Upside Down(43)

We were greeted warmly by Feri as soon as we stepped inside. “Good to see you again, Mr Hennessy,” he said, his grin wide, his arms outstretched. “You bring special someone?”

“I did, yes,” I replied, sparing Jordan a small glance, feeling a little proud, a little embarrassed. “This is Jordan.”

They smiled politely at each other and said quiet hellos.

“I give you best table, come this way.” Feri was a short man, as tall as he was wide, but he had a smile that could light up a room. His restaurant was a small, dank-looking place, and I probably would have thought it questionable if it weren’t for the non-stop crowd of people lining up for whatever Hungarian creations he could dish up.

After we were seated, Jordan took his time going over the menu. It was probably the quietest I’d ever seen him. “You okay?”

“Oh sure,” he said quickly. “I just don’t know what to get. It all looks good, but I’ve never had Hungarian before. I mean, I’ve had goulash before, but I don’t know what any of these other things are, and what if I order the wrong thing and don’t like it. I don’t want things to be awkward.”

“Want me to order for you?”

He looked up from the menu to me, a little puzzled, but there was a hint of a smile. “Do you think you’re good enough? Because if you order it and I don’t like it, then it’s bound to be awkward.”

I chuckled. “The name of this place, Itthon, is Hungarian for at home. Like home cooking, soul food. There isn’t a bad thing on the menu. And you ordered those mango fries for me, and there was no awkwardness.”

“Because they’re deep fried heaven sticks.” Then he shrugged. “But I’m game if you are.”

I folded my menu closed, already knowing what I’d order.

When Feri brought out the lángos and stuffed cabbage and the chicken paprikash on nokedli for us to share, I waited for Jordan to taste it first. He took a tentative forkful of the chicken, then his gaze shot to mine. “Get. Out.”

I grinned. “Told you.”

Feri let out one of his contagious laughs. “You bring him here to win his heart,” he said with a clap of his hand on my shoulder. “My food works every time.”

I’m certain I blushed every shade of red known to man, but Feri went on to his other customers, leaving Jordan and me to eat in slightly mortified silence.

“Well, this definitely cranks your rating up to a full ten points,” Jordan said. He put his fork down and leaned back. “This is amazing.”

“I thought it was a full ten before we got here.”

“A full ten on the new scale,” he said. “Which would be like a fifty for anybody else, but we have to keep it at ten so they don’t feel bad. Not everyone can live up to your standards.”

I grinned. “Well, that would be fair. Oh, and your questions earlier. My tattoo is the Marvel Avengers’ A, you know, but in black, grey, white, and purple, like the ace flag. Kind of like my superhero shield. It looks better than it sounds. It’s on my chest.” I pointed to my heart. “And I went to Nepal before my final year of uni. I had two months off, and I knew once I graduated, it’d be competitive, and once work started, my next vacation would be in ten years. So I spent five weeks travelling from Vietnam to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Northern India, then Nepal. It was crazy but incredible. Best five weeks of my life.”

“That sounds amazing. You went with friends?”

I shook my head. “Nope. My travel agent lined up a guide from Vietnam, paid him a year’s wages, which wasn’t much by comparison. He had an old Jeep I’m pretty sure was left behind from the war. The suspension was shot, but it was all part of the experience.”

“You went on your own? Oh my God, I would definitely end up in a bathtub of ice missing a kidney or something. Or I’d end up in the Bangkok Hilton because the customs guys would probably think my non-stop talking was a sign of drug use. It’d be a disaster.”

I chuckled and broke off a piece of the lángos. “Here, try this. It’s amazing.”

He took it, tasted it, and groaned. “Why have I never been here before? I think we’ll need to come back and try every single thing on the menu.”

“Deal.”

He ate a bit more, set his fork down, and sipped his water. “So what have you got on at work this week?” he asked. “You mentioned closing off one of your biggest contracts. I mean, I don’t even know what internet ninjas do.”

“Yeah, there are things I can’t tell you. You know, being an internet ninja—” I winked. “—means there are things I can’t tell you.”

“So you are an undercover cop or a secret agent?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I knew it!”

I laughed at that. “Definitely not a cop or a secret agent. But I deal with classified information. Big companies, corporations, and the CEOs trust me with passwords and encryption codes. If I wanted to, which I don’t, but if I was so inclined, I could take down some pretty big companies.”

“So you have access to all of their information?”

I nodded. “Names, addresses, tax-file numbers, bank accounts, offshore accounts, wire transfers. You name it, I can see it.”