Page 37 of This Love
“I don’t have the name Tucker anywhere on my body.”
Gram stood up. “If you’ll excuse an old lady with a weak bladder, I’ll be back in a moment.”
Gram was good like that. When she was gone, I turned to Ava. “We got matching ones. We thought it would be enough.”
“My birth date?”
“No, the symbol.” I pulled down the collar of my shirt to reveal the infinity sign with the words, “The heart remembers.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. She certainly frowned a lot when I was around. “I do have that one.” She let out a long, slow breath. “My dad said I should let you move back in. So has Harry.”
My heart sped up. “Will you?”
“I can’t. I just can’t. You get that, right? I barely know who I am. How am I supposed to add you to the mix?”
I understood. I did. And it wasn’t the first time she’d said this to me.
“I get it. But maybe we could go out? On a date?”
She pressed her lips together, tapping the table with her finger. “Maybe.”
My body washed over with hope. “Okay.” I had to be careful here. “Maybe in a few days? Which night do you have off?”
“Tomorrow.”
I forced the quaver out of my voice as I said, “I’ll come over tomorrow.”
“Fine. Tomorrow. But no more of the home videos. Something else.”
“Totally. Anything you want to do. Maybe a movie. Or a restaurant other than Harry’s?”
“All right.” She took off to check on the other couple.
The words rang in my mind as I waited for Gram to return.
All right.
She’d said, All right. To a date.
For the first time since I’d lost her, I felt hope.
Chapter 14
Ava
Well, that was done. I’d agreed to go on a date with Tucker.
The matching tattoos had me shook. Why had I done that? I understood the ones with warnings. And of course, the tattoo with my name and birthdate. Essential with my condition.
But to get one with this man? I was twenty-five. If you asked Marta, the forty-something server here who’d worked for Harry forever, she’d say you didn’t know a damn thing about nothing until you were thirty, much less who to partner up with.
That went double for me. Triple, really.
I brought Tucker and Gram their food and said little else until they left. The older couple were still in a booth, but otherwise, the diner was totally dead.
I wandered among the tables. The gap between my memory and my age was most acute when the diner was quiet. Without the bustle of taking orders, moving from one customer to the next, my head felt empty. Thoughts rattled around like two coins in a tip jar.
I leaned against the counter at the bar, a dish towel tucked in my waistband. Most of the time, all I felt was the need to be alone. To keep my distance. Everyone came at me too fast, even the customers. “Fine weather we’re having,” one would say.
