The Kippens | Tyrus

Promises

TJ's POV

3 Years Ago

"This is the special, fine-dining restaurant you're taking me to?" Cyrus says as we come up the street together. "The Spoon?"

"Hey, this place is special," I say.

I step ahead to get the door for him, and he smiles at the gesture. We both enter in, and Cyrus naturally drifts toward the booth by the window. 

"I haven't been here since we were in high school," Cyrus comments. "Remember when you apologized to a trash can?"

I let out a chuckle and sit down across from him. He immediately reaches for the menu, even though I know he has it memorized. 

"Remember when you sent me that list of things you couldn't do?" I counter. 

His face turns red as a tomato. "Yeah. I can't believe I sent you that."

"It was quite the interesting read."

"You actually read it?" Cyrus replies, jumping a little in surprise. "It was, like, fifty points long."

"Actually, it was sixty-two," I correct him.

"Oh my god," he mutters, putting his head down in his arms on the table. A second later, he peeks his eyes up again, saying, "You did read it."

"Yeah, I remember trying to figure out how to help you learn all of the things you wanted to learn. I never got the chance to help you with them, though, because I was too nervous. Just being around you made my stomach do somersaults and my brain forget what I was planning to say."

Cyrus grins at that as he sits up again. "You were lovestruck. That's cute."

I shake my head, laughing as I feel my own face heat up now. He's always done that to me. He knows that, because I've told him many times before. It's not embarrassing or awkward to admit how he makes me feel the way it was when we were in middle school. It's just the truth. 

We're interrupted by the server who asks us what we want to eat. We both recite our regular orders from when we were teenagers, the common piece being a basket of baby taters to share. The last time I was here, Amber still worked here, but then she happened to meet a woman downtown one day who happened to be the owner of a real estate business, and Amber stopped to help this lady pick up the portfolio that she dropped, not knowing that that simple act of neighbourliness would land her a job. Since she had to provide for both of us, she never had the opportunity to go to college, but now she's a realtor full time. I don't know whether it was God or fate, or everyone is wrong and Santa really does exist, but I feel thankful every day that she was able to create a life with such a difficult start. 

As the server leaves, Cyrus returns to our previous conversation. "You did teach me one thing: how to do a somersault."

"Right," I remember. "That was fun. Though, I spent a while trying to figure out what one of your points on the list meant."

His eyebrows scrunch in question. "Which one?"

"Tell TJ," I recall. 

His mouth drops open in shock. "That was on there?" 

I nod, grinning at his reaction. Even flustered, he's adorable. 

"I forgot to take that off," Cyrus says. "I can't believe it. And you didn't tell me."

"I didn't know what it meant, and I was too awkward to ask," I confess. 

"Well, now you know what it meant," he says.