“Burger joint? How do you know I even want to go back in business?” he asked, looking down at me as his fingers ran over the shiny metal of the Rolex watch.
“Because you wouldn’t look so damn happy when you cooked them if it wasn’t still your passion,” I answered.
He swallowed deeply, as if he were holding back some deep emotion.
“Thank you, Everly…August. Thank you very much.”
“Good luck, Joey,” August replied.
I waved good-bye and we stepped out the door, burgers and fries in hand, and as I looked around, the tattered floors and dingy walls didn’t look nearly as scary anymore.
If Joey and I could survive this life, there was hope for the rest of them.
As long as we didn’t forget.
* * *
“Do you have a place in mind to eat these?” I asked, peeking into the bag as the aroma began to fill the car. My mouth was already watering and I was nearly shaking with hunger as I tried to discipline myself from snagging several of the fries and shoving them into my mouth all at once.
I couldn’t believe he’d found Joey and had him make me a burger and fries.
In his house.
On an electric griddle and a tiny deep fat fryer that anyone could pick up from Walmart. It made me wonder why his burgers were amazing and mine were just all right when I had all of the same equipment in my own kitchen.
“Not really—I thought of a few scenic locations along the water, but if you have something better in mind, let me know.”
“Turn here,” I instructed, and he took a sharp curve off the freeway.
A couple of interchanges later, we were pulling up to my spot—the secret spot I went to when I wanted to be alone. Alone from everything and nothing at all. It’s where I went when Ryan became overwhelming with talk of school and careers…when Sarah and I bickered and even when work became too stressful.
Even a barista can feel overworked from time to time.
It had always been my place—until August. He had been the only other person I’d invited here. And now I wanted to do so again.
As he shut the engine off, he looked up at the massive bridge in the background. “I have a picture of the two of us here,” he said, lifting his wallet from his back pocket. He pulled out a tattered old photo, obviously worn from being shoved in his wallet, but it was one I recognized immediately.
“That’s an old one,” I said, smiling, as my hair dipped down in front of me. I leaned in closer to get a better look, flipping over the photo to see the words I’d written so long ago. “We were babies,” I laughed, looking at the date.
“Will you tell me about this day?” he asked as we dug into the food, not willing to risk the possibility of it getting any colder.
“I think we’d been dating for a few months—maybe longer. We were already head over heels in love. I swear it was that way from the minute I saw you,” I explained candidly, a tiny moan escaping my mouth as I bit into the burger for the first time.
He chuckled, watching with amusement as I ate the glorious food with enthusiasm.
“I’ve been coming here since I was a child. Before I was old enough to be traveling alone, I was riding buses and taking BART to get over to this very spot.”
“Why here?”
“I don’t know. I was in the car one day with my random foster parent of the moment, and I remember we drove past here. I’d of course seen the Golden Gate Bridge a hundred times before then, having grown up in the city, but from this angle, it looked immense—colossal, like it could engulf the entire ocean. It seemed otherworldly, and at that time in my life, I needed something kind of magical and beyond the realm of what was considered normal.”
“So that was here,” he asked.
“For my eight-year-old mind, yeah. It was.”
He looked up at it, the shiny red cables stretching from one end of the bay to another. “I can see it.”
I hid my embarrassed smile and continued. “So, after we’d been dating a while, I decided you were cool enough to bring to my magical spot.”
“And now I guess I’m cool enough again?” he asked softly, his eyes meeting mine.
“Very,” I answered, food forgotten.
“And what do cool people do in a place like this?” he asked.
My fingers slowly went down his chiseled chest and I bit my bottom lip.
“Very magical things,” I answered, pushing him back and showing him just how enchanted a bridge could be.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
August
I no longer missed the memories.
Life with Everly had completed me.
Completed my existence.
For the first time since I’d awakened in that lonely hospital bed, I wasn’t searching for something that was lost to me.