by Julia Kent
“But it's a meter.” I curl my lips and shudder.
“So? I've got quarters. Or we can use that parking app to pay. It's all set up on my phone.”
“Hand me my divining rod.”
“Your what?”
“It's a piece of wood.”
“You'll have to be more specific.” He looks down at his crotch.
I blush. This is the stage of dating we’re in. We haven't had sex yet–actual intercourse, that is–but there’s a running exchange of double entendres. Mostly clever, sometimes silly, a few groaners.
“It's shaped like a Y.”
“This?” He holds it up, then holds his palm up. “Man, the sunlight is glinting off that crystal hanging on your rearview mirror. What is that?”
“Energy vampire talisman.”
“HUH?”
“Just give me the rod.” Fumbling a bit, I take it from him.
“What does that thing have to do with parking?”
“It's magic. And energy. Not that there's any difference between the two.”
“What does it do?”
“Guides me to free parking.”
“That is weirdly specific.”
“It's better than a more general intention.”
“What's that? Witchcraft?”
“Not quite, but you're getting close.”
“You're a witch? Like Salem?”
“No. But I use energy to find energy.”
“Sounds circular.”
“Only if you view it on a single plane, in a single universe, and believe in entropy.”
“I, uh...”
“AH HA!” The car pulling out up ahead, one of the six spots without meters on Central Street, couldn't have timed it better.
“Coincidence,” Fletch murmurs.
“My divining rod creates a lot of coincidences.”
“You just point this thing at whatever you want and you get what you want?”
“It's not quite that simple, but in a way, yes.”
A quick grasp of the Y and he points it at me. “Huh. What do you know? It works.”
“I'm not free parking!”
“I will not make a joke about putting something in your garage.”
“Chris!”
The kiss he gives me curls my toes, but the gear shift between us pokes painfully at my hip as my stomach growls.
“Are you sure you don't want to go straight to Thai Me Up?” he asks, arms still around me.
Heat plumes in me, sudden and fierce.
“What?”
Jutting his chin, he points behind me. “You know. The Thai place. Thai Me Up?” I follow his line of sight and see the sign for the restaurant.
“Oh. Right. That. No. Taco Cubed is good,” I mutter, suddenly squirming.
We separate and leave the car, walking into Taco Cubed, the scent of cumin and cilantro tickling my nose in a delightful way as we make our way to the counter.
Tatted-up Pedro Jr. is there, head down, eyes darting across the food prep area. “Hey, Feisty Fighter,” he says in an understated way, looking up briefly at Fletch. “And Hot Boxer.”
We both groan.
“About time someone started dating her,” he comments to Fletch with a look that says he approves. “She's a goddamned goddess and deserves to be worshipped.”
I go mute. Fletch's hands turn into fists.
“Uh, thank you, Pedro,” I say as I touch Fletch's arm.
The grin Pedro flashes me shows a little wistfulness. “You're batty with your magic crap, but you remind me of mi abuela. She was into that voodoo, too.”
“It's not voodoo, actually.”
Waving a spatula in the air, he says, “It's all voodoo eventually. Whatcha want?”
I turn to Fletch. Here's the real dating test. Will he pