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He groans in my mouth but gently pulls back after a moment. “Robin, if you keep kissing me, I will drag you across our food and right into my lap, and your dress will be sacrificed in the process.”

“I can’t waste fries like that.” I lean back and happily start dipping fries into the variety of sauces he ordered.

Hayden follows suit, and after a couple of minutes he sighs. “These are good fries.”

“The best,” I agree, then add with a laugh, “I appreciate the five different sauces you ordered.”

“I wanted to see which one you’d go for so I’d know which one to order next time, but it looks like you like them all.”

“I do like them all. But for future orders, you can get the sweet and sour. It’s my favorite.”

“No, I’ll just get all of them for you again.”

I smile at him. “Look at you being cute.”

“Robin,” he says, freezing, a fry halfway to his mouth, “I am not cute.”

I shrug and keep eating, trying to suppress a grin. “You’re being really cute. Giving me your shirt and ordering five sauces.”

He points his finger at me accusingly. “I know what you’re doing. Is this payback because I called you cute the other day? I hate to break it to you, but there’s nothing cute about me.”

I look up at him with innocent eyes. “Accept it. We’re both cute.”

He shakes his head and murmurs, “Never been called cute before.”

“Get used to it.” I wink at him. “I’m calling you cutie-pie from now on.”

“Baby, you can call me anything you like,” he says, giving me a wink of his own.

My heart jolts at the endearment, and I quickly take a big sip of the strawberry milkshake he ordered. I am not shy per se, but anytime he says something sweet or flirty, I can barely maintain eye contact.

“Can I ask you something?” He accepts the milkshake I hand to him.

“Anything,” I say, shifting sideways on the bench to face him better, crossing my left leg.

“Do you ever get sad working at a funeral home?”

The question surprises me, and I take another bite before answering him. “Sometimes. When I first started the job, I was still in a funk from the breakup, so, selfishly, I didn’t think about how dark the job might be. And once I settled in and started to feel better again …” I exhale, trying to make sense of it myself. “When I started to feel like myself again, well, by then the job had become routine already, and it didn’t faze me.”

“What made you want to work there in the first place?”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story, but after everything that happened in LA, I really wanted to get out of there. So, one night, I started scrolling through job listings on Craigslist, and I saw the one for the funeral home. I applied, thinking it was kinda cool and random, but I didn’t actually think they’d hire me. But then they did, and I packed up my stuff and moved to Arizona.”

“That is cool and random.” He gives me a big smile. “I’m always surprised when I remember you work there. You’re this light and fun person and, I don’t know, you remind me of sunshine. It’s an odd contradiction.”

You remind me of sunshine.

I try to laugh it off. “I feel like you’ve seen me in a pretty miserable mood lately.”

“Your whole being is still light, even when you’re sad,” he says, but then he scrunches up his face in despair. “Am I being cute again?”

I laugh. “Yep.”

“You’re rubbing off on me,” he says accusingly, a playful glint in his eye.

“Can I ask you something now?”

“Anything,” he says, repeating what I said.