Page 63 of Any Given Lifetime
“Behave,” she said.
Joshua’s eyes twinkled like he was fighting off a laugh as he turned to the menu.
Neil grabbed it from his hand, saying, “The veggie hamburger is the only safe option. Or the grilled cheese. I’m telling you this because if you take half as long to choose your food as you did last night, I’ll keel over dead. Then we’ll be in a real mess, since I’ll probably be reincarnated somewhere in Japan and have to go through being a kid all over again, and you’ll be really old by that time. Not to mention, I’d really stick out like a sore thumb over there with this hair and complexion.”
Joshua’s eyebrows were up near his hairline. He rolled his lips in, obviously trying not to laugh.
“He rants when he’s hungry,” Alice said.
Joshua grinned. “Or when he’s nervous, or angry.”
“Oh, come on, for the love of—” Neil said, when the waiter stopped two tables over and whipped out a digital order pad. “They got here after us.”
Alice sighed heavily and said, “Neil, stop. Joshua is going to think I raised you like this.”
Joshua wrinkled his nose and said, “Nah, he was always like this.”
Alice brought her hand to her chest. Joshua understood, and he accepted, and he believed. Which, yes, Neil had already told her on the phone, but it was something else entirely to see it in his eyes and to know that it was true. What was even more shocking, though, was how she suddenly felt like she wasn’t so alone. The world opened up a little bigger with Joshua here.
“I can only imagine how much waiter-spit he’s ingested in the last two lifetimes,” Joshua said, making a face at Neil who rolled his eyes at him.
A different waiter, not the one who Neil had annoyed, appeared and asked for their order. Neil got his usual, and Joshua requested the grilled cheese. Alice ordered a salad with dressing on the side while Neil frowned at her.
“Mom, I have two words for you.”
Joshua looked at Neil, and another grin broke over his face.
In a weird way, Alice felt like crying again. It was clear that Joshua thought her son was adorable. She almost couldn’t believe it.
Neil went on, “Salmonella. Poisoning. But if you want to puke your guts out for hours later today, go right ahead. No one’s stopping you.”
“Thanks for your permission, honey,” Alice said.
Joshua snorted, and Neil’s arm came up to rest on the back of Joshua’s chair. He relaxed again now that food was ordered. Alice smiled softly as Joshua leaned toward Neil, like some unseen force was pulling him. They weren’t leaning against each other really, just angled in such a way that they seemed a unit, an already solid thing. Between them there was a palpable, almost visible tug of rightness. Alice thought if she put her hand out and into the small space between them, she’d be able to feel it—love, attraction, warmth, need, protection, and everything all at once.
“Well,” she said, shifting her napkin a little in her lap. “So…where to begin?”
“How ’bout this,” Joshua said, leaning forward in a conspiratorial way. “In exchange for you giving me good blackmail material on Neil here, I’ll tell you about the Neil I knew, and some stuff about myself, too.”
Neil sat back and looked around the room, his eyes straying back to Joshua occasionally, but he seemed unperturbed by Joshua’s suggested conversational topics.
Alice nodded. “You go first.”
Neil flashed a grin at her. “That’s my girl, Mom. Put him on the spot.”
Joshua shrugged. “What do you want to hear about first?”
Alice took a sip of her water. “What about your family? And…your husband? I was sorry to hear about that, by the way. I’m sure that was hard.”
Joshua glanced toward Neil at the mention of Lee, and Alice almost regretted bringing him up. Neil had often seemed jealous of the man over the years, but he’d been a large part of Joshua’s life. It was important to her that her son be realistic about the man he was involved with. This wasn’t a do-over. This wasn’t living the life he could have had. This was uncharted territory.
Joshua said, “Thank you. It was very hard. I loved him a lot.”
Neil moved his hand from the back of Joshua’s chair to his shoulder. He squeezed gently. “Go on. Out with it. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve to be talked about.”
Joshua looked a little uncomfortable. “It’s just this…” He motioned between them. “It’s fresh, and I don’t want to drag all that into it.”
Neil made a face. “I won’t lie and say that I didn’t spend years in seething jealousy, but I’m not an absolute jerk, either. He was good to you. You loved him. I’d be an ass to resent that.”
