When she turns, I realize the view is almost gone for the night. We stand there, side by side, taking in as much as we can with the sun hiding under the tops of the distant hills. She turns to me. “I bet it’s beautiful during the day.”

“We’ll have to return and find out.”

She moves to a nearby park bench and starts unpacking the bag. When I sit next to her, she hands me a plastic fork. So I ask, “You’re feeding me a doggie bag from a dinner you just had with another man?” Gutsy, for sure. Not that I care. I’ll take anything she wants to share with me right now.

She’s mid bite and starts laughing, and then covers her mouth. When she finally finishes chewing and swallows, she clears her throat. “It’s a short story actually. It began when he ordered a salad for me and told me a woman of my age shouldn’t be eating pasta.”

“Does he want a fucking death wish?” I take a bite, remembering how she ate carbonara the first time we ate together.

“Right? That’s what I thought.”

“How did it end?”

“Well, when he ordered me a salad and told me I shouldn’t be eating pasta, it was pretty much over right then.”

“I’d say so.” I’m about to take another bite, but ask, “So where did this come from?”

“The server was incredible. He saw what went down and made my order anyway, packed it to go, and I was gone.”

“His loss.”

“Your gain,” she says, taking another bite.

It is my gain. She is. He’s a fool for fucking up, but I get it. We all do now and then, yet there’s no coming back from what he did and said. I wonder if I have a better chance.

We eat a few more bites before she says, “I wish I had brought some water.”

“I have some.” I get up and pop the trunk. Pushing the flannel blanket to the side, I open the flap to the basket and pull two bottles of water from it.

I’m about to close the trunk when she asks, “What’s this?” I watch as her gaze darts around the trunk, and I’m quickly found guilty right after. She runs her fingers over the hand of the basket. “You brought a picnic for us?”

Busted. I run my hand over my hair. “Well, yes.”

“Why are we eating cold pasta then?”

“Because you love that dish.”

She sets the bag in the trunk with the pasta dish tucked back inside. “It’s not Moretti’s.” She remembers. I don’t know why that gives me hope, but it does. Moving to the back rear of the car, she leans her hip against it. Her gaze lengthens toward the road as a car passes by.

When she turns back to me, she says, “I’m starting to realize that it wasn’t the pasta I loved back then. Maybe it was the company.”

That’s when I know in my heart that we aren’t too far gone. This is the chance I never thought I’d get.