“I’m sorry we took so long, Ginny,” James offered with a smile while I sat there with what had to be a horrified look on my face. “What was your first guess?” James asked, not at all bothered.

“I was sure you two would sneak around in high school. I had you not making it to junior year without at least one slipup. I almost won, too.”

A lightbulb went off in my head. “Even you heard the rumor?”

“I knew it wasn’t true. Don’t ask me how, but a woman knows, and I knew.”

“It wasn’t true.” I glared at James from across the table, wishing I had known that someone else believed me back then. I’d felt so alone at the time with no one to talk to or turn to.

“So, how long has this been going on?” James tried to change the subject, but I wanted Ginny to make him squirm a little more. He deserved it for all he’d put me through back then.

Unfortunately for me, she didn’t. “For a while now.”

“How long is a while?” I asked, starting to feel naive for not realizing that this had been happening behind our backs.

She laid a wrinkled hand on top of my arm. “Honey, you wouldn’t have known,” she started, as if reading my mind. “We obviously kept it from you both. We didn’t want the bet tampered with in any way. But we started talking about it as a joke at first when you kids were in elementary school. You know, the whole wouldn’t it be funny if they ended up together type of thing,” she said with a wink before giggling. “At some point while you were in middle school, we started the first bet.”

I found myself suddenly invested, wanting to know more. “Why did you have to restart it so many times?”

She swatted both of us in the arms as she rose to her feet. “Because you two kept taking too long! That’s why. We had to start breaking it into intervals.”

A loud laugh escaped. I couldn’t help it. “Well, I hope the bet includes someone giving me a place to live for when my parents find out.”

Ginny jutted out her hip. “You send your father to me if that happens. I’ll remind him where he came from.” She pointed her pen at me before reaching into her apron and pulling out a notepad. “Now, do you two know what you want to eat?”

We hadn’t even opened the menus, but James spoke up anyway, “What are your specials tonight?”

“They’re good,” Ginny announced, sounding slightly annoyed that James would even have the nerve to ask.

“Then, we’ll take those,” he said, and she nodded, walking away.

“Any idea what we’re going to be eating?” I asked with a soft laugh.

“Nope,” he answered.