“Exactly.” He stared at my hand for a moment and took another gulp from his glass. “What about you? Do you want kids?”

I sighed. “Yeah. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.”

“Are you still upset about Brooks?”

I thought for a moment while I took a bite. “Not really. I mean, I’m upset that the relationship didn’t work out. I don’t like being alone. But in the end, I don’t think he was the one.”

“Why don’t you like being alone?” he asked.

The question surprised me. “Does anyone like being alone?”

“Sure. I do. I’d much rather be alone than in a relationship that’s going nowhere.”

I thought about it some more as I sipped my beer. “I guess I just like the feeling of knowing someone is there for me. Knowing someone has my back.” I paused. “And sex. I like the feeling of sex.”

He gave me a sideways smirk. “You don’t have to be in a relationship for that.”

“I know. And even if you are, there’s no guarantee the sex will be good.”

“It wasn’t good with Brooks?” He picked up his beer and finished it.

“Well, I can’t say it was bad. It just wasn’t . . . a must-have.”

Noah snorted as he set down his empty glass. “That sounds pretty bad.”

I laughed as I finished my rib and licked my fingers again. “It was just . . . not boring, but . . . kind of like how I feel about—” I looked around, trying to think up a good metaphor, and saw our server passing by with a tray full of food. “Potato salad.”

Noah nearly choked on his fries. He reached for his beer, but it was empty, so he signaled the waitress, then wiped his eyes. “Oh my fucking god, you did not just say sex with him was like potato salad.”

Now I was laughing too. “What I meant was, I could take it or leave it. I like potato salad, it’s perfectly tasty if it’s well done, but I never crave it. Like, even if I was hungry and I knew it was in the fridge, I’m probably not going to get out of bed and go get some potato salad. Or if I was already on my couch in my sweats watching Law & Order, I wouldn’t go to the store for it. Know what I mean?”

“Sort of.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Jesus, that poor bastard. Did he not know what he was doing?”

“It wasn’t that. I guess I’m just looking for a different feeling. I want to need it. I want to crave it like . . . like . . .”

“Like a Twinkie?”

I giggled and finished my beer. “No, a Twinkie is a comforting feeling. A Twinkie says, ‘This too shall pass, and you will be okay.’ I want sex that’s unpredictable, that maybe even scares me a little. Sex that makes me feel like I might not be okay.”

Noah went still, his eyes on mine.

Had I gone too far?

“I mean, I like it sweet and comforting sometimes too,” I said quickly, “but there’s something about being a little nervous that really gets the adrenaline pumping, you know? I like being riled up.”

Still he said nothing. Just looked at me, his expression serious, possibly even a little shocked.

“That probably sounds bad, huh?”

He cleared his throat. “No. I get it.”

The server came over and Noah quickly ordered another beer. “Want another?” he asked me.

I hesitated. The beer here was strong, and I didn’t want to get tipsy, since I would eventually have to drive home, but I was enjoying myself so much, I didn’t want to break the spell.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I smiled at the server. “I’ll have another too.”

When we were alone again, I snapped my fingers. “Shishito peppers!”

“What?”

“Shishito peppers. It’s this Japanese pepper that’s sort of like a guessing game as to its heat. It can be, and usually is, relatively sweet. But every once in a while, one of them packs an extra fiery punch. It’s like Russian roulette for the tongue.”

“Interesting.”

“There’s a restaurant in DC that serves them with steak. They’re called ‘blistered peppers’ on the menu, and I swear they’re different every time—sometimes so hot I can hardly stand it, and sometimes more sweet. So there’s like this moment before you take the first bite when you’re kinda scared that it might actually be too hot to handle and make you scream, or it’ll be deliciously sweet and make you moan.”

Noah nodded slowly. “Sounds good.”

“It is.”

Our beers arrived, and Noah grabbed his right away, taking a long drink.

“I suppose,” I said as I picked up my glass, “I should be glad Brooks left, right? I mean, he saved me from a life of potato salad sex.”

Noah set down his beer. “That does sound pretty fucking terrible.”

I took a sip. “So what about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

“Not since Holly.”

Nodding, I ran my thumb up the condensation on the side of my glass. Pictured his ex—a beautiful, blond preschool teacher with dimples and a big chest. To be fair, the couple times I’d met her, she’d seemed perfectly nice, and I had no good reason to dislike her . . . and yet, I kind of did. “What happened there? You’ve never really told me about the breakup.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t any one thing.”

When he didn’t go on, I groaned. “You’re such a guy. Can you elaborate, please? If it wasn’t any one thing, there were probably several things. Can you talk about any of them?”

His expression told me talking about this breakup was his least favorite thing in the world. But to my surprise, he opened up a little. “She wasn’t very supportive when my dad died.”

My jaw dropped. “What? How can that be? You guys had been together for years, and she had to know how important your dad was to you, to everybody! How could she be so completely heartless?”

He grimaced and drank again, and I felt terrible.

“I’m sorry, Noah.” Reaching across the table, I put a hand on his arm. “That was shitty of me. I never really knew her, and I’m sure she wasn’t completely heartless.”

He stared at my fingers on his wrist for a moment. “It felt that way to me. We had been together for a couple years by then. And she did know how close my family was—that was part of the problem. I think she was jealous.”

I sat back. “Of your family? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. She kind of always resented how much time I spent with them. Not at first, maybe, but after a while, especially after my dad’s cancer diagnosis. There were times when I’d have to break plans she and I had made in order to take Asher somewhere so my mom could be with him, or watch my sister’s kids, or take a shift with my dad at the hospital.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was stunned silent.

“Then when my dad died, I think she was expecting things to get easier, like she’d get more of me. She used to say things like that, and I knew it was supposed to make me feel good, like she just wanted to be with me, but it only made me feel worse.” He drank again. “So I was either letting her down or letting my family down—which felt like letting my dad down. There wasn’t enough of me to go around.”