Nothing ever tasted better than a hamburger after a full evening of dancing.
It didn't matter that the heels had chafed Yuki's feet, that her head ached from all the poking pins and stiff hair spray, or that her ribs would be sore from laughing. It had been a perfect night and eating gloriously greasy food with Rhett in the booth across from her had to be the crowning achievement.
"I'm sorry I didn't plan anything fancier," he said for what had to be the dozenth time.
Yuki sucked some fry sauce off her fingers and wiped them on a napkin out of the multitudes scattered across the table. She'd fashioned a napkin bib by tucking them into the top of her neckline and covered her lap in a blanket of them. No way was she getting anything on this dress. "You know I love fast food yet I'm never allowed to eat it. So stop saying you're sorry and hand over your pickles."
She gestured to the pickles that had been exiled with the onions to the edge of his plate. Rhett didn't like either of them but refused to make special requests when ordering to leave them out.
He turned over the pickles, while she peeled back her bun to set them on top of the meat patty. Closing her eyes, she took a big bite and relished the savory warmth that spread over her tongue. Mushroom swiss burgers had to be man's greatest invention.
By comparison, Rhett had hardly touched his fish sandwich except to take pieces out.
"You alright?" Yuki asked. When he shifted and gazed out the window, she tilted her head for a better view of his face. "You worried about what'll happen when you get home?"
"I hate disappointing my parents," he mumbled, yet he didn't look angry. If anything, he looked disappointed in himself too.
Somehow that made Yuki feel worse than if she'd committed the trespass herself. She put her burger down and reached across the table to hold Rhett's hand. "Hey, let me talk to your mom when we get to your house. I'm sure she'll understand when I tell her you'd promised to take me to the dance."
Rhett sighed, poking at his fries. "I don't remember promising. Only asking."
Yuki shrugged, returning to her one true love, hamburger. "Same difference."
After a few minutes of silence save for her happy eating noises, Rhett asked, "Did you mean what you said on the balcony? You actually...care about me like that?" Love. It didn't escape her notice that he didn't use the word. Not that he'd had a chance to when Cyprus and a couple of his other friends interrupted their moment.
"Of course I do," Yuki said, sopping up ketchup with her last french fry. If Rhett didn't start eating soon, she might steal more off his tray.
"Yuki, can you promise me that I'm not your Lie and you're not going to reject me? I don't think I can take it again if this all turns out to be a joke." Rhett leaned on the table, food ignored and likely cold by now.
For all her practice at lying, telling the truth without acting suspicious had become far more difficult. Yuki lowered her eyes, finding it difficult to meet Rhett's intense scrutiny. She'd always loved his gentle eyes, framed by glasses. But without the glasses, he somehow looked unfamiliar and severe, as if he'd pick apart anything she said and point out all the flaws.
"You're my Truth and I'm not going to reject you," Yuki replied. She held out her pinky finger. "Promise."
When Rhett's lips thinned, Yuki realized she'd made a fatal mistake. The last time they made a pinkie promise, she'd broken it. He remembered and the doubt shone in his clear eyes. Even though he looped his finger around hers, the action didn't lift his mood.
Rhett believed she was lying and, like the boy who cried wolf, she had no way to convince him otherwise.
The bell on the restaurant's door rung and the workers continued to yell orders and help customers up front, but their table sunk into silence.
After he'd nibbled on his food, Rhett made a couple false starts before finally asking, "Do you ever feel like...you'd rather know the reason for a misfortune even if it's a bad one...than to never know the reason at all?"
Yuki's thoughts jumped to the car crash. She knew the bad reason there—sheer human stupidity. A drunk driver had gotten into their car and in doing so, not only ended the lives of her parents and older brothers, but ruined hers. A bad reason no better than never knowing why her family died and why she'd survived.
Why the other driver had survived too and wasn't rotting in jail instead of living a normal life.
"I think," she answered, "that I'd rather someone made up a good reason and told me that."
Rhett raised an eyebrow. "You'd rather be lied to?"
"Yes." At least there'd be meaning then. More meaning than one reckless decision and a chance encounter.
Rhett didn't continue the thread of conversation, so Yuki piled all her used napkins on her tray and got up to take it to the trash.
"Let me," he said, whisking it away.
Yuki checked her phone for the time. Nine. She had curfew in an hour, so if she wanted to sweet talk Rhett out of trouble, they'd need to leave soon.
Rhett seemed to be of the same mind when he returned and offered his hand to help her stand. "It might be a little chilly outside," he murmured, shrugging out of his suit jacket and laying it over her shoulders.
