× Horan

Electric Diner had the typical red bar stools and booths along with the black and white checkered flooring and the best chips in the world. Lynn stood out like a sore thumb in her silky dress, but I had given her a black jacket I had in the car to help.

"So, is this our thing?" Lynn asked as she grabbed a chip in the basket and took a bite. "Ditching fancy restaurants to go to some place better to eat?"

I laughed. The only difference between now and the recruit dinner was, well, a hell of a lot. That night I refused to give Lynn my jacket even though she was obviously cold, this time I willingly gave it to her without her even saying anything about it. Things surly had changed. I was still trying to figure out if it was for the better.

"Why did you call me Linda?" she asked.

"Isn't that your real name? Linda Mercury?"

Lynn giggled and it was a strange sound I found rather fascinating. It softened the room, as if the gentle sound could make the lamplight more golden and the fires burn warmer

"God, no."

"What is your real name then?" I asked. "It's not just Lynn, is it?"

Lynn chewed on a chip for a while, obviously stalling for time. A debate was going through her head if I was truly worthy to know her real name, I could tell.

"It's Lynnette," she finally said. "It means little lion in French."

"Lynnette Mercury..." I said slowly, tasting the name on my tongue.

"And my brother's name is Leander," Lynn continued. "It means lion man in Greek. My mom kind of had a thing for lions, if you couldn't tell."

I found it interesting that her parents actually took the time to connect their names together. My parents didn't even bother. My name means Champion in Irish where my brother's, Greg, meant watchful in Latin. Completely different. I couldn't even say we were named after relatives because I was pretty certain that we weren't.

"How come you don't talk about your parents?" I asked her.

I was afraid that I had pushed too hard from the dense silence that followed. The only time Lynn had ever mentioned her mum and dad was when she was talking about their unfortunate death. It felt wrong only knowing their downfall and not how Lynn thought about them when they were alive.

Lynn pulled the jacket closer around her body as she sat frozen across from me. "The reason I don't talk about them is because I'm afraid I'd be a burden to people," she finally confessed. When her eyes looked into mine, she continued. "You know, 'oh, she's talking about her dead parents, now I have to pretend to feel sorry for her'."

"You shouldn't feel bad for talking about your parents, Lynn," I told her. "You don't have to be strong all the time."

She took a deep breath before nodding. "Yes I do," she said sadly.

There was obviously something there I didn't know about, some secret she probably had been keeping from the world for a long time, but that was for a conversation for another time.

"Tell me something about them," I pressed. "You're favorite memory. A childhood tradition. Anything."

"I'm not-"

"Just one thing."

Lynn stared at me. I could almost see her mind shifting through all the memories of her parents - every holiday, every heartfelt conversation, every vacation. I never had the typical family, so I was a little more than curious to know everything about her childhood. But I knew I had to start out small otherwise I would spook her.

"When we were little, Mom used to read my brother and I Greek stories," she started. "There weren't any knights in shining armor with princesses and evil witches, or at least not in the context a little kid might think. But honestly, it didn't really matter as long as Mom was the one reading it to us. She would make silly voices for the cyclops and sing all the prophecies. Sometimes Dad would even sneak into the room and act like the monster, shooting imaginary flames from his mouth and twisting his hands into claws that were too busy tickling us. Mom would roll her eyes at him every time he did it, but she was always smiling, too."

Lynn didn't look at me as she spoke, and instead on a spot on the table, too absorbed in thought to pay any attention around her. I didn't have very many memories like the one she was sharing, and I was quit envious of the small smile on her face from the reminiscence.

"Those nights seemed so much more precious to me now that I'm older," she said. "I thought about them a lot more in the months following my parent's death. I thought about how it felt to be crushed under the weight of a Minotaur, splayed out on top of my bed after being slain. About Anders and me counting how many times we could roar at each other before Mom and Dad caught us. Times likes those makes me wish they were alive so that Mom could read me a bedtime story and Dad pretend to be a monster one last time."

