Page 140 of Paper Hearts

“No,” he’s quick to say, shaking his head. “We’ve barely had any conversations. I don’t cook much so most of the places I come to a lot know me.”

I swallow over the tightness in my throat and think about the women he did share his time with. He didn’t give me many details, just that it’s been three years. Now, well, I want to know more. The waitress returns, barely looks at me as she hands me the beer. It spills down the sides of the glass as it rocks on the bumpy metal table. I pick it up, drink half, regret it, and Ender chuckles under his breath.

“Thirsty?”

“Nervous.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

I draw in a breath. “How many women have you… since me?”

Realization dawns on him. His lips flatten. “Two.”

“And you said there wasn’t feelings… but was it a one-night thing or repeated events?”

His breathing picks up and he leans back in his chair. Drawing in a breath, he runs his hands over his face. “First time, it was twice. I thought… it might help me forget. But it didn’t.” There’s sincerity in his gaze. They soften and hold mine. “The other… don’t even know her name.”

“Where were you?”

“California.”

The wind picks up and blows our napkins around the table. Ender catches them before they fall off the table. I watch his hands and the veins in his forearms protruding. “Did you use protection?”

“Yes,” he answers immediately, lifting his beer to his lips.

I should have had this conversation before I slept with him again, but leave it to me to ignore all that for love.

The waitress returns at the same time Eddie takes a seat on Ender’s lap. “What sounds good to y’all?”

We order, our food arrives shortly after, and as we eat, Ender congratulates me on my book. “I’m proud of you,” he says, licking barbeque sauce from his thumb.

Hell, I don’t even know if he said that because I’m too focused on his tongue. Damn it. “Thanks. It’s… unreal. I don’t even know what to think of it.”

“Probably because you didn’t write it for profit,” he adds, picking up Eddie’s fork as she once again, tosses it on the ground. Or lets go of it. I don’t know, but it’s the third time she’s dropped it.

“I certainly didn’t write it for profit. It was more of a therapy. Like I had to get it off my chest to heal.”

“I’ll admit it was hard reading it.” Ender frowns again, drawing in a deep breath. “But in the same sense, I found it refreshing hearing your version of it.”

I glance at Eddie and then back to Ender. “What do you mean?”

“We had the lake… but outside of that lake, my life wasn’t easy.” My throat tightens as the emotion builds. His dad. The sincerity returns to his eyes. “I wish I would have told you how I felt back then. I didn’t know how to, but I felt it. I knew after that second summer I was in love.”

“You did?”

“I did.” He looks at Eddie and then back to me. “I knew when you were wearing Carter’s shirt and I wanted to kill him over it I was in love with you. I almost told you too. Right before my dad found me.”

“So why didn’t you after that?”

“I tried. The time in my room, the time I came to see you in Savannah, prom, the dock.” He pauses and runs his hands over his face. “I tried so many times, but I couldn’t say the words when I didn’t understand the meaning. My mom told me she loved me, yet she looked the other way. So what’s love? You know. What the fu” He stops and smiles at Eddie. “What does it even mean?”

“It means happiness,” Eddie tells him, dropping her fork again. She stares at it. “Damn it.”

Ender and I both crack up laughing, but I think about what he said. What is love when you’ve only been shown the opposite of it?

As we’re finishing up dinner, the sky starts to rumble and rain approaches. The waitress returns, starts getting the tables cleared off as napkins and anything not weighted begin to fly around. I look up at the horizon and notice the blackened clouds followed by a streak of lightning.

Eddie clings to Ender as though her life depends on it. “I hates it!”

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