bite of tart, then looked at the fork they'd left in the box.
“You got a big family?”
“Mostly just me and my dad.”
“You close?”
“Yeah. I live with him right now, so he has a lot of opportunities to express concern about my career choices.”
Lip smiled. “That restaurant thing?”
“That restaurant thing.”
“What'd he want you to do?”
“Something with health insurance, probably.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Haven't tried your cooking yet.”
She pushed his knee with hers, barely a touch.
He looked down at the place they met. She took another sip of coffee, which was a terrible choice because it was still hot.
“You have kids?” she asked, once she could trust her mouth again.
He shook his head.
“No. Thought I was gonna, for a while.”
She turned toward him.
“Sorry. You don't have to—”
“It's okay.” He folded the used napkin around his pastry crumbs. “My ex, Tami, was pregnant. Turns out the kid wasn't mine. We got the test, figured it out. We're done.”
He said the last part looking at her, his hands still around the folded napkin.
Sydney picked a sesame seed off the lid of the box.
“Okay.”
He nodded, and she let the silence sit. A cyclist went past with grocery bags swinging from both handlebars. Someone opened the bakery door, sending another warm breath of butter over them.
Lip reached for the savory pastry.
“We splitting this?”
“Unless you want the whole thing.”
“Thought this was research. Least you can do is help eat it.”
She tore it in two. The steam had gone, but the center was still soft.
He took the smaller piece before she could offer him either.
This time, she let herself watch.
By the time they got the mushroom sandwich, Sydney had quit checking the distance to the next place.
They took a bus because Lip said his feet were starting to file complaints. She stood beside him in the aisle, one hand around a pole, their pastry box tucked beneath his arm. At a sharp turn, his free hand hovered near her elbow until she found her balance.
He didn't touch her.
She almost wished he had.
At the sandwich shop, they argued about whether the bread was too thick. Lip said no. Sydney said it made the filling harder to taste. He took another bite and pointed out that it kept the sauce from soaking through onto their hands.
She had to give him that.
He looked insufferably pleased.
“You make this face every time you win something?” she asked.
“What face?”
“That one.”
“Maybe I just like watching you admit I'm right.”
“Enjoy it. Probably won't happen again.”
“You wrote down the burnt cabbage thing.”
“Char.”
“Yeah. I know that one now.”
They had stopped outside to finish the sandwich. Lip held the wrapper between them. Sydney took the last bite from her half, then watched him pick a little mushroom from the paper.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
He kept looking at her.
“You're actually listening,” she said, and immediately wanted to take it back. It sounded much larger in the air than it had inside her head.
He didn't make it larger.
“Yeah,” he said. “It's interesting.”
She wiped a spot of sauce from her finger with the napkin.
“Okay.”
He watched that too. Or she thought he did. It was becoming difficult to tell what was happening and what she'd like to happen.
The last place on her list was a diner.
They slid into a booth beneath a window streaked with old rain, their bags and jackets filling the space beside them. The waitress put down menus. Lip opened his, then closed it when Sydney said she already knew what she wanted.
“Sundae?”
“How'd you know?”
“You said it about six blocks ago.”
She looked down at her menu.
“Right.”
They ordered one with two spoons.
When it arrived, the hot fudge was slipping down the sides of the ice cream in thick, dark folds. There were chopped nuts, whipped cream, a cherry balanced on top. Nothing required explanation. Sydney took the first spoonful and let the cold sit against the roof of her mouth.
Across from her, Lip tugged the little metal dish closer to the center of the table.
“You gonna write about this one?”
“Maybe.”
“What would you say?”
She took a little more fudge.
“That they got the temperature right. The fudge is hot enough to soften the ice cream, but it's not turning the whole thing into soup immediately.”
“Mm.”
“And the nuts matter. You need the texture.”
He nodded, spoon in hand.
“And it tastes like being eight,” she added.
He glanced up.
She considered the cherry.
“My dad used to bring me out for ice cream after school. If he could get away from work. We'd get one of these and he'd say he didn't want any, but then he'd eat, like, half.”
