“Yup.”
“Let me guess—never had a free lunch?”
“Nope.” He smiled, and the door closed behind them.
Chapter Four
Ray's Diner, was a typical small town cafe. Still sporting chrome napkin holders,
brick-red vinyl seats, and a counter with a row of classic round seats, its old-school greasy-spoon appearance contradicted the good food which the owner, Raymond Chow, had served there for the last thirty years.
It was the town hot spot for the locals, especially the crew of old retired men
who gathered there every morning to drink coffee and chew on the latest farm reports, gossip, and argue desperately about politics. Raymond's unique pie shakes—a combination of a slice of pie blended into a milkshake—were
legendary and drew repeat customers from miles around.
Peter followed Kate in. He half hoped the place would be empty. He was already embarrassed enough by Lucius and Carol's shenanigans. And then he'd put her on the spot by actually asking her to go through with the charade.
But she'd said yes.
And here she was, sauntering through Ray's like she'd never left, her wavy
hair even more golden than he'd remembered, and longer, dancing down her back.
But she had left. Remember?
“Hey, professor!” a stubby man in a flannel shirt called out. He ambled out
from behind the counter wiping his hands on a red-and-white striped towel.
Peter saw Kate glance at him. Peter just smiled and waved. “Hey, Ray. Usual
booth?”
“Sure.” Ray gave Kate the once over as he grabbed a couple of glasses of water from the counter. “Who's your lady friend today?”
“Today?” Katie turned to look at Peter with arched eyebrows.
“Oh, yeah,” Ray continued with a sly grin. “Watch out for this one, miss.
Town's most eligible bachelor.”
Peter shook his head. “Ray now's not—”
“I'm just teasin', miss,” Ray interrupted with a wink at Kate. He set the waters down, then went to retrieve some menus from behind the counter as she
slid into the opposite side of the booth.
Peter wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. It was one thing for Ray to tease,
but he hadn't seen Katie— Kate—since high school graduation. And that was from a distance. After the debacle at the Scholarship Fair, it had been
perfunctory hellos and hi's in the hallway, but that had been it. It was like she'd gone into some kind of shell. And then, not more than a few weeks after graduation, she was gone.
And he hadn't seen her since.
“So, how long have you lived in Chicago?” he asked, already knowing the
answer but hoping to break the ice.
“About eight years.” Kate took a sip from her water. “Five at the company
I'm with now. We do marketing and branding for corporations. I used to do mostly graphic design, but I've been running a few bigger campaigns the last few
years.”
He already knew that, too. Every year or so—or was it more?—he'd be in his
office, reeling from another mind-numbing round of budget requests or a
particularly bad parent-teacher conference, and he'd google her, find her on her
company website directory. All professional and sparkly and clean, confident smile set on her face. Kate Brady, along with the dozen or so young, good-looking grinning guys next to her on the directory page, their hipster glasses almost shouting how cool they were.
She wasn't married. He knew that, too. Small-town gossip reached deep and
far, even when you'd been gone a dozen years.
