“Come on, we’ve been walking all day, my feet are killing me. This place looks good, why don’t we just go in here?”
Dan sighed. “All right, Chris, we’ll stop here just so you’ll quit complaining.”
Chris Kirkpatrick didn’t understand why he was still with Dan. Dan, who used to be one of his psychiatric patients. Dan, who loved to complain and think about himself. Dan, who had been dating someone when he cheated on him with Chris, and Chris had felt guilty ever since. The guy-- JC-- sounded like he was really nice, Chris had even briefly met him once.
“Fatone’s? What kind of name is that?” Dan asked as they walked through the doors, noticing that the place wasn’t too busy. “Italian, Danny,” Chris said. “Don’t call me that, you know I hate it,” Dan muttered as he saw a waiter coming to seat them.
“Hey, my name is Lance, I’ll be your waiter this evening, do you want smoking or non-smoking?”
“Non,” Chris said, before Dan could say anything. Lance smiled at the two, his smile automatically making Chris feel better, more welcome. Lance sat them down at a booth and handed them both menus. “I’ll be back in a moment to take your order.”
After he was gone, Dan looked at his watch impatiently. “We better not take too long here, we still have to find him.”
Chris sighed. Dan had dragged him all the way back to Orlando to get something important back from his ex-boyfriend, or so he said. Chris wasn’t really sure how much of that was just Dan wanting him back. Chris had known that his relationship with Dan was falling apart for some time, he was just thankful he had never fallen in love with him. And if Dan wanted to go back to JC, that was fine with Chris. Although Chris highly doubted that JC would still be pining over Dan, no matter how serious they had been.
Lance returned to their table, pen and pad of paper in hand, a warm smile on his face that made Chris want to be friends with him. Chris needed a good friend. No lovers, no attraction, just a friend. Besides, Chris knew someone with the looks of Lance couldn’t possibly be single, and it seems as if his personality matched is outward appearance.
“Yeah, I’ll have a cheeseburger, everything on it, with a side of fries,” Dan muttered, practically throwing the menu back at Lance. Lance nodded, writing down the order, and then he turned to Chris.
“What would you recommend?” Chris asked, and Lance smiled.
“Today? Try the spaghetti. Joey’s been working on it all day. He makes the best spaghetti.”
“Joey sounds like a great chef,” Chris said, handing Lance his menu. “He is,” Lance said, his warm smile still on his face. “You wont regret it. Would either of you like something to drink?”
“Water’s fine,” Dan said, the words coming out in a grumble.
“I’ll just have water too,” Chris said, and Lance nodded, taking their menu’s and walking off.
“Maybe now that you’re done flirting with the waiter, we can talk about how we’re going to find JC.”
Chris sighed. “I wasn’t flirting with him, we were just being friendly.” ‘Something you could learn,’ Chris added silently.
“Too friendly, if you ask me, but we’ll talk about it later. What are we going to do? I went to our old house, and he had moved out.”
‘Yes, I know all this. I knew it the first time you told me,’ Chris thought. “And he’s not listed in any of the tri-county phone books. What if he moved out of state? I need to get my things back.”
“What exactly did you leave with him?” Chris asked. ‘Your heart?’
“He just has this box of things that belonged to me. I stored it in his closet and I forgot about it when I moved in with you. It had things like some pictures of mine, my watch, a family ring, really important things. No matter how angry or hurt he was, he wouldn’t have thrown them away. JC isn’t like that.”
“Yeah, according to you, JC is perfect,” Chris whispered under his breath.
About five minutes later, Lance returned with their order and a pitcher of water. “I’ll be back to see if you need anything else,” he said, grinning at Chris and walking off.
*
