I Wish You The Best

21 - Delilah

"I still can't believe you're going to be a PA. I remember how excited you were, all the hours you racked up in college while still going to class. Determined, like always." He speaks with admiration and I feel the heat rise to my cheeks.

"No need to butter me up Mason, you're already in my house." I joke but he just grins, eyes never leaving mine. The air around us grows thick and my gaze drops to his mouth before I turn away clearing my throat.

"I am, aren't I." He swallows. "Why am I?" He gazes at me accusingly but his lips pull up in a smirk as if to say, what am I really doing here? I've been asking myself that same question all afternoon since I texted him inviting him over, coming up with no real answer.

I shrug. "To eat dinner with a friend."

He looks at me like he sees right through me so I reach for the takeout menus under the coffee table and toss them on his lap.

"You choose." The small pamphlets land on his lap and he clenches his jaw. Both of us keep eye contact, in a silent battle of who's going to break through the tape first. Which one of us is going to cross that line, and bring the other one with us?

It wouldn't be, it couldn't be. We were friends once before we dated, we just had to navigate that normal again. At least for the limited time, he planned on staying here, which is the biggest blinking red light on why this is all deep down a really bad idea.

He doesn't say anything else for a moment but then shuffles through the menus settling on a Thai place in town. We both come up with our order and he calls it in. I find myself staring at his hand as he talks, his narrow veins running up his forearm whenever he moves on the call. Million-dollar hands, hands that I knew well.

I need water.

"It'll be delivered in twenty. Want to watch a movie?" I nod my head and pray to anyone who is listening to remind me why we broke up in the first place, why I shouldn't just be the one to break the line.

I wondered, for a split second, if what my Dad had said at the restaurant was true. That we were meant to find one another again, that this was a second chance. And I was afraid, so afraid because it got harder each time we were in a room together to say what we both bite our tongues from saying.

"Here." He hands me the remote, making himself comfortable. I reach for the blanket behind the couch, settling on the other end and draping it over me. I look over to him once more before turning towards the random movie I settled on, wondering if these twenty minutes until the food gets here will go by fast.

It doesn't.

It feels like for twenty minutes I was hyper-aware of every little movement he made, every shift in position. I don't even know the plot of the movie we're watching and I don't think I really care. We settle around the kitchen island to eat, talking about our favorite dishes and what we miss about food in our college town.

He lights up when talking about college, his old friends, and his old routines. I'm sure he's been on a whirlwind of change since graduation and it was nice to settle into some familiarity. At least a semblance of it.

"You remember that one night you were craving a cheese pizza from Franks? And it was like two am in the morning." He says, dropping his fork and looking up at me with a smile. "You had been out with your friends that night and I had to pick you up after one too many rounds of green tea shots." He points a finger at me.

I shake my head. "I do remember that, but I also remember you making me an awful version of my favorite pizza instead." Memories of that night come flying back, a random thirsty Thursday with my friends from class turned into a night at the bar. All the pizza places around us had closed including Franks. Which I'm guessing is when Mason decided he was going to be a Michelin-rated chef and make me a pizza from scratch.