She stopped, and honestly, that was more than I thought she would give me. She was opening up to me, even if just a little bit, and I thought about how far the two of us have come in these past four months. Despite everything the two of us might regret, we still ended up here in Electric Diner, sharing things we never thought we'd share.

Then almost like she forgot who she was talking to, she quickly perked up.

"Sorry," she said a little shyly.

"That's what I'm talking about, Lynn," I said. "You shouldn't have to say sorry for talking about your parents. Ever."

She peered at me oddly, leaning into the table to get a better look. "I don't understand you sometimes, you know that? One day you have a hard edge, and then sometimes you act like you actually give a shit."

"I can't articulate my feelings," I confessed, only a little cynically. "The English language is far too inferior for my emotional state."

"Too inferior? I highly doubt that."

I grinned. "And it's not an act, by the way. Sometimes I generally care, but only sometimes."

"Right, of course."

Lynn's make up was simple since all she thought she was doing today was going to practice. Her smile was radiant and her eyes sparkled under the light above us. Her caramel colored hair was up in a bun, but strands have fallen out and framed her heart shaped face perfectly. She had a kind of modest beauty; maybe it was because she was unaware of it. But with her silky dress from the trunk of my car and my jacket around her shoulder, she looked like a fatal mixture of deadly and sexy.

I leaned back into the booth and stared at her with wonder. "Do you believe in soulmates?" I asked after a few moments of silence.

"That's a wide thought process," she said slowly, tapping her fingers on the table top. "I'm not sure I believe in them, but I'm still affected by the idea of it, I guess. We all have this ideal relationship that we want, right? So I guess if you found the right person to achieve that, you have your soulmate. But I don't believe that my actual soul has a partner, like someone who was born into this world to be with me."

I leaned forward against the table edge. "The odds of anyone finding 'the one' is roughly one in eight billion, which is theoretically impossible," I told her. "But people do it. Billions of people all around the world meet the one person they want to be with even though the math shows how improbable it is."

I hadn't noticed until now but during our conversation I had moved toward her more and more despite the table in between us, like there was this charismatic pull or something. I had this desire to reach out and grab her hand that lay on the table, but I kept that craving at bay, knowing it was a transitory thought that was set for the weird temperament around us.

The talk of soulmates and love and probabilities had gotten my head in a weird place and I was feeling things I normally wouldn't. I just hoped Lynn didn't notice my weird behavior.

"Weren't you wearing a necklace when we left?" I asked.

"What!?" Lynn's eyes went wide as her hand went up and over her chest. "Oh God, no, nonono."

I watched as she started looking around the floor and the seat beside her. I looked with her, even though I knew it wasn't anywhere in that diner. As the seconds went by, she started to get frantic. Her muscles were tense and her eyes were darting around the room, looking at the floor for anything the lights reflected off of. She reminded me of a mother who just lost her kid in a crowd.

Once she knew it was a lost cause, she let out a shaky breath and covered her face in her hands. I wanted to reach out and touch her, to tell her that it was okay. The devastated look she had nearly broke my heart.

"We can go back to the restaurant," I offered. "It might have fallen off there."

Lynn just shook her head. "It's gone," she said defeatedly. "Someone probably picked it up and took it. They'll get a lot of money for it, too."

I didn't want to give up that easily. Clearly this necklace meant a lot to her and if all I had to do to find it was go back to the restaurant and risk seeing my mother again, then I would.

"It was my dad's wedding band," she explained, removing her hands from her face. "It was- it was decorated with tree branches because he proposed to my mom under the tree at their university. It was the only thing that survived the fire; the only thing I had of my dad..."

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head again, her deep, blue eyes looking into mine. "Not your fault."

I watched her as she dunked a chip into the ketchup and popped it into her mouth. A nagging thought wouldn't leave me alone ad I knew this probably wasn't the time to ask, but I really needed to know.

"How come you and Harry split?"

