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Lunch. Just lunch, that’s all.

It isn’t a date.

Poetry of Pho is every bit as remarkable as the reviews say, and Jake is, again, a perfect gentleman throughout lunch. We chat about easy stuff — what we did in college, our hobbies. Jake, it turns out, has been training in mixed martial arts for years and after some prodding admits that he’d like to start a gym of his own someday.

“What’s stopping you?” I ask.

He’s quiet, distracting himself with the last piece of goi cuon that I’ve told him he’s welcome to. He looks around afterward, and waves the waiter down for the check.

“Did I hit a nerve?” I ask, confused about the sudden silence.

Jake shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. Want to get out of here?”

I check the time. Nearly four fifteen. “We’re just about out of time,” I inform him. “Per our agreement.”

He chuckles. “Well, we can always catch up on that story next time unless…”

“Unless?” I wonder, intrigued.

“You trust your guy, Chester, to run the place while you’re gone, right?” Jake asks, a smile tugging the corners of his lips a bit.

“Jake, I can’t stay gone too long — ”

“Just a little while longer?” He looks so hopeful that I can’t quite bring myself to tell him no.

“I have something going on at the lounge later in the evening. I can’t miss it, so… a little while but that’s all.” I’m trying to be serious, but can’t keep my lips from turning up at the corners. I don’t even remember the last time a guy made me want to ditch school or work.

Jake is overjoyed, it looks like, and after he pays the bill we leave, and skip the car to walk toward the waterfront. It’s a beautiful afternoon, not too chilly for late summer, and while we start the short walk out at arm’s length I find myself drifting a little closer to him. Jake is easy to talk to, and there’s something about the fact that I know his father wants to put me out of business that makes me feel… secure? I don’t need to have any expectations, which is fine by me. Most people never meet them.

The beach here is beautiful, the sand a clean white, and the midday tide is in, making it a thin strip of white that cleanly divides the great blue from the beige and gray of the city. Jake looks out over the water. “I’d love to start my own gym,” he says, quietly, smiling a little even though his tone seems sad. “But I have some pretty big shoes to fill and it’s my job to fill them.”

“Your dad, you mean?” I lean against the railing with my back to the ocean as he leans to face it.

“The one and only, the great and powerful Reginald Ferry,” Jake announces, as if his father personally brought in the tide. “He thinks the idea of a gym is childish and poorly thought out. Most small gyms never come close to making a profit. I wouldn’t even need it to, frankly, but… Reginald doesn’t appreciate most things that don’t turn a profit.”

I frown; he sounds like he’s talking more about a boss than a father. “You call your dad by his first name?”

Jake shrugs. “Names like ‘Dad’ and even ‘Father’ never really seemed to stick, and now they’re just… awkward, you know what I mean? Like it doesn’t fit.”

“I completely get that, actually.” I sigh, thinking about George and even about my actual father. It takes me a real effort to call him “Dad” and even then… it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. “My stepfather is sort of the same. I’m not close with him, but my brothers are. They practically worship the ground he shits on.”

Jake laughs suddenly, surprised enough to snort, and there’s his handsome smile again. “They should have been born Ferrys. Reginald would love that. If he misses anything, and I’m not sure he does, he pr

obably misses the person I was before I grew my own conscience.” He stares off across the ocean, remembering. “He seemed like a titan to me when I was younger. Like he had the answer to every question and he was this unstoppable force in the world. He never panicked, never even had to raise his voice very often. He just pointed, and things got done. I wanted to be just like him.”

“And now?” I ask. It’s an important question. There’s no way he’ll answer it honestly, and there’s no way I could believe him if he did — but I do want to know what he’ll say.

“Sometimes, now, I’m not sure I even have much of a choice.”

“That’s part of the whole reason I started Red Hall,” I say. “Not that I feel like I have to become my stepfather or anything but…” Jake looks at me, and for a moment I’m worried about opening up. It’s something I haven’t told anyone before. But he looks so benign at the moment, and so sympathetic that I go on. “I came from nothing. Broken family, narcissistic stepfather that I could never please and probably never will, and a real father that up and left when I was a kid. Red Hall, for me, is my way out of all of that. I can finally stand on my own two feet, and take care of my mother the way she needs me to because no one else is going to do it and… if I don’t succeed here, there’s just nothing for me. I do it because I have to. I love it, don’t get me wrong — it’s my pride and joy at this point in my life. It was desperation that got me where I am, though, and it still pushes me every day.”

“Desperation,” Jake says. “Yeah. That’s a word I understand.”

He’s still looking at me, like we’ve just been introduced. Like he did that first night, except with more honesty. When he leans in this time, I let him.

His lips are generous, and soft, and when they touch mine the heat of it tingles through my cheeks and down my spine. It’s a simple thing, just that little bit of contact, but it’s enough that my whole body relaxes into it and all I want is for him to wrap his arms around me and take me away and —

I pull back. “Um… I’d better…”