Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 25

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 25
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

"I love palm trees."

"What?" I asked, looking over at her. She turned from looking at the window to smile at me. She'd made me keep the windows down and the wind blew her curly hair into her face as she turned.

"I love palm trees."

"Palm trees?"

I had to concentrate on driving, but I could feel her smile. "You don't get it. You grew up with palm trees. But once I see a palm tree, I know I'm somewhere… different. Somewhere warm and sunny where it's always summer. Palm trees rock."

Grinning, I reached over to take her hand. "I get it. Palm trees mean home to me. If there are palm trees, then I understand the weather."

That made her giggle. "If there are palm trees, then the weather is not difficult to understand, bunny."

"Whatever. You know what I mean. What means home to you?"

"Umm… I don't know," she admitted, biting her bottom lip as she considered my question. "Besides the L.I.E. Good pizza?"

"There is good pizza outside of New York, Rache."

"Heresy! All pizza outside of New York sucks."

"Chicago has good pizza. Remember that?"

I glanced over at her and we shared a smile. I loved that day, filming her video and running all over Chicago. But she shook her head.

"That's Chicago pizza and that's a whole different food category. Only New York has good pizza."

"There's good pizza here. There's a place at the mall. I'll show you. We'll have pizza for lunch."

"Why do you set yourself up for the complaining, baby? Do you honestly think I will approve of Florida pizza?"

"It's good!" I protested. "You're only complaining out of principle."

"Duh," she answered, and I had to laugh. "So, where are we going for breakfast?"

"You'll see. I promise, no substandard pizza. You'll like it."

"You're so good with the surprises," she said, kissing my hand. "I assume they will let me in wearing this horrible outfit?"

"That might be dressed up for where we're going. But I'll get you lots of cute clothes after breakfast."

"I don't need lots, sweetie, just something to get through today and tomorrow. Are we going to get costumes for tonight?"

I hadn't even thought about that. It had been years since I'd dressed up for Halloween, but Guavaween was sort of a big Halloween party and that could mean costumes. "Do you want to?" I asked, glancing over to gauge her reaction.

She shrugged. "We could. Is it that sort of thing? What do you want to be? You might be recognized less, too."

"Yeah… that might be fun. What are you gonna be? I want to see you in one of those cute sexy French maid outfits," I told her with a leer, but she scowled at me.

"I am going to be a palm tree."

I cracked up and nearly missed our exit off the highway. "I think that might be difficult to get around in, honey."

"Well… maybe. But I love palm trees!"

We'd come full circle, hadn't we?

"I can be a palm tree and you can be a pineapple. I love your hair all spiky."

She did? I had to remember that. She never expressed much opinion about my hair. Well, other than she liked to pull at it when… okay, couldn't think about that now. I shifted in my seat as she continued with her thought.

"I want everything I buy today to have palm trees on it! We should redecorate your house in palm trees."

"Oh, please, no. I had…" I stopped myself, but she laughed.

"I have seen pictures of the house you had with Willa, baby. You had a neon palm tree. I saw it!"

"That was her idea!" I protested.

"Dude, you should have kept it. Or did she get it in the divorce? Tell me we're going there!" she yelled, pointing out the window.

Thank God her favorite yellow sign for Waffle House distracted her. I didn't want to talk about Mandy, but it seemed like everything in Tampa ended up reminding me of her. We met in Tampa and lived here together. Would New York always remind me of Rachel the way Tampa reminded me of Mandy? Could I trade in the Mandy memories for new and better Rachel ones?

"Of course we're going there, buttercup. Would I lead you on like that?"

She squealed and leaned over to kiss me as I pulled into the parking lot. "I love you."

I stopped the car and kissed her properly before I turned it off. "You are very easy to please sometimes."

Grinning, she slid out of the car. "I'm gonna have a double order of hash browns. Covered and smothered. And an egg sandwich. And…"

I cut her off, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. "Why do you never get the waffle?"

"Because I can have a bite of yours!"

"I'm getting two. A bite to you is like three quarters of a waffle."

She pouted up at me and I had to kiss her. Did she realize that I had to kiss her whenever she pouted like that? That was probably exactly why she did it, wasn't it?

He tried to break our kiss, but I followed him as he pulled back. There was no one else in this parking lot. We could make out for a second. How many kisses was this today? One in the car just now, and this one, and only one this morning on the couch, because of the morning breath issue… but then there had been the shower. I liked his shower.

His tongue touched mine and I stopped counting. It didn't matter. I could never kiss him enough.

Finally we had to move apart to breathe, and we both just stood there for a second, our eyes still closed, breathing together. "I love you," I whispered.

I could feel his smile as he nuzzled my neck. "I'm taking you to Waffle House more often."

"And I haven't even eaten yet! God knows what I'll have to do to thank you for that."

Taking my hand, he led me inside the restaurant. "That's why I've got the big car, baby."

Why were all Waffle Houses freezing? If I'd known we were coming to a Waffle House, I would have brought a sweater.

Not that I had a sweater here. Okay, I needed to add that to the shopping list.

"Maybe I'll wait until after we shop and thank you for everything at once."

"Nah," he disagreed, sliding into a booth. "I can't wait that long."

I would have teased him about his lack of patience, but a waitress appeared as soon as I sat down. She tried to just take our drinks order, but we both knew what we wanted without looking at the menu.

"I need a sweater," I told him when she left, and he smiled at me.

"Okay. And jeans and shirts. What else?" He settled back in the booth, putting his feet up on my side, and I played with his toes.

"Sandals. And you need a pedicure."

"I do not!" he protested, looking over at his feet.

"Uh, no, you do," I asserted. "Why do boys never cut their toenails? Women spend all sorts of money tending to their feet, and boys can't even be bothered with basic maintenance."

