I cracked my wallet open to thumb through the wrinkled bills inside. Ten, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen . . . and a quarter. I sighed. Tips at The Blackbird were pretty decent, but after rent, utilities, restocking my fridge, and buying a new shirt for tonight’s dinner, I was practically broke. I couldn’t even stretch my budget far enough to buy a semi-decent set of colored pencils.

I was used to making do, getting by on a minimal amount of cash flow. I’d survived entire weeks on nothing more than Cup Noodles, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was manageable. And, to be honest, I never expected anything more.

This thing with Gavin, though, was throwing a giant wrench into everything. I couldn’t bankroll fancy dinners out. Shit, I probably couldn’t even afford a salad at the places he was used to eating. And I didn’t even like salad. Never mind the tiny problem of the crowds he drew just with his pretty face. There was no way I could risk being seen out in public with him.

Which was why I was hunkered down in a faded orange booth, in a tiny closet of a restaurant that was so out of the way it’d be a wonder if Gavin even made it here. With flickering fluorescent lights; cracked, plastic menus; and a questionably dirty linoleum floor, I’d suspect a likely dose of food poisoning if I hadn’t had a quick bite to eat here with my dad just a few days before.

There were only two other booths and two additional tables in the entire place. One waitress handled them all—a nametag sticker proclaimed her name: Stacy, no older than twenty-five, bottle-blond hair with five-inch brown roots. The farthest table from mine was the only other one that was occupied. My lone companion was a man in his early thirties engrossed in a newspaper, red-orange unkempt hair with an unfortunate case of crotch face—the lovely descriptor I’d coined for those men who seemed to grow pubes on their chins—and an inability to stop bouncing his foot.

I glanced at the clock hanging cockeyed on the wall. Ten minutes late. Nothing surprising there. The Gavin I knew was rarely ever on time. He was practically a human rain delay. I’d give it another ten before I sincerely started worrying that he might have gotten mugged on the way to this hole-in-the-wall.

It was another four before the door swung open, injecting the room with a burst of much-needed fresh air. Gavin glanced hesitantly around the room—I couldn’t blame him, the place didn’t even have a sign out front—and didn’t relax until his gaze connected with mine. A smile broke across his face that sent a whole flock of butterflies swirling through my stomach.

He looked good. Damn good. His hair was just a tad damp at the temples, like he was fresh out of the shower, and his blue Henley hugged his leanly muscled biceps and trim waist. For a minute I completely forgot why we were there, the only thing circling around my mind was how eager I was to get that shirt off him.

“Christ,” he said as he slid into the booth across from me. “Could you have found a more secluded place?”

“Not if I tried.” Which was the truth. Dad had found this place and designated it as one of our meeting spots. Something he only would have done if it was completely off the map, had multiple, accessible exits, and wasn’t monitored by security cameras.

“This place is very . . .” He flicked his fingers through the air like he was trying to pluck the right word out of thin air. “Unique.”

“That’s a kind way of describing it.” I took a sip of my Pepsi.

He laughed. “I’m guessing there was a reason behind you picking this place.”

“Two, actually.” I folded my hands on the table. “First, because it’s off the grid. It’s probably better if we’re not seen in public together.” I sunk my teeth into my lower lip, making myself pause and letting him absorb that.

“Huh.” He blew out a breath. “Well, that could be a bit difficult. But we might be able to manage it with some effort.”

“And second, I picked this place because they make an amazing bacon cheeseburger. Even better than that little place we used to go to when we were studying for finals.” I grinned. With Gavin it had always been a game to find the best eating spots, the best food. Nothing made him happier than a superior dinner. “What was the name of it? It had something to do with baseball.”

“Bottom of the Ninth.” He ran a finger down his menu. “I’m surprised you remember that place.”

I took the subtle dig he tossed my way. It was no more than I deserved. “You’d be surprised at what I remember.”

Luckily, the waitress appeared at the end of our table before he had the chance to ask me which memories I’d been hanging onto all these years. It wouldn’t be fair to him to admit that I guarded every single memory of us like tiny pieces of treasure. That I hoarded them, replayed them, relished in them, whenever the loneliness threatened to be too much.

“Can I get you something, sweetheart?” She lifted a brow at him, pen tapping against a tiny notepad.

He flipped the menu over, found the back blank, and flipped it back. “A Sprite would be good.”

“Mhmm.” A quick scribble. “You know what you want to eat?”

He glanced at me and I nodded. “Two bacon cheeseburgers, loaded, and two side orders of fries.”

“That it?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at him, like she wasn’t quite used to her customers being so pleasant. “You’re welcome. Sir.”

“Sir?” He asked once she’d disappeared into the kitchen.

I tapped the side of my plastic cup. “It’s the outfit.”

“My outfit?” He tugged the fabric away from his body and stared down at it. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

To him it probably looked like an everyday shirt and pair of jeans. For someone like me, who frequented the Salvation Army more often than not, it looked expensive—high quality fabric, name brands, distressed jeans that were clearly styled that way and not from age. Underneath the table my palm skimmed over the small hole near that pocket in my jeans. That one was definitely there from wear and not fashion.

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Really?”

I expertly redirected the subject. “Are you fishing for compliments?”

The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Are you handing them out?”

I leaned a little closer and watched his breath catch. “No.”

He laughed, the sound of it echoing off the close walls. It was too big and bright for a place like this, for a person like me. Regardless, it warmed me from the inside out like nothing else had in a long time.

“You’re still such a ball buster.” He shook his head.

“Some things never change.” The other half of that thought, some things do, hung in the air between us like a dark cloud, sneaking in front of the sun and casting shadows on everything that’d been beaming just a second before. My good mood sunk a bit, and I couldn’t help wondering just how different I really seemed to him. Could he tell my hair was darker? Did he notice that I’d traded my natural thinness for a bit of definition? Was that brokenness inside me as easy for him to see as it was when I glanced in the mirror?

He leaned back into the booth, his legs stretching out beneath the table. His foot bumped mine. “So, what’ve you been up to all these years? You ever finish your art degree?”

A pang stabbed me right in the chest. “No, I never got around to it.” I fiddled with my napkin. “There didn’t really seem to be a point.”

His mouth opened, hesitated, then closed again. “But you still draw, right?”

My cheeks flushed. Other than the haphazard portrait I’d drawn of him and then discarded, I hadn’t worked on anything else. “I don’t really keep any of it.”

“You just . . . throw it away?” His forehead creased as his eyebrows drew together.

“With how much I . . . travel . . . it’s difficult to bring things with me.” I offered him a half-hearted smile. “I’ve still got that I Love Tacos T-shirt I stole from you, though.”

“And the necklace.” He reached forward and slipped a fingertip underneath the thin black cord that hung around my neck. I’d been wearing it so long I’d almost forgotten I was wearing it at all. With a little tug, he pulled the whole thing out from where it was resting against my breastbone. He ran a fingertip over the penny, the dull copper glinting in the light. “You kept it.” He said it like a question, his gaze bouncing up to mine for an answer.

Hesitantly, I reached up to take his hand in mine, afraid that he’d repeat his earlier response and jerk away. But he didn’t. He let me trace over the bumpy path of his knuckles, roam across the grooves of his palm. “I never take it off.”

I felt his reaction in his skin—the slight shiver, the infinitesimal tense of anticipation. “Is it just as lucky for you as it was for me?”

For a second I flashed back to the moment we met—him stopping to pick up this damn penny from the sidewalk, and me, head down and in such a rush I didn’t even see him until he was face down on the ground, blood gushing from his nose.

I let my eyes scan his face. “I’m not sure it could ever be that lucky again.”