Lip looked down at the spoon he'd just loaded.
“I'll slow down.”
She laughed.
“No. You don't have to.”
They ate until the cream began to soften, until their spoons bumped reaching for the same patch of fudge.
He withdrew his.
“Go ahead.”
“You can have it.”
“Sydney.”
She looked at him.
“Eat the fucking chocolate.”
She did, smiling around the spoon.
When the waitress came to clear the dish, Sydney reached for her notebook and found that she didn't want to put it between them.
She left it in her bag.
Lip leaned back, one arm along the top of the booth. His shirt had a tiny smear of chocolate near the cuff. His hair had dried differently after the wind caught it outside, lifting at the front.
He still looked like Carmy. Of course he did. That hadn't stopped being true just because she knew better now.
But she'd spent all afternoon learning his expressions, and the resemblance had become something she noticed only when she looked for it.
“How bad?” he asked.
“What?”
“This guy. The one you thought I was. How bad am I gonna feel when I finally see him?”
She pressed her lips together.
“It's pretty bad.”
He laughed under his breath.
“Got a picture?”
“Probably.”
She could have found one. There were photographs of the old kitchen on her phone, of menu tests and repairs and Carmy standing in the background looking tired.
Instead, she pushed her empty water glass an inch toward the center of the table.
“Another time.”
Lip went still for a second.
“Yeah?”
She became very aware of how warm the diner was.
“If you want.”
He leaned forward, both forearms on the table.
“I'd like another time.”
“Okay.”
His eyes stayed on hers, and the okay suddenly seemed insufficient. She picked at a loose corner of the paper placemat.
“I could cook something. For you. At some point.”
“I'd like that too.”
“It might have chef words.”
“I'll study.”
She laughed, and he smiled at her in a way that made it difficult to look away afterward.
Her phone vibrated against the seat beside her. A message from her father, asking whether she'd be home for dinner.
She told him she'd eaten, then put it away again.
Lip waited until she looked back.
“Should probably get your number before you decide I'm somebody else again.”
“I don't usually do that.”
“Good to know.”
He handed her his phone.
She entered her name and number, checked the digits twice, and gave it back. A moment later, her own screen lit up.
It's Lip. From lunch.
She looked across the table.
“From lunch?”
“Don't want to confuse you.”
She kicked his shoe beneath the table.
He caught the edge of her sneaker lightly between his feet and let it go.
Outside, the sun had dropped below the buildings across the street. Sydney zipped her jacket and shifted her tote onto the shoulder that wasn't aching.
“Where you headed?” Lip asked.
She told him which train she needed.
“I'll walk you.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
She looked at him, recognizing her own answer from earlier.
“Okay.”
They walked more slowly than they had between restaurants. The traffic was louder now, buses breathing at the curb, people hurrying past with bags and loosened ties. Once, somebody shouldered between them, and Sydney reached for Lip's sleeve to keep from being separated.
Her fingers stayed there a moment longer than they needed to.
He looked down at them.
She let go.
At the entrance to the station, they stopped beside a shuttered newsstand. Someone was playing music below, the bass rising up the stairs in uneven bursts.
“Thanks,” she said.
“For what?”
She looked at the strap of her bag, then back at him.
“Staying.”
He tucked his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Had a pretty good day.”
“Yeah.”
“Even with the yelling.”
She closed her eyes.
“I was hoping we'd reached the part where you stopped bringing that up.”
“Almost there.”
“Great.”
He smiled, but it faded a little as she moved her bag again. His gaze went to the station stairs.
Neither of them went anywhere.
Sydney could hear a train approaching, the low rush gathering beneath the street. There would be another one. Probably soon. She could check the app.
She didn't.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
Her fingers tightened around the strap.
“Yeah,” she said. “You can.”
He stepped closer. Slowly enough that she had time to notice the chocolate on his cuff again, and to think that he hadn't had a cigarette since lunch.