He rolled his eyes at me. "I can cut my own toenails. That doesn't mean I need a pedicure."

"But pedicures are great! I need one, too, before I can wear sandals. We'll go together. It'll be a bonding experience."

His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket, looking at the display.

"I left mine at the house," I told him smugly.

"Only because you didn't want to carry it," he countered and I stuck my tongue out at him. I needed a purse. I'd asked him to carry my wallet and he told me he'd buy anything I needed. Whatever. I was sort of afraid this meant he'd now have to approve anything I wanted to buy and that meant I'd be leaving the mall with only miniscule lingerie, and maybe a French maid's outfit.

"It's Aaron," he went on, "Do you mind if I call him back?"

That was nice of him to ask, but… usually he ignored his phone when we were together. Then again, we had weeks ahead of us and normally we put our lives on hold for the moments we had together.

I glanced around the restaurant, "Dunno, this is a pretty nice place. You don't want to annoy the other guests."

He looked around the empty Waffle House, and then back at me. "You're right. I'll ruin this refined atmosphere."

I laughed, "Go ahead. Call him back. Can I have a dollar?"

He looked over at me, puzzled as he handed me his wallet. "Making a run for it, baby?"

I snickered, looking into his wallet. "I bet your credit cards have higher limits than mine do."

"What's a limit?" he teased, reaching over to grab his wallet back, and I slid out of the booth and out of his reach.

"I'm just going to play the jukebox," I assured him. "Waffle Houses usually have cool music selections."

"No country!" he called out as I made my way to the jukebox. Just for that I was going to have to find the countriest country song on the thing and play it. I fed money into the machine as I heard him talking to Aaron. Lots of "bros" and "dudes" spotted his speech when he talked to his brother. It was sort of cute.

Dixie Chicks! That's country… and I love this one, too. Cool. I scanned the rest of the row… wonder if they had… Bingo! Both *NSync and Backstreet. Would he kill me if I played one of his songs? It was a ballad. Maybe I'd get him to sing to me? Okay, that was so cheesy, I can't believe I just had that thought. Nope. Skip Backstreet.

I picked a couple songs I knew he'd like and then went back to the table. He was laughing at something and I slid into the booth, smiling when he looked up at me. Our eyes met, and I just felt myself melt. He was different in Florida. Relaxed and tan, wearing incredibly ugly sandals. This was Florida Nick, a more relaxed version of his normal self.

He was relaxed enough to go back to talking to his brother, and I took the opportunity to look through his wallet. Driver's license with a pretty decent picture. Did he ever take a bad picture? Three different credit cards, all platinum. ATM card. Obligatory condom. Of course, his never had time to expire, did they? 93 dollars in cash, and stack of receipts. No pictures of me? He didn't love me at all, did he?

I didn't have a picture of him in my wallet, did I? Hmm… my thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of our food. Did we really order all of that?

"Food's here, dude. Call you later." He clicked off the phone and put it back in his pocket, contemplating the waffle in front of him.

"Did he even get a chance to say 'goodbye'?" I teased, and Nick just shrugged, his mouth already full of waffle. "How is he?" I asked.

"Fine. Bored."

Actually, Mom and Dad were fighting, but it wasn't a big deal, even if Aaron thought it was. I didn't want to get into that discussion with Rachel. I'd already had it with Aaron.

"Bored?" she questioned.

"Marathon is dull, Rache. He doesn't even drive yet, so he's stuck on the compound."

"Compound?" she asked, taking a big bite of her egg sandwich and smiling. Had I never called it that in front of her? She was so cute sitting across from me in that horrible radio t-shirt, excited by all the food in front of us. I leaned over and kissed her cheek and she squealed, moving away.

"Haven't I told you about the house?"

She shrugged, "Everything is running together, bunny. Tell me again? Why'd you move there?"

Smiling, I offered her a bite of my waffle. I loved to watch her do anything, but eating was particularly erotic. I loved the way she licked her lips and closed her eyes, savoring the way something tasted when she really liked it. And she really liked the waffles. She offered me a forkful of her hash browns and I took them.

What were we talking about? Right. The house.

"Marathon sounded like a good idea at the time. It's across from this little private airport and Mom thought it would be a great if we had our own plane and could fly in and out from there. But that never happened."

"Does she know you at all, baby?"

I laughed. That's exactly what I'd thought when Mom had presented me with the idea. No way in hell was I flying on a small plane. I'd drive up to Miami or down to the Keys and get on a big plane if I had to fly.

"You met my mom, Rache. Once she gets an idea in her head… that's it. Besides, the land was pretty cheap."

"Because it's across from an airport?"

"Maybe. Yeah. But no one really bothers us there. It's wooded and you can't really see much from the road. So it's perfect for us. There's a main house and the caretaker's house. Then my house and a studio. Oh, and a small marina for the boats."

"Wow. It's really a compound. You had all that built?"

I nodded, finishing up my waffle and reaching over for more of her hash browns. "I designed my house. It sort of looks like a tiki hut and has this thatched roof. It turned out very cool."

"Do you have palm trees?" Her eyes widened at the thought, and I had to laugh.

"Yes, buttercup. Lots of palm trees. Hey! I know what you should be for Halloween!"

"What?" she asked cautiously.

"A hula dancer. You can get a grass skirt and wear coconuts!"

I expected her to throw something at me, but she considered the idea for a second. "What will you be?"

"I will not be a guy hula dancer!" I protested quickly. They had guy hula dancers, right? Yeah. We went to a luau once when we were in Hawaii, and there were guys there who ate fire or something.

"You'd need a great big coconut, baby," Rachel teased, wiggling her eyebrows at me.

"You only need little ones," I shot back, and she giggled.

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