Page 70 of Money Shot

Vince did the same. “Damn, pretty good stuff. You’re handy as fuck.”

“Blind luck they left that stuff there,” I said.

We carried our plates, the bottle of wine, and the glasses to one of the many empty tables. Although it might not have appealed to just any woman, having wine and an appetizer with Vince in a restaurant we had broken into was romantic.

We were alone, the place was only lighted by the indirect sunlight, and it was quiet. As we sat and talked, drinking our wine and sharing cheese, a few cars came and went in the parking lot, but as far as I was concerned, we were alone in a perfect sense.

As the bottle of wine produced its last drop, I glanced at my watch, well aware we would need to leave soon. Three hours had passed since we had left my house, further proof of my belief that time with Vince passed at a drastically rapid rate.

“I’ve got to pee,” I said as I glanced around dining area.

“The hallway in the rear,” he said as he tossed his head to the side.

I walked to the rear of the restaurant and into the hallway. The first door I reached was the men’s restroom, and although I fully realized I never would have considered doing it in any other circumstance, I always wanted to see what the inside of the men’s bathroom looked like.

Fully expecting to have to hover over the dirty toilet, but far too curious not to go inside, I pushed the door open, knowing no one was going to come inside.

Surprised at the cleanliness of the restroom, I peed, washed my hands, and pulled out a towel from the dispenser. I tossed it toward the trash can receptacle, missed, and walked toward the corner to pick it up.

A small brown bag lay on the floor beside the trash can with my wadded paper beside it. I picked up both, tossed the tissue in, and began to wad the bag into a ball. As I smashed the brown paper sack, a receipt fell out onto the floor.

Naturally, I picked it up, and even more naturally – at least for me – I looked at it. The receipt was date and time stamped, and from a local upscale grocery store close to Vince’s mother’s home. I stared down at the receipt and did the math for military time, which never quite came natural for me.

16:44 5.8.2015

The receipt was for the bottle of wine, basil, tomatoes, and cheese. And the items were purchased at 4:44 pm, roughly a half hour before Vince showed up to pick me up.

The entire night wasn’t happenstance, he had planned it.

I folded the receipt, shoved it into the pocket of my shorts, and looked at myself in the mirror. The woman who looked back was happy, beautiful, and very much in love. I grinned at her, opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Still sitting at the table, holding his half-full glass of wine under his nose, Vince didn’t look the part of a romantic, at least not in the big picture. He looked like he wanted the world to see him.

Like the bad ass, take no shit, don’t fucking look at me or I’ll rip your head off, tattooed biker that he was.

He was those things, but he was so much more.

He was kind, sincere, and filled with devotion to the woman he loved.

And that woman just so happened to be me.