Page 86 of Don't Remind Me
He let out a deep sigh. “I’m saying I don’t think I want to go home for Christmas at all for a while.”
I swallowed as his words landed. “Really?”
“You know I used to have panic attacks in high school?” he said. “Then I went abroad, and they stopped. I spent half my time with grown men screaming at me in French and never got so much as a hand tremor. It was only after I came back and tried to force a relationship with my parents on their terms again that I couldn’t find the air to breathe. I think maybe the ones I need space from are them.”
“Then I’m glad you’re taking it,” I told him.
“Thanks. And I’m sorry.”
“What for?” I asked, my mind blanking.
“This whole needing space in general thing. It was never fromyou. I need you to know that. Just space to sort myself out.”
“I do know,” I promised. “And never apologize for telling me what you need. I just wish there was something I could do to help.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
I laid my head against the pillow, tracing my finger over the sunburst pattern, and pretended it was his chest.
“Maybe you could come by the restaurant tomorrow night,” he said a moment later.
My heart skipped. “Yeah?”
“I owe you a celebratory drink.”
I bit my lip to contain my smile, like that might somehow keep the eagerness from my voice. It didn’t. “Are you sure? If you need more time?—”
“I’m sure. As long as you are.”
I didn’t even have to think about it.
He toldme to dress up.
This was probably more along the lines of what I should have been wearing to the restaurant these past three months instead of the business casual attire I wore for work that leaned heavily toward casual, but no one had seemed to care, and I’d been far too comfortable to be concerned.
He’d also told me to arrive late.
I walked through the door to Ardena ten minutes before the kitchen was supposed to close. The timing made sense if I was here for a shift drink to celebrate a successful symposium with the staff—God knew they deserved it. But from the way the host Amelia smiled at me when she saw my dress and immediately gestured for me to follow her, that didn’t seem like the plan.
She led me through the near-empty dining room to a table in the back, the only one still set, and pulled out a chair for me. As I sat, my eyes went to the deep pink peony blooming in a small vase before shifting to the bucket of champagne on ice and finally landing on the simple menu card on the napkin.
It was the menu card I had designed for the gala. The one with the meal I’d been dying to eat ever since the first tasting session Jase had done for me.
“I figured you probably didn’t have a chance to sit down and eat during the gala.”
His deep voice rolled over me, drawing my gaze up to where he stood before the table, two small plates in hand, wearing a crisp white button-down instead of his chef jacket. It was tucked into a pair of black slacks, and my pulse ramped up to a thousand miles per hour as I soaked him in.
“You were right.” I hadn’t eaten at all that night. Hadn’t stopped moving long enough to give myself the chance to think, knowing my thoughts would only lead to Jase, and I never would have made it through the night if I’d let myself go down that winding path.
He set the plates on the table and reached for the champagne. My stare never left his face as he opened the bottle and poured two glasses. If there was even the slightest chance this was a dream, his face was what I wanted to remember of it.
The cool blue of his eyes that so easily warmed me.
The crease along the side of his mouth that deepened when he smiled.
The furrow in his brow whenever he concentrated, and the scruff along his jaw that brought a shiver to my skin—every piece of him like coming home.
Finally, he took his seat, and we were looking at each other, the rest of the world settling into place before falling away altogether.
