The rain patters, leaving round drops on the windshield for a brief moment before being wiped away. Across the grey intersection, the light turns green.
"You may just be the stupidest human being I've ever met," Chase says, accelerating.
"Turn here." She looks down at his hand on the gear shift. "I don't know how to respond to that."
"I'm tempted to fly back to Aus and kill your father."
"Please do, maybe he'll leave me something. Right there," she points.
Chase laughs softly as he pulls next to the curb. For a moment after the car turns off, they listen to the sound of the rain. From the corner of his eye, he looks at her. The braids that hug her head are starting to frizz; she redoes them every three days. He knows she'll redo them tonight in the same way he knows how intensely uncomfortable she feels right now, how she'd rather have done anything than bare herself like that. And he knows that part of her still doesn't trust him, even after his assurances, because living all those years with her father and Grant left her knowing that she wasn't good enough for Chase, and that someone like that could never have loved her.
She knows all this too, consciously, but has all the doubt overshadowed by the intense emotion she feels for him, what caused her to leave and save him in the first place.
"I should go get Winnie."
"You want my jacket?"
She smiles, a shy thing, the first real one he's seen from her since Monday. "No, it's fine. I'll run." Opening the door, she disappears into the rain, dashing around the car and into the building. She's gone only a moment before the door opens again and she reappears with Winnie on her hip. The girl's arms are wrapped around Wally's neck, her face tilted up at the sky. She blinks rapidly, as if surprised when water lands in her eyes.
"Mummy, where's the bike?" Winnie asks as Wally slides back into the car, still holding her daughter.
"It's raining, silly. Robert offered to give us a ride. Can you say hi?"
Winnie peers at Chase through strands of wet hair falling over her face. "Hi."
"Hi," he replies, a little unsurely.
"And what do we say to people when we meet them, Winnie?" Wally's voice is different when she talks to her kid, both sterner and slightly higher.
She mumbles into Wally's shoulder. "It's nice to meet you." Winnie has a strange accent; somewhere between her mother's broad one, and that of the kids in her daycare.
"Nice to meet you too."
"C'mon Win, into the back." The doors open and close again as Wally buckles Winnie in the back seat. Chase looks at her in the rearview mirror; his green-blue eyes stare back from her face.
"She's a toddler," Wally giggles, buckling back in. "Not a shark."
"Can I be a shark?" Winnie pipes.
"Only if you don't bite people."
"Sharks bite people."
"You know what happens to sharks that bite people?"
Winnie plays with the hem of her shirt. "No."
"The Chinese cut off their fins and make them into soup."
"I'm pretty sure that's racist," Robert says, maneuvering out into traffic.
"Pretty sure the Chinese are too."
"I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation before."
"You know how I feel about ethnocentricity."
He does. "Let me take you and Winnie to dinner."
She looks at him, then at Winnie. "What do you say, Win? Should we let Robert take us to dinner? Or do you want mac n' cheese?"
"Noooo!" she looks up from her lap. Her red mouth forms a perfect 'o' as she whines. "No mac n' cheese!"
The adults both laugh. "I guess that's your answer, then."
There comes that smile again as she looks at him: the shy curve of her lips that rounds her cheeks and lights her eyes.
They sit in the diner, talking as Winnie scribbles on a sheet of paper.
"So, you don't drink at all now?"
"Well, I'm not like a straight edge, but I don't get hammered anymore. No pot either."
"Or kitesurfing."
"Yeah."
"You miss it?"
"Obviously. I mean, I'm on brupropion but it's no where near as effective as the beach a beer and my board."
As much as he had guessed."Is your doctor an idiot? Did he take a history at all?"
She takes a fry off his plate. "I told him Jillie died of 'weight related heart issues.' That was all he needed to know. How he interpreted that was his problem."
"You're thin, though."
"I'm thin cause it's appetite suppressant, not because I have an eating disorder."
He huffs. "You should see someone at the hospital once your insurance comes through. You need a change of prescription."
"I'm fine, Robert." she kicks him gently under the table. "I'm changing the subject. How'd you end up here? You love Aus just as must as I do."
"Dad wanted me to get a real job, some prestigious. He made a call."
"You don't like it?" she asks in response to his face.
"No, I do, I just don't like everyone treating me like an idiot."
"Cause your dad made a call?"
"Yeah."
"Bunch of twats then. Their loss if they don't see how qualified you are." she looks over at Winnie's paper. "Is that you as a shark, Win?"
"Mmmmhmm." she scribbles waves with a blue crayon. "But not the kind that bites."
"So the good kind?"
"Do you rescue surfers from bad sharks?" Robert asks.
She shakes her head, banging her heels on the bottom of the booth as her legs swing. "No, the Chinese do that."
Wally puts a hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle.
"She's more Australian than you, Wally. Congrats."
She kicks him again, but this time he traps her foot between his legs.
"Still aggressive, I see." He leans over the table, looking right at her.
"Some things don't change." She winks and tugs back her foot. Then her smile falters a little, and her cheeks redden.
"Oh," he misreads her embarrassment. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"No," she replies hurriedly. "It's just…been a while." She changes the subject again. "Thank you for…not freaking out horrifically about all this."
"I am, trust me."
"Then thank you for controlling it." she thinks back to the previous day. "To some extent at least."
Winnie puts down her crayon. "I'm tired."
"Well then," Robert puts some bills on the table. "Let's get you home."
"Psychological disconnect?" Wally hypothesizes. "Is that how you're handling it?"
"Shut-up, Wally."
She laughs and thanks him for dinner.