New Fic-Wishful thinking -12

"What's wrong?" I asked, concern fogging my voice.

Rob sighed. "You're going to take this the wrong way."

"No, I won't. I promise." When he stayed silent, I settled a hand on his arm. "Rob, we talk to each other, right? We're boyfriend-girlfriend."

Whoops.

Technically, we were still broken up.

Sure, he'd given me the kiss of my life, the afternoon before. And we'd just proven that we could work as a team, in front of the most demanding audience in the world. But he cringed when I said those stupid two-syllable words.

"Come on, Rob! Am I the only one who takes twenty years of dating seriously?"

Again, with the sighing. And the hand through his curls. And those incredible eyes blinking. "That's the thing, Kel. It's all too serious."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything I say, everything I do, it's all loaded with too much meaning. We serve a customer, and it's make-or-break for Mephisto's. I kiss you, and it's like I'm proposing. I worry about what to say to you, every single word. It's too serious. Too hard. I want things like they were before we fought. Before Randolph offered me the play, before I changed my mind."

"But we've always made serious decisions together, without any problem. We decided to go to the U together! We decided to live a block apart from each other. We've balanced our audition schedules, rehearsal calendars, even our shifts here at the restaurant!"

He refused to look at me. Instead, he spoke to his beat-up Converse All-Stars. "Don't you see? We avoid the difficult stuff. If we really trusted each other, trusted our relationship, wouldn't we have tried different schools? Or wouldn't we have moved in together, instead of keeping separate places? Wouldn't we have let our careers move ahead, without worrying about who has the lead in every single production?"

I was stunned. His questions made sense. I understood what he was asking, what he was saying.

But I disagreed, with my entire body, mind and soul.

We hadn't done those things precisely because we were right for each other. Because we belonged together. Because we didn't have anything to prove to anyone. To ourselves.

Except, now we did.

The silence stretched, and I finally said, "What did you mean just now? What's the one thing wrong about Golden reviewing Mephisto's?"

Rob still talked to his shoes. "He's going to say it's amazing. You know that. And the place will be busy again, busier than it's ever been before. And you and I will work harder than we ever have before. And a year from now, two years from now, five, I'm going to look back and say I was the best damned waiter Minneapolis ever saw."

He finally looked at me. "That's the problem. I don't want to be a waiter, Kelly. I want to be an actor. With or without you, I want to—I need to—succeed in the theater."