Page 41 of Fighting For You

"I think your birthday is somewhere between July twenty-third and August twenty-second, December twenty-second and January nineteenth, or October twenty-third and November twenty-first."

"One of those is right," he said.

The waitress came back with our food. I grabbed two forks from the utensil canister on the side and handed one to Knox. His fingers grazed mine when he took it. I don't think he noticed. I did.

"How did you guess that?" he asked.

"I was trying to figure out if you were a Leo, a Capricorn, or a Scorpio."

He stared at me. "Is that horoscope stuff actually real?"

"I was able to guess the range, wasn't I?"

I pushed the spicy tenders in front of him.

He looked at the plate, then at me. "You didn't guess the exact date."

"One of three isn't bad."

"The deal was the exact date." He leaned back. "I was waiting for you to actually narrow it down."

I pulled the plate back toward me and pouted. "Fine." I picked up my fork. "Then I'm changing my answer. It's definitely between October twenty-third and November twenty-first."

Knox looked at the spicy tenders. He poked one with his fork, then sighed. "Alright. You got the range right. I'll compromise." He cut off a small piece. "One bite. Not the whole thing."

I laughed. "Okay."

He put it in his mouth.

The coughing started immediately. He grabbed his water and drank the entire glass without stopping.

"Oh my God." I covered my mouth. "I didn't think it was that bad."

"It is that bad," he said, his voice rough.

"Okay, don't have any more." I pulled the plate back toward me. "Thank you for humoring me, Knox."

We ate and talked about nothing in particular. One topic drifted into the next without either of us steering it. The banana split came and it was everything he'd described. Enormous. Too much whipped cream. Three scoops that no two people were ever going to finish. He took the chocolate end. I took the strawberry. We gave up on the vanilla together.

"Thank you for today. I called my brother the other day about celebrating his birthday. He said he couldn't because he just started a new job and didn't want to take time off." I smiled, but it didn't quite hold. "I've been a little sad about it. So you taking a bite of that tender even though you clearly can't handle spice really made me laugh. I needed that."

Knox looked at me across the table like he was deciding something.

"October twenty-eighth," he said.

"What?"

"My birthday. October twenty-eighth." He shrugged. "I don't usually tell people when it is because I don't celebrate it anyway."

"Why not?"

"It's just a regular day to me."

That made me sad. I didn't say so, but it sat in my chest.

"I know yours," he said.

"Do you?"