"It didn't feel right," she admitted. "I was just stringing him along and it wasn't fair to Harry. My heart just wasn't with it... wasn't with him."

"Then where is it?" I couldn't help but ask.

She didn't answer.

× × ×

"Thanks for coming with me," I said as I drove us back to campus.

Lynn was still in her dress, her clothes she got in the car with in a heap on her lap. I looked over to find her looking out the window as all the buildings passed, the street lamps zooming by and generating long shadows through the car window.

We had backtracked to the restaurant where we met my mother to see if we could find the ring, but with no luck. I even braved going back into the place and asked the host if someone had found a wedding ring and turned it in. She gave me a pitying look and shook her head and even had someone go look around the booth Lynn and I were sitting at, but nothing was found.

"Your mom's a charmer," she grinned sarcastically.

I ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah, sorry about that. I thought she would have behaved better with you there, but I guess not."

"I'm glad I went," she added. "It gives me a better idea on who you are and how you grew up. Makes you a little bit more human in my eyes."

"More human?" I asked, rising a brow.

"You're always talking like someone who's made out of codes, like a robot. Sometimes I wonder if you really are sometimes."

Before I could respond, there was a flash of red lights and ring of a siren behind us. I cursed and pounded my fist against the steering wheel before I quickly pulled over. Lynn was looking over her shoulder at the cop car pulling up behind us.

"Where you speeding?" she asked.

"Just a little."

Without a second thought, Lynn was unbuckling her seatbelt and sitting forward. I watched her with wide eyes as she fumbled with the zipper on her dress and stuck a hand behind her back and unclasp her bra. In a matter of minutes, she threw the undergarment in the backseat, along with the other clothes from her lap, and zipped herself back up before the cop could even step out of his car.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I asked as she buckled herself up again.

"Something I learned from living in Las Angeles," she explained quickly. "Statistics show that if you get pulled over by a cop and you're not wearing a bra, that forty something percent of women get off with only a warning."

"First of all, those aren't very good probabilities," I said as I saw the cop step out of his car from the rear view mirror. "Secondly, this is London."

Right then, there was a knock on the car window besides me and I slowly rolled the window down. Before I could even open my mouth, Lynn was leaning over the middle counsel, making it quite obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra.

"Hi, Officer," she said with a flirty tone. "What seems to be the problem?"

The cop looked her up and down and I thought maybe this could actually work out in my favor. But then he looked at me. "Do you know you were going thirty over the speed limit?"

Trying to get the cop's attention again, she leaned even closer until she was practically in my lap. "We're so sorry. We're on our way to meet our parents at a restaurant and they get angry when we're late."

If Lynn could get me out of this, I'd have to owe her big time. Not only would I get out of a hundred pounds but also the penalty points left on my license.

The cop looked at me and then at Lynn, taking his damn sweet time looking her up and down once again. "Have you been drinking?" he asked the both of us.

"No, Sir," I spoke up.

The cop nodded curtly. "I'll let you go with a warning," he said. "But no more speeding."

"Thank you, Officer!"

The second the cop was at his car, I pulled back onto the street and took off in disbelief.

Then Lynn hit my arm. "Thirty over the speed limit!?" she shrieked. "That's more than 'just a little'."

"This car was made to speed."

"Whatever." Lynn reached in the backseat to grab her things once again. "You owe me one. I feel so dirty, I can't believe I used my body for your benefit."

I snorted. "Oh no. If it was for my benefit, I would have made sure it wasn't to get me out of a speeding ticket."

"If you're implying I'd give you my body for sex, think again."

Holding a hand up in surrender, I smirked at her. "Alright, whatever you say. But remember that you already gave me a blowjob. It's only a matter of time..."

Lynn looked at me through slitted eyes, brows creased in clear annoyance. But she knew I was right. Going off our history, it really was a matter of time before things got really interesting.

"By the way," I added. "Your tits look really good in that dress."