Page 35 of Bad Habit
You’re ridiculous.
Oliver
I bet he gets you the wrong drink.
Mia
He’s nice.
Oliver
You hate nice.
Mia
I hate you.
Oliver
No, you don’t.
She glances up and meets my eyes directly as if she knew where I was the whole time. I sip my new drink that one of my brothers must havegotten for me and grin at her over the rim. I can feel the frustration rolling off her body from here. She gives her attention back to her date. Who I’m sure is recapping his day in the office of whatever boring ass job he works at. The smile she gives him this time is forced, I can tell the difference. And I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t overflowing with pride that burned through my veins that I affect her enough to have to fake a smile with him.
I watch as they both look over menus and he starts pointing things out to her. She always gets the same thing though. I’m confident that he will order everything wrong. And Mia will let him.
She likes to test the guys she goes on dates with to see if they are predictable or not. She’ll want fries with buffalo ranch and a cherry margarita. Always. Sides and appetizers are the superior meal. She told me that once and now every time I look at a menu, sure enough that is what looks the most enticing.
I let my fingers run over the ridge of the glass as I watch her date speak to the waitress, Mia never even opens her mouth. Her eyes flicker to mine and I can see the moment that he orders the wrong drink for her because she has to fight the drop of her smile. She’s too strong to let it actually drop though.
“Are you going to just stare at her all night?” Maxwell asks, and I just now notice the girl he has had with him is missing. I never saw her leave because I’ve been too consumed with the girl across the bar.
“She’s staring too.” I argue.
“You two fuck with each other too much to not just fuck each other.” Maxwell has a different tone than he normally does. It's an annoyance mixed with exhaustion.
“They do that too.” Eli shares as he raises an eyebrow at me. He’s been lecturing me more lately about not playing games with her. But I’m not playing. Everytime I have her in my hands, literally, she quickly leaves. She just hasn’t given me the reason why.
“We’re not talking about this.” I shut them down. They aren’t wrong and I normally always talk with my brothers about everything, but this feels too precarious to risk talking about with them.
“Can we talk about how we don’t know anything about her?” Eli makes a solid point but I don’t care.
I know the important things. I know that she healed something in AJ. I know that she puts her heart and soul into everything she does with the gym. I know that she works so much because she doesn’t like the quiet. She’s the opposite of AJ with that. AJ is okay sitting with her mind and closing others out of it. Mia has to surround herself with noise and business. If she stops then she doubts. And she hates feeling weak.
“Yeah. Like does she have family?”
“Why did she move here?”
“Does she like her family?”
“Did she go to college?”
I listen to my brothers volley back and forth but my attention is still on her. Her date gets up and I’m back out of my seat before he is even a step away from the table. I tap my knuckles on the table and stare each of them in the eyes. “We know what matters. We know her heart. She will share the rest with us when she’s ready. Don’t push her. And drop it.” I order them.
We went through the same process with AJ but we were younger then. We watched her move at a glacial pace while learning to trust us. And even then, she never gave all of us the full story. It wasn’t until Rory came into the picture that we saw light shine through her cracks. There’s a reason she and Mia connect so much. They are both made from broken glass. I just don’t know what the glass was made of with Mia, yet.
I make quick strides until I reach her table and sit opposite of her. She doesn’t even look surprised, which makes me happy. She was waiting for me.
“Hey.” I sit my glass down in front of me and smile at her.