"Thank you." Yuki swallowed down the lump in her throat and forced her stiff feet to walk out of the burger shop. If it weren't for the added height keeping her dress from dragging, she'd go barefoot right now.
They passed under flickering streetlights, Rhett's guiding hand on the small of her back. He opened her door and helped her up into the pickup. When he'd gotten in from the other side, he didn't start the engine though.
"Is everything alright?" Yuki asked, holding the jacket close.
"Do you want me to wear your fortune ring?" Rhett asked. In the darkness, she couldn't see his face.
"Yes," Yuki admitted. But she knew he didn't trust her or in her lack of ambition, so she added, "Ethan is my Lie. I don't really have a chance for the scholarship there but we'll be five hundred richer right?" Taking the ring off her thumb, she held it out to him.
"Right." Rhett's voice sounded rough and he coughed into his sleeve. He pulled a ring out of his pocket and held it out to her. "Trade then? You wear mine and I wear yours."
"Trade," Yuki said, her hand steady as they made the exchange, while her heart kicked like a jackrabbit in her chest. She tested Rhett's ring until it fit snugly on the fourth finger of her right hand.
Twisting the key, Rhett started the truck and backed out of the parking space.
Yuki thought she felt his fingers brush her cheek, but when she turned, he had both hands on the wheel. After dancing and dinner, the drive home felt mundane. The panic Cinderella must have felt running home from the ball must've been more exciting. No music and no talking meant being alone with her thoughts.
Yuki didn't notice Rhett passed his house until they pulled into her grandparents' driveway. They'd already turned off the lights, not bothering to wait up for her. "I thought I was going to advocate for your innocence."
"You look tired and I don't want to hide behind you when I went against my parents. I made the choice," Rhett answered. Hand slack on the armrest, he bled exhaustion.
The words rose up in Yuki's throat like vomit, to tell Rhett what happened to her family, to her. She swallowed them back down, choking on the acidic bitterness. Instead she replaced those words with sweet ones. It'd been a game when she was younger, to replace sour sentences with more palatable phrases. "I'm hungry" became "the food smells really good, Mama", often earning her a bite for taste testing purposes.
"I think not talking to you was one of the worst decisions I ever made," Yuki whispered. "And the other worst decision I made when I was eight."
A pause. "What happened when you were eight?"
"I baked heart-shaped cookies with my mom on Valentine's Day. All morning I pestered her about how'd they'd be for someone special, but it was a secret so I couldn't tell her." Yuki smiled, closing her eyes. "I don't know whether I planned to walk to the post office myself or what I was going to send them in. All I knew was that I had your address and anything was possible."
Sometimes, without seeing it could be hard to tell what Rhett might be thinking, but Yuki heard him smiling too. "And what happened to those cookies? I don't think I ever got them."
"Leave it to older brothers to figure out your fun and tease you without mercy." Tears leaked down Yuki's cheeks. "I took the cookies to my room and ate every single one. They made me sick."
Rhett laughed, that beautiful golden laugh she loved so much. "So eating the cookies was one of your worst decisions?"
Yuki shook her head. "No, my worst decision was not sending them to you. I had a note too, asking you to be my Valentine." She popped open her clutch and took out a wrinkled, well-loved paper.
Rhett clicked on the interior light and unfolded the paper with careful hands. Inside, was her chicken scratch writing, a heart, and two stick people holding hands. Abruptly he set the drawing on the dashboard and opened his door, rounding the truck to unlatch hers.
Wondering if he wanted to be rid of her, Yuki hopped down with a supporting grip on his shoulder. Her feet didn't touch the ground before Rhett crushed her in a hug. His jacket slipped to the ground unheeded.
"I wish you'd sent the cookies too," Rhett murmured, voice muffled by her hair.
Yuki wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him back. "I know it's eight years late and not even February...but will you be my Valentine?"
She didn't think it possible for him to squeeze any tighter and wondered through the fuzzy haze in her mind if her problem child rib might crack from it. But before they did, Rhett released her to cup her face in his tender hands, as if she were ice that would melt in them. "There's nothing I want more."
He brushed a kiss across her cold cheek, the warmth of it spreading through her like liquid light.
Before she could react, he'd raced to shut the passenger door, jumped in the driver's seat, and rolled down the windows. "Goodnight!" he shouted out over the engine coming to life.
"Goodnight!" Yuki called back as he rolled out of the driveway. Her feet caught on something and she picked up his jacket from where it'd fallen. Hugging it to her chest, she watched him trundle down the street until he reached his house.
She'd return it to him later, but for now, she went inside and fell into bed—Rhett's jacket draped over her like a comforting embrace.
Chapter Word Count: 1880