Page 34 of Time for You
“Milkshakes,” she said without thinking. They hadn’t introduced him to fast food yet, although he had seen mentions of it in his diligent movie watching.
“Is that something I—we could make?”
“Not the ones I love. We’d have to go out and buy it.”
“Would you take me?”
“Like, now?”
He smirked, and she felt a familiar, if faint, flare of irritation. “That would be wasteful, seeing as I’m in the middle of cooking dinner.”
“You’re cooking?” she teased, earning herself a grin. “I thoughtwewere cooking.”
“You’re merely supervising,” he said with a haughty sniff.
“How about dessert, then? We eat the spaghetti, and then go get milkshakes?”
Henry grinned at her again, so warmly and genuinely Daphne had to look away.
It wasn’t warm enough yet for the local ice cream stores to open—that wouldn’t happen for another month or so—but the spring evening was pleasant enough that having milkshakes from a national franchise that nearly shared Henry’s last name while sitting outside wasn’t terrible.
The patio was small, mostly full of families with little kids and a handful of teenagers celebrating it being Friday. Henry was a little confused by the straw at first, and then irritated by how difficult it was to drink a milkshake through one, but eventually he got the hang of it (or enough ice cream had melted to make it a little more drinkable). “And these are common?” he kept saying. “Truly?”
“Truly,” Daphne said with a genuine smile. “You should ‘invent’ these when you get back to Edinburgh; you’d make a fortune.”
“I know I’m penniless here, but I am quite wealthy back then,” he said teasingly. “Besides, I have now watchedthreemovies about time travel, and if Marty McFly has taught me one thing, it’s not to meddle in the past.”
“Fair enough,” Daphne said, taking her cup and his to go throw them out. An older man wandered out of the bar down the street and caught her eye, giving her an uncomfortably lecherous once-over. Daphne turned away, but rather than keep walking, the guy stopped.
“Aw, come on, smile,” he said, and Daphne rolled her eyes. The man snapped, “Hey, I was talking to you.”
Daphne didn’t flinch, but Henry was at her side so quickly it was as if another portal in the space-time continuum had opened up. “Do not speak to her like that,” Henry growled, and the man—a skinny white man in a suit, probably somewhere around fifty and clearly not used to being told what to do—stopped in his tracks. Henry pressed his advantage, stepping out onto the sidewalk. “Do you always speak to ladies like that?”
“Henry, it’s not—” Daphne protested, but he kept his eyes on his target.
“I asked you a question,” Henry said, his voice dipping dangerously. “Do you speak to ladies like this often?”
“I don’t—”
“Then apologize,” he snapped. “Now.”
“I, um, I’m sorry ... miss?”
Daphne nodded and Henry stepped back, relinquishing the man from his captive gaze. The man scurried—scurried—away, and Daphne took a breath to return her heart rate to normal. Usually she ignored men like that, preferring to just go about her day as if she’d gone temporarily deaf. “Are you okay?” Henry asked, now sounding worried.
“It was nothing,” Daphne said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Really, happens all the time.”
“It shouldn’t,” he said softly. They started walking slowly back toward their apartment building, the sun rapidly setting and a chill creeping in. “I thought you said—never mind.”
“What?”
“Can I ask something without you arguing with me about it?”
“Can’t promise that, no, but you should ask anyway,” Daphne said wryly, the brief adrenaline rush of earlier already draining from her system.
Henry huffed out a laugh. “You said that women are more respected now, but that didn’t seem like it.”
“That’s not a question,” she said, and wrapped her arms around herself. She had goose bumps, but whether it was from the loss of adrenaline or the cool spring evening, she couldn’t say.
