Chapter 24
Emily's POV
We drove like that toward breakfast, the morning sun streaming through the windshield and the faint scent of flowers drifting from the back seat.
The diner Ethan chose was tucked into a corner strip mall, the kind of place with a hand-painted sign and mismatched chairs that suggested it had been there longer than either of us had been alive. When we walked in, a bell chimed above the door, and a waitress with gray hair piled into a bun looked up from behind the counter.
"Sit anywhere you like, hon," she called out.
Ethan led me to a booth by the window, sliding in across from me. The vinyl seats were patched with duct tape in places, and the laminated menus were sticky at the edges, but something about the worn-in quality of it all felt genuine in a way that made me relax slightly. This wasn't trying to be anything other than what it was.
"You come here a lot?" I asked, scanning the menu even though Ethan had already told me what was good.
"My dad used to bring me here after Little League games when I was a kid." He was looking around with an expression that was part nostalgia, part comfort. "Best pancakes in the city, according to him. I think he mostly liked that they didn't judge him for letting an eight-year-old drink three cups of hot chocolate in one sitting."
I glanced up at him. "Three cups?"
"I was very committed to the post-game celebration." He grinned. "Also possibly trying to see if I could stay awake for twenty-four hours straight. That experiment failed around hour sixteen."
"Shocking."
The waitress appeared with a coffee pot and two mugs, setting them down without asking. "You kids know what you want, or you need a minute?"
"Blueberry pancakes," Ethan said immediately. "And bacon. Extra crispy."
"Same," I said, though I'd been considering the omelet. Something about being here with him made me want to share the experience completely, even down to the food choices.
The waitress scribbled on her pad and disappeared toward the kitchen. Ethan poured coffee into both mugs, added sugar to his and pushed the cream toward me without comment. I added more than I probably should have and took a sip, letting the warmth spread through my chest.
"So," he said, wrapping both hands around his mug. "First official date. How am I doing so far?"
"You brought flowers and promised pancakes. I'd say you're meeting basic expectations."
"Just basic?" He was smiling, playing along. "What would I need to do to exceed expectations?"
I considered this, taking another sip of coffee. "I don't know. I've never actually been on a date before."
His eyebrows went up. "Never?"
"Never." I set my mug down, feeling oddly vulnerable admitting this. "There wasn't exactly a lot of time or opportunity for—" I gestured vaguely. "All of this. Dating. Normal teenage things."
Something shifted in his expression, going softer. "Then I guess we're both figuring it out together. Because honestly? I've never done this either. Not really."
"You're telling me the star quarterback has never taken anyone on a date?"
"I'm telling you I've been to parties and school dances, but I've never sat across from someone in a diner and wanted to know everything about them." He was looking at me with an intensity that made my pulse kick up. "So yeah. First time for both of us."
The waitress returned with our plates before I could figure out how to respond to that. The pancakes were enormous, stacked three high and covered in blueberries that looked fresh rather than canned. Ethan immediately poured syrup over his entire plate with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested he'd been thinking about this for a while.
"Okay," he said, cutting into the stack. "Tell me something. Anything. What's something you've always wanted to do but haven't?"
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. "Like a bucket list thing?"
"Sure. Or just—I don't know, something you think about sometimes. Something that sounds good."
I chewed slowly, trying to sort through the tangle of desires I'd spent years suppressing because they seemed frivolous or impossible. "I want to learn to drive."
"You don't know how?"
"Never had the chance. My mom doesn't have a car, and my dad—" I stopped. "Well. That wasn't an option."
Ethan set down his fork. "I could teach you."
"What?"
"I could teach you to drive. My truck's a standard, which is probably harder to learn on, but—" He was already warming to the idea, leaning forward slightly. "We could go to that empty lot behind the old fairgrounds. No one's ever there on weekends. You could practice without worrying about traffic or—"
"Ethan." I cut him off before he could plan the entire thing. "You don't have to do that."
"I know I don't have to. I want to." He picked up his fork again but kept his eyes on me. "Besides, it's a useful skill. You should know how. And this way you don't have to pay for driver's ed or deal with some instructor you don't know."
The casual way he offered it—like teaching me to drive was just an obvious thing he'd do, no calculation or expectation of return—made something warm and uncomfortable unfold in my chest. "Okay."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I'd—I'd like that."
His smile was bright enough that I had to look away, focusing on my pancakes. We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Ethan said, "My turn. Something I've always wanted to do."
"What?"
"Learn to cook. Like, actually cook, not just heat things up or follow box instructions." He stabbed a piece of bacon. "My mom's always saying I'm going to starve in college if I don't figure it out, but every time I try to help in the kitchen I just end up burning something or cutting myself."
"That's just practice. You're coordinated enough—you play football."
"Football doesn't involve knives and hot oil." But he was smiling. "Maybe you could teach me. We could trade skills. I'll teach you to drive, you teach me to not set fire to pasta."
"I don't know if I'm qualified to teach anyone to cook."
"You know more than me. That automatically makes you qualified." He was looking at me with that expression again, the one that suggested he was already imagining future scenarios—the two of us in a kitchen somewhere, him attempting to chop vegetables while I corrected his grip, both of us laughing when something inevitably went wrong.
It should have scared me, how easily he wove me into his plans. Instead it just made me want to believe it was possible.
"Deal," I said. "Driving lessons for cooking lessons."
"Deal." He held out his hand across the table, and I shook it, his palm warm and slightly sticky with syrup.