bleeding hearts [h.s]

twenty six

The waitress placed our checks in front of us. I smiled up at her, but she hadn't been looking at me. The older woman was beaming down at the boy with the curly hair. She was laughing at something he had said, lightly touching his shoulder as she refilled his coffee. He thanked her and she turned to me, giving me a rather menacing glare. 

After she retreated back to the kitchen, I looked at Harry with an alarmed look on my face. He laughed throwing his head back. He leaned across the table to be closer to me. He smelled like coffee beans and citrus. 

"Don't mind Barbra," he told me. "Her bark is worse than her bite." 

"She looks like she hates me," I whispered to him, and he chuckled. 

"She is just protective," he explained. "I came here a lot after Vi passed."

I nodded as I dug through my purse for my card to pay. I held the plastic between my fingertips and reached for the check only to have it swept away from me. I stared up at Harry with my lips slightly ajar. He grinned at me as he combined our checks. 

"I can pay for myself, Harry." I told him, trying to snatch the check away from him. 

"No, what kind of date would I be if I let you pay?" He asked. My cheeks darkened. 

"This was not a date." I told him. 

"Wasn't it?" He smiled slightly, dimples forming in his cheeks. 

"No," I began. "You never asked me."

"I asked you to dinner," he defended. 

"Yes, but you did not ask me out on a date." I said. 

"Well, Miss Foster, would you like to go out with me?" He asked as he handed off the bills to Barbra. 

"Why should I go out with you, anyhow?" I questioned with a twinkle in my eye. 

He let a huff of mock-offense out. "Because I'm charming, and wonderful, and very narcissistic." 

I let out a laugh. "Sounds like quite the package."

"It is," he joked. 

"Fine," I told him. "This can be a date." 

"Oh no," he said, standing, he took his jacket from the back of his chair. "This was not a date. I'm taking you out for dessert and that can be the date." 

I fought a smile. There he was in his navy-blue button down and dark jeans. He looked nice and put together--like we had planned on going on a date. The past few days we had hardly left each other's side. He grew to know me they way I knew him. He had taken me on a tour of the town today, and then we went to dinner. 

Now, as I followed him blindly through the unfamiliar streets, I was happy. He made me laugh and smile; he was different though--from before. My dreams romanticized him in ways that reality did not. He was still the same man that I had fallen in love with, and yet it was like he was someone completely new. In my dreams, he was an optimistic and vivacious man; now he was still as charming as ever,  but he was more hardened by life. 

"Come on," he said as we weaved though the crowds on the sidewalks. He tugged me into a small ice cream shop and allowed me to peruse the options. His hand rested on the curve of my waist as he read the flavors over my shoulder. I couldn't help but smile to myself; the feeling of his warmth behind me, and his intoxicating scent. If someone would have told me a week ago that Harry was alive and well,  I would have thought it was a cruel joke. 

But here he was. 

I settled on a mint chocolate chip cone, and he chose rocky road. I paid this time--after he put up a valiant effort to hand over money to the cashier. We now roamed the streets of the small town, eating our ice cream side by side. He was telling me about his childhood, how he tried to teach himself guitar once and his parents did not take him seriously; that was until he came to them with bloodied fingers from fingering the strings too hard--after that they had gotten him lessons.