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  “Absolutely.”

  Sam had thought about taking her to the dinner club in his neighborhood, but when he thought about the heavy leather booths and the cheesy pictures of Frank Sinatra all over the walls, he wasn’t sure. He had taken women there before and they seemed to wrinkle their noses at the old-fashioned surf-and-turf menu. His dad had taken his mother there, trading date nights with Betty and her late husband, Marvin, and later, Sam had taken his homecoming and prom dates there, feeling important that he had the cash to cover the tab.

  Nina was different though. He wanted to show her he could match up to her. Like Mike said, she was smart and had built an entire business herself. She knew a lot about food, too. What if she didn’t want to eat anything at a throwback dinner club? At her café, there were things like sweet potato gnocchi and cornmeal mush with field greens and candied pork belly. None of those were things he’d ever eaten before, but when he did, he’d thought about what it would be like to eat things like that and listen to Nina boss around her employees forever, and ordered seconds.

  He wanted her to be the one to try something new, with him.

  “Let’s go, Opie.” She laced her fingers through his and he forgot about his sweaty, wrinkled shirt and how his shoes pinched.

  Everything was just Nina.

  “We have to walk, is that okay? It’s just six blocks from here, but I don’t think I can get parking in your neighborhood. I had to use a garage to get here.”

  Nina winced, but nodded.

  “You sure? I could get my car, and take a chance?”

  “No, of course we’ll walk.”

  Sam tried to dig around to find the confidence he had planning this, but in the end could only hold Nina’s hand and walk out the door.

  He looked at her, her bright dress straining across everything that jiggled, the hard caps of her deltoids, her hair, which, when he leaned over her to push open the door, was just under his chin and smelled so good. He didn’t know what it smelled like, just good.

  He would not fuck this up, not this thing. If everything else had to go to hell, that was just fine, all he needed was Nina not to realize she shouldn’t be holding his hand.

  He could do this. If he just stayed ahead of his own impulses, like Mike said, thought first of Nina and what she might like, and was careful, this could be it.

  Right here.

  A woman like this, with legs like that, and her brain, and how well she took care of everyone and everything—he could be by the side of that woman.

  Maybe.

  He laced his fingers through hers and felt tall. Felt like he could breathe. Felt like he wanted to take her someplace quiet and kiss her and get his hands all over and under that orange dress, but he could do better than he had in the front seat of her truck or against a chicken house or in a hospital office.

  He could be better.

  He wondered, though, if being better meant that he might not have the chance to get his hands under that dress.

  She looked at him, and he felt his face go hot, like maybe she could read his mind.

  “What are you thinking about?” She was leaning into him and walking slow, so maybe she liked this. It was hot out, though, and Sam tried not to think about whether she was leaning up against the damp underarm of his shirt.

  “I’m thinking about your dress.” Which was true, and not necessarily a crass thing to say.

  She laughed. “Oh yeah? What about it?”

  “It’s a good color.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You match my hair.”

  She laughed again, and stumbled a little, and that gave him the chance to haul her closer.

  “What does your shirt say?”

  Goddammit, PJ. “I don’t think it says anything. I think it’s just a design.”

  She stopped and walked behind him. “No, I think it says something, it’s just very stylized. See, here.” She traced over his shoulders and he closed his eyes. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “It says deeper. Deeper than what? Does that mean you’re really deep? Or that you go—”

  “I think it’s just the brand, or the company or whatever.”

  “Huh. I hadn’t pegged you for a logo hound.”

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s really shiny, too. Sparkles in the sunlight. I like these small blue rhinestones on the swirls.”

  “There’re rhinestones?”

  “You’re a rhinestone cowboy, baby. Who goes deeper, or so your shirt claims.”

  “It’s swank.”

  “What is?”

  “The shirt. That’s what PJ said, that it was swank.”

  “What does that mean again?”

  Sam closed his eyes and yanked Nina in close. “I have no fucking idea.”

  They started to walk again. “I actually do like the rhinestones, but you know what I like more?”

  “Normal shirts?”

  “I like that you wanted to look swank for me and let PJ dress you.”

  Sam grinned. He couldn’t help it. He’d done something right without even trying or understanding exactly what the right thing was. Who’da thought?

  They walked, and Nina pulled back a little slower, and he kept pace.

  If Nina wanted to stroll, they would stroll. He ignored how the zipper on one of his shoes was cutting into his ankle. The shoes were so tight that he wasn’t sure he was supposed to wear socks with them, so he hadn’t. If they walked this slow all night, though, he probably wouldn’t hobble and would be okay for what he’d planned after dinner.

  “How’s Tay?” Sam had been upset to hear that Tay was staged at type IIA. She was going to have a rough road ahead and if he could have made that go completely away, he would. He hated everything about it.

  “Holding.” Nina looked up at him. “She’s getting married.”

  He squeezed her hand. She looked worried, but Sam had seen this before. A lot of people needed stakes just to live their lives. Maybe Tay or the person she was marrying, he guessed Adam, needed them.

  That seemed okay to Sam. He kind of thought all of life itself was high stakes, but maybe that was keeping everything a little too ramped up.

