Page 36 of Fighting For You

The breading was crispy, the chicken was hot, the ranch on the side was fine. But they weren't the ones I was looking for. They never were. Every time I took that first bite, I already knew the answer.

Knox looked up from his plate. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." I set the tender down.

"There was a diner near the house I grew up in called Chunky's. My parents used to take me and Ian whenever my mom didn't feel like cooking. Ian and I would always split the chicken tenders. Garlic parmesan and buffalo ranch on the side. Every time. It was our order."

Knox had stopped eating.

"After my parents died, I kept going. I'd take my brother on Friday nights when I could afford it. It was the one thing from before that still felt the same. Same booth, same order, same taste. Like nothing had changed, even though everything had."

I picked up my water.

"It closed down about three years ago. The owner retired and nobody took it over. I've ordered chicken tenders at every diner I've been to since, trying to find something close. Nothing ever is."

Knox was quiet. "There's a diner not too far from CCMC that my brother and I used to go to. They serve tenders there. I'm not sure if they do garlic parmesan and buffalo ranch, but we could give it a try if you want."

I looked up.

"We could check it out. Once you've got your car, we could take it out for a drive and stop by."

I was nodding before he finished. "I'd like that."

He picked up his burger and took a bite like he hadn't just given me something to look forward to for the rest of the week.

We stayed at the diner until the check came. The conversation kept going, easy and unhurried, moving between the practical and the personal. He told me about Travis trying to fix the station's dryer and accidentally rewiring it so it ran in reverse, tumbling everyone's uniforms into a knot so tight they had to cut Carl's shirt out with shears. I told him about a patient who came into the ER with a TV remote lodged somewhere it shouldn't have been and refused to explain how it got there.

Knox drove me back to Barb's as the sun was going down. The sky was doing that thing it does in the desert, turning the whole western horizon pink and orange behind the silhouette of the mountains. I watched it through the passenger window and let the day settle around me.

When I turned back, the light was catching the side of his face. The line of his jaw, the slight crook in his nose, the scar on his neck that disappeared under his collar. He wasn't trying to be anything. He was just driving. And I couldn't stop looking.

This was new for me. A whole day spent with someone who had no obligation to spend it. No shift to cover, no favor to return, no reason except that he chose to. Knox had given up his Saturday to drive me around used car lots in the heat, and he'd done it like it was exactly where he wanted to be.

I didn't know what to do with it yet.

He pulled into Barb's driveway and put the truck in park.

"Thank you," I said. "For everything today. I would have walked onto that first lot and paid whatever they asked."

"The Corolla," he said. "Think about it. Ray will hold it for a few days if I ask him to."

"I'll think about it tonight."

"Good."

I unbuckled my seatbelt but didn't move. The truck was warm, the music was low, and I could smell his cologne, something clean and simple that had been there all day, close enough to notice and too subtle to name.

"Goodnight, Knox."

"Goodnight, Nora."

I walked up the path to the front door without turning around this time, but I could feel him watching, and I let him.

CHAPTER 10

Chicken Tenders

NORA