A short, stocky blond guy with canyon-sized dimples pops up beside our table. “Hey, y’all. I’m Adam, and I’ll be your server tonight.”
My gut clenches. He’s impossibly cute. Farm-fresh looks with slightly incongruous effeminate mannerisms.
“Y’all know what you want to drink?”
We order a round of Sprites. Adam holds the menu pad in one hand and flaps his pen hand at us as he talks us through the nightly specials. Dad’s watching Adam, and I’m watching Dad. Adam’s soft wrist circles wave delicately through the air in my peripheral vision. Dad’s gaze smacks of disapproval.
“I’ll give y’all a minute to decide on dinner,” Adam says. Then he sweeps away, hips rocking like a runway model’s.
“Dinner, with a side of fruit,” Dad murmurs, with a hint of a smirk.
I smile, because I’m supposed to.
“Hush,” Mom says. “He seems like a perfectly nice young man.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. I’m sure he’s ‘perfectly nice.’” Dad mimics her, letting his wrist flop downward as he speaks.
And with that I’m spiraling, down down down into the sea of my own poisoned heart.