After the dinner rush, I follow the cooks outside and we smoke cigarettes behind the dumpsters. They smell like garlic and something sour that could be sweat, shrimp, or the thinly sliced zucchini they seem to always be frying. It's the grease, maybe, or just their bodies somewhere underneath the clothes that seem too heavy for the jobs they do. But I have stopped trying to figure out such things. There's really no use when the food and the drinks and the people all blend together and ultimately become a place with a smell that just is. I sit on a broken chair beside Rick, who sautés pasta in long-handled pans, and I make up for the missing leg and the cracked seat by balancing on what remains. I remember that once upon a time, I would have fallen out of chairs like this. Funny the things I've learned; funny what becomes effortless.

I smile at Rick and he looks happy. We are tired, and it is past ten and the noise in the front of the house has become a happy lull. Albert, the grill cook, says something about the other bitch waitresses and why am I the only nice one? I let my knee rest against Rick's leg, and shrug my shoulders. I know they want to hear something crass, so I say it's because they're too busy fucking the bartenders for free drinks. They laugh and I laugh and it's like I've stumbled into their locker room again and any second I'll catch a glimpse of something that will make me blush. They know I don't belong here and I suspect they want me gone, but I'm safe because of Rick. And I'm safe because I stole them a bottle of Jack Daniels from the stockroom a few days ago. And I'm safe because I come alone and leave the other waitresses by the bar to sip their stealthy rum and cokes.

Rick's truck is parked behind the restaurant, and when everyone has left for the night but the dishwashers, we sneak back there like we're some big secret. When he's done and my shirt is back on and half-buttoned because I just can't be bothered anymore, we lean against the cab and watch the sky. I like him because there are no complications, because he smells like everything and nothing, and because his weight on top of me makes it difficult to breathe.

Rick is ten years older, and when he relaxes, he talks about Jesus and nature and art and I don't know how to stop him without making him feel stupid. I can't just gently point out all he's getting wrong: the names and the dates and the big ideas. So I am silent and I lean against his chest and I think that maybe this is what it could feel like to be in love.

Rick tells the story again about how he lived in a city with a ballpark once, and how he could sit on his roof at night and watch the games. He touches my hair and I want to flinch; I remember how it felt the last time someone did that to me, how it felt when I found out about the opposite of love. But I stay still, quiet, and he says that he's scared to be almost thirty and and how strange that we met like this and how maybe I'm the girl he's been waiting for. I climb into his lap and I hold his wrists tight as I kiss him, and I know it's what I should be doing. I tell him that I might love him too because I know it's what I should be feeling. He sighs and hugs me tighter and I tell myself that this is right, this is effortless, and this is where I should be.