Put Me Back Together(13)

“Forget the questions,” he said. “I just want to watch you eat it.”

I froze with the fork still in my mouth and there was a pregnant pause as we stared at each other. Then I set the fork down and looked away. A part of me liked this, just a little, while another part of me was seriously freaking the hell out. I wasn’t sure which part was winning.

Lucas sat back in his chair, as though he thought it would be better if there were a full table-length between us. He shook his head a few times like it was an Etch-A-Sketch and he was trying to clear it.

I just want to watch you eat it.

I couldn’t deny that when he’d said those words I’d wanted nothing more than to let him watch me eat it.

Oh God, what was happening to me?

“First question,” Lucas said, rubbing his hands together. “What’s your last name?”

Okay, not too bad. Easy does it. “Archer,” I said, claiming my second bite.

“That’s British, isn’t it?” he said. “Like the author, Jeffrey Archer.”


I breathed in, readying to make my speech. “My mother is Indian and my father is Danish, but his father was English, hence the last name Archer. My mother is actually from Australia, she was born and grew up there, but her parents emigrated there from India and then eventually to Canada, so here we are.”

I readied myself for the typical remarks Em and I had gotten all our lives. Exclamations of, “Danish and Indian. What an interesting combination!” and, “You’re so lucky. I’m just plain old Canadian.” They were all basically conversation killers. What exactly was there to say about your diverse ethnic background? Thanks for finding my racial mix fascinating? (Emily had once told a man in a checkout line that he had her to thank for keeping his world diverse. “You’re welcome,” she’d said to him, perfectly seriously. He’d tipped his hat to her.)

Lucas just looked at me and said, “I’m one-eighth French-Canadian.”

“Oh, I totally win,” I said, spearing two bites of brownie on my fork at once and shoving them both in my mouth.

“Cheater!” Lucas cried, picking up the plate and holding it to his chest. “Now you have to answer two questions in a row.”

“Fine,” I said, holding up my hands to prove my innocence.

He narrowed his eyes at me but placed the plate back down between us.

“Where are you from?” he said, his voice still laced with suspicion.

“Vancouver,” I answered honestly. Good. A nice big, anonymous city. Nothing to see here, move along. “And where are you from?”

He raised his eyebrows at me, but didn’t protest my table-turning move.

“A little town called Christie,” he said.

I shook my head slowly to show I didn’t know it.

“It’s a tiny place about an hour northwest of here. Blink on the highway and you’ll miss it,” he said. “There’s nothing much there, just a lake and a four-street square downtown, a rundown movie theatre, and a girl’s boarding school, but it’s home to me.”

I’d noticed that students who came from small towns were often apologetic about it, as though they thought their homes were too boring to mention. But not Lucas. I liked that about him. I liked that he wasn’t embarrassed to come from some small town nobody had ever heard of, like his past was nothing to be ashamed of.

I wished I could say the same.

“So your parents still live there?” I asked, claiming another bite while he wasn’t looking. A muscle clenched in his jaw and he scratched at the back of his head. When he smiled at me this time, I could see the strain. This wasn’t a question he wanted to answer.

“I thought I was the one asking the questions,” he said.

But he didn’t. I drew designs in the fudge with the tines of the fork and he watched me do it. It was the first time in a long time that I’d been able to stand being quiet with someone. Usually I would obsess about what they were thinking of me or how to get away or what to say next, because God knew I wasn’t exactly a stellar conversationalist. I didn’t know why I wasn’t feeling that way now, but I didn’t question it.

“Sometimes I miss living at home,” Lucas said. “That town was the world to me in high school. Everything was so much simpler then.”

“I bet you were the king of the school,” I said with a smirk. “You had a hundred close friends and you were class president.” His sheepish look told me I was on the right track. “I bet everyone knew your name, just like here.”

“What? Didn’t the kids all know your name at your school?” he said.

I winced internally. I’d walked right into that one.

“Oh, they knew my name, all right,” I said. They hadn’t printed my name in the papers, but every kid in my high school had still known exactly who I was even before I’d set foot on school grounds.

“Were you one of those popular girls?” he said with laughter in his voice. “Did you walk down the hall, swinging your ponytail around and making snarky remarks to your underlings?”

I had to laugh along. “No!” I said. “That was Emily.” I had another bite of brownie.

“But I’m sure you had boyfriends,” he continued, he tone light and teasing while my stomach dropped like a stone. “How many were there? Dozens, I bet.”