His hand touched the side of her jaw. Warm fingers, a rough place near his thumb. She tipped her face up before he quite reached her.
The first kiss was brief. His mouth pressed against hers, soft enough that the small breath she let out felt embarrassingly loud. His thumb rested beside her ear, barely moving.
He drew back an inch. Far enough to look at her. Close enough that she could have leaned forward and kissed him again without either of them taking a step.
All afternoon she'd kept finding reasons to look away. At a plate, at her notebook, at a menu she already knew by heart. Now he was watching her, and she let him.
Sydney caught the front of his jacket.
“Okay,” she said, because apparently that was the only word she'd brought with her.
His mouth curved.
“Okay?”
She pulled him back.
This time he put his other hand at her waist and she forgot about the train altogether. Her tote slipped down her arm. She let it hang from her elbow while her fingers curled into the fabric at his chest.
He smiled against her mouth when she stepped closer. She could feel it, and that was somehow worse than seeing it across a table. She slid her hand from his jacket to the back of his neck. The short hair there brushed her fingertips.
His breath caught against her mouth. Then his hand settled more firmly at her waist, and he kissed her again.
The station, the notebook, the entire carefully planned day could wait another minute.
When they separated, she was smiling. There was no useful way to hide it at this distance.
“Okay,” he said.
She laughed against his mouth. Her hand stayed at his neck.
“I should—”
He nodded toward the stairs. “Yeah.”
Neither of them moved.
She kissed him once more, quickly, as if that would make leaving easier. It didn't. When she finally stepped back, his jacket was creased where she'd been holding it.
Lip's hand slid from her waist. His fingers brushed hers on the way down.
She caught them.
For a few seconds they stood holding hands beside the station entrance, while people went around them and the train she'd missed left without her.
“Friday,” she said.
“What about Friday?”
“You said I should fix the thing where you haven't tried my food.”
“Yeah.”
“So. Friday. After you get off work.”
His thumb moved over her knuckles.
“All right.”
“I'll figure out where. The restaurant's a construction site, and my dad will absolutely make it weird if I bring you there, so—”
She stopped.
Lip was smiling again.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep saying nothing when it's clearly something.”
“Friday sounds good, Sydney.”
She looked down at their hands and nodded.
“Okay.”
He kissed her goodbye before she went downstairs. She made it three steps before turning around.
He was still there.
She lifted a hand, feeling ridiculous, and he lifted his back. Then she went around the corner before she could climb the stairs again.
On the platform, she found a space by a pillar and took her notebook out. A pastry crumb had gotten between the pages. She brushed it away with her thumb.
Preserved lemon. Thin wrapper. Toast the nuts.
Under the notes on the sandwich, in handwriting that got progressively worse, she'd written: Ask Lip about bread.
She read it twice.
Her phone lit up.
One question.
She opened the message.
Am I getting yelled at if I'm early on Friday?
Sydney bit the inside of her cheek.
Depends. Where the fuck are you supposed to be?
His answer came while she was still looking at the screen.
With you, apparently.
The next train arrived in a rush of warm air. She closed the notebook and stepped aboard, already working out what she wanted to make him.
Then another message appeared.
My place has a kitchen. Fair warning, it also has Gallaghers.
Sydney sat down by the window.
How many are we feeding? she typed.
She sent it before she could talk herself out of Friday, or a house full of people she'd never met, or how much she wanted to put her hand against the back of his neck again.
His answer arrived as the train pulled out.
I'll get rid of them.
A second message followed.
Not permanently. Before you start worrying.
She laughed, alone in her seat, and looked up to find a woman across the aisle smiling at her. Sydney bent over her phone.
You better. I'm only cooking for two.
He was typing. Stopped. Started again.
Friday's a long way off.
Sydney read it with her thumb resting just below the words. She could still feel the small pressure of his fingers against her jaw, the way he'd paused after that first kiss and let her decide whether there would be another.
The train carried her farther from the station. She watched the reflection of her own smile in the darkening window.
Then she opened his contact and pressed call.