Page 119 of Tempted Hearts
I did, but that was beside the point.
“Thanks.”
“That one’s on the house.”
I lifted my glass in silent thanks and took a sip. “Let’s pair this with a burger, medium well.”
Eli went over to his ordering pad and said out loud, “Burger. Medium well. Skip the lettuce and tomato.”
He moved on to another customer.
I’d always liked the fact that he knew my order, the familiarity of coming to the same place and getting to know everyone.
I’d always thought it was like a little slice of Cedar Falls here in the city. But today it didn’t feel like that at all.
This place felt cold. Empty.
It was like the comfort I’d found here belonged to another person and not me, like I’d stepped into this place just a little too late.
When Eli returned to check on me, I asked the question I’d always wondered about him.
“Do you ever regret it? The life path you didn’t take?”
I’d hoped it wasn’t rude. Eli was pretty forthcoming with his past to pretty much everyone. It bound him to the university and its patrons, making him a part of the club.
He didn’t look offended. Eli put his hands on the bar and looked upward, as if thinking or attempting to find guidance from above.
“It’s not regret. I think this place was a good decision for me. I like people, staying up late. I’ve always been a night owl. Teaching wasn’t for me. So no, I don’t regret it. Looking back, I don’t think I was on the right path to begin with. Although”—he snapped his hands on the bar, about to move away to serve a new customer—“it took me a long time to stop calling it temporary.”
“Enough about me. What can I get ya?” he said to a couple who sat a few seats from me. Tourists who’d either stumbled in here by accident or had found this place to be “a local favorite” online somewhere.
It took me a long time to stop calling it temporary. So at the beginning, he must’ve wanted to go back, finish his degree. Even though he never really wanted to teach.
There was no question our lives paralleled. My path was my father’s, my brother’s.
Never mine.
I took another sip, just as Eli plopped down a burger in front of me.
I didn’t reach for it, though. Instead, I reached for my phone.
I began a text message.
Cole
Sorry I left early without notice.
I erased that.
Cole
How’s it going in Cedar Falls?
I erased that too.
Texting her without having any idea about its purpose was premature. It was why I hadn’t texted Jules all week.
And the fact that she hadn’t texted me said as much about her as what I’d learned firsthand.