  “When?”

  “After she’s recovered from surgery, before her treatments start.”

  “That would be a good time to do it. It’s Adam?”

  “Yeah. They’ve been together, or on their way to getting back together, since almost from the moment they met. I guess he’s probably freaked.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But that’s okay.”

  “You think a freak-out is a good way to start a marriage?”

  “I don’t know. I think if you love somebody, and know you want to be with them forever, it doesn’t matter how it starts, just so long as it doesn’t end.”

  “Sam.”

  “It’s possible I’m a romantic, but you knew that.”

  “I’m not going to regret this date, am I?”

  Sam felt his heart stop. “Jesus, Nina, I fuckin’ hope not.”

  Nina stopped walking. “I want to be here.”

  “It’s just that now I’m worried that you don’t like Ethiopian food.”

  “I love Ethiopian food, but even if I didn’t, the point is that I want to be here—with you. I promise everything else that happens, everything else but your presence, is just incidental.”

  “I hope this restaurant is a little better than incidental.”

  Nina closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Sam’s chest. That felt good. He put his arms around her. That felt even better. Her skin was warm and his hands slid over her hair and dress. He reached his hands under all of her hair, and it was surprisingly heavy. Her nape was sweaty, and he dug his fingertips into it, rubbing and tracing into the muscle.

  She sighed, angled her hips over the outside of his thigh and pressed close.

  “Don’t worry anymore, okay?”

  He could feel her breath through the linen of his shirt.


  “Okay, Nina.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Her feet were killing her.

  But Sam was killing her even more.

  He was standing by the hostess, trying desperately not to yell at a manager while she desperately wished one of the chairs for patrons waiting for tables would open up before she passed out from heel blisters.

  She wanted to go to Sam and take hold of his hand and tell him that it was okay that they had lost his reservation, or if he had never made one, or if he had meant to make one and just didn’t, that they could just go to her café and look for something in the walk-in to share with two forks, right over the dishwashing sink, with their shoes off and two cold beers.

  It was hot in the restaurant, the air-conditioning just couldn’t keep up with the dense weekend crowd, and the huge trays on everyone’s tables were steaming with spicy wat and rounds of teff.

  The combination, all of it so intense, was making her a little dizzy and queasy.

  Sam turned around, the shells of his ears entirely red, his funny shirt more wrinkle than shirt, and his flaming hair sticking up all over from his pulling at it with irritation.

  “We’re good, fucking finally.” The manager standing behind him rolled her eyes.

  “This way,” she said.

  Nina followed the manager and Sam and did her best to ignore the wet, hot pain on the tender backs of her heels and how it felt like the blisters there had probably burst, and were possibly even bleeding.

  There was a little bit of squishing.

  This restaurant had low, white-leather-covered stools set around little stands that held the huge round trays of food, which served as tables when they were brought out and set up.

  She suddenly felt every place that her dress was a little tight and was pulling across her ass, and she eyed the low-slung stool doubtfully.

  Joder.

  “Here we are, may I bring you both drinks from the bar? On the house.”

  Sam looked at Nina and she nodded at the manager. “I’ll have a glass of tej.”

  The manager turned to Sam, who hadn’t looked away from Nina. “Sir?” she said.

  “A beer?”

  “Of course, what kind?”

  “I’m not sure, do you have something, um.”

  “Do you want an Ethiopian beer?” Nina asked him.

  “Yeah, I just wanted this to be all authentic, maybe.”

  Nina barely kept her hand from pressing on her chest, where Sam was breaking her heart with his careful hopes for this date. God. She looked at the manager. “You have Bedele?”

  “Of course, I’ll be right back.”

  “You’ve been here before?” Sam sounded wistful.

  “No, I really haven’t. It’s just that Ethiopian is one of my favorites.”

  “Oh.” Sam looked down at his extremely pointy shoes. “That’s good. Because we’re at an Ethiopian restaurant. You’ll have to let me know if it’s good.”

  Nina suddenly felt uncomfortable, more than the heat and her sore feet and her clinging dress could account for. He had wanted to make something special for her, and she had ruined that, a little. No fault of hers, but still.

  It was the way he looked at her in a dress the same way he did when she was in Carhartts, covered in mud, stinking. It was how when he ate the food in her café, he leaned over his plate and sometimes closed his eyes when he was chewing, and asked Rachel a million questions about what he was eating. It was that Tay said he’d called her and told her exactly what unit she’d be in after her surgery and which nurses on that unit he liked the best and to remember to ask for heated blankets.

  He was special because when she looked into his gray eyes she saw what he wanted, and it made her feel things she thought had died with Russ. Sam made her want to pick up the phone and call her parents for no reason, instead of because it was a holiday, or because she had a technical question she couldn’t find the answer to.

  She would ruin this.

  She didn’t know if she had what she needed to keep Paz Farms together and make sure Tay was okay and fill in for her during harvest. She wasn’t done with so many things; she hadn’t, she didn’t think, made it clear to Sam he had to go even slower.

  She had to catch up to everything.

  She wanted this to grow, not be planted and ripped out like some pretty annual, only good for one season.

  “It’s perfect, Sam. Should we sit down?”

  Sam rushed to awkwardly pull out the stool and she did her best to lower herself into a squat and then rest the side of one hip on the seat, her knees together and resting at an angle.

  When she looked down, her toes through the peephole of her shoes were purple from the pressure of the high heels, and her feet were swollen over the sharp edges of the shoe. She wanted to discreetly slip them off, almost in tears from the half relief of sitting down, but she didn’t dare until their tray of food was put on its stand to keep her mangled feet from view.

  “The seats are pretty fuckin’ low,” Sam said, and he seemed to be in a similar predicament, trying to sit comfortably in his tight jeans, figuring out where to put his legs.

  They looked at each other, hunched in uncomfortable squats on their stools.

  They laughed until their drinks came.

  * * *

  Sam’s ears and throat were completely red, almost purple.

  “Nah, it’s good spicy, not that hot at all.” His voice was hoarse, and Nina swore there were tears in the corners of his eyes. She leaned forward to get another scoop of wat with her sour piece of teff, piling on condiments arranged around the perimeter of the tray with her fingers.

  “It’s very spicy here, actually. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. It’s good.” He cleared his throat for what had to be the tenth time, and she watched his flush eat through his russet stubble in rapidly blooming and uneven splotches. He took a long swallow of his third beer, set it down, and then contemplated the communal tray of chopped, spiced meat and flatbread like he was going into battle.

  “Try a piece of teff plain, clear your palate.”

  “I like it. Don’t worry about me.” He reached toward the tray to make himself another bite. Wat was eaten without utensils, and it took practice using the flat teff as a vehicle for the piles of stews and minces. Sam had been a little fumbling with it, which was completely fine, except when she saw his hand reach for the flatbread, she stopped chewing, horrified.

  “Sam. Look at your fingers.”

  He looked down and winced. His fingers were a deep red, the backs of his hands erupting in pink hivelike welts. When she looked at his face, she could see that the edges of his lips were irritated, too, puffy.

  “Sam, you have to stop. Just, stop. I’m worried that you’re allergic to something. You don’t have a peanut allergy, do you? This cuisine uses peanuts and legumes.”

  Sam put his hands in his lap and looked at Nina, miserable. Pink and sweating.

  “No. I’m not allergic. But the thing is, I could never handle really spicy food. I want to, I like it, but …” He held up his hands.

  “Oh, Sam.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “You like it.”

  “The food?”

  “Yeah. You’re just sitting there, plowing through it like it’s mashed potatoes and gravy. I didn’t want to ruin your fun.”

  “I’m making a pig of myself, huh?”

  He looked at her for a few beats, obviously getting his brain on the same track as his mouth. She made sure her face looked upset, even though she wanted to laugh. “No, no, Nina. I mean, you know. You like it. A lot. I can tell you like it and I didn’t want to interrupt your concentration on eating, and good goddamn there’s a lot of food on this tray to get through.”

  “I guess my conversation isn’t that great either?”

  He paused again, managed to turn redder. “It’s really fucking hot in here. I’m not thinking straig
ht.”

  “Poor baby.” She let herself grin and then leaned forward to take his hand. Someone needed to rescue him from his well-meaning misery. Except when she leaned over …

  She heard a cottony, growling rip.

  From her dress.

  From the seam traveling up the ass of her dress.

  She went still, and then, of course, he took the initiative and grabbed her hand to lean her in closer, and before she could lean away, he tugged her close and …

  Ri-i-ip.

  “Shit, Sam, let go.”

  He did. “Damnit, Nina, what did I do?”

  She leaned back. Slowly. Felt more of the leather seat than she should, high up on her thighs. Way high up. The kick slit in the back of the dress must have given way and ripped farther upward under the strain of the dress being a size or so too small and her position in the stool putting pressure on it.

  And she had eaten a lot of wat.

  “My dress ripped.” No way around it. She would just have to confess.

  “Like?”

  “Like the seam, right up the back. It ripped. I’m not sure how high up.”

  “Are you done? I mean with dinner?”

  “Yeah, I think once you’ve busted out of your clothes, dinner’s over.”

  Sam winced at her tone, which she hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but she was trying to slip back into her shoes under the table.

  They didn’t fit.

  Her feet, out of the confines of the painful high heels rubbing against the tender skin from her pedicure, had swollen. She tried to slip the shoes back on, but unless she really shoved, and shoved hard, the very idea of which made her nauseated, they were not going on.

  Sam stood up, his knees popping. “Jesus.”

  Then he swayed in place.

  Shit. “You okay?” He somehow looked both pink and green at the same time.

  “Yeah, I—” He put his hand to his head, revealing dark sweat stains in the pits of his shirt. “I think I’m a little drunk.”

  “You had what, three beers?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t usually drink that much. Carbs.”

  “Dios mio.”

  “You need help up, though, and I want to stand behind you in case your dress is totally split open.”

  Nina pressed her fingers to her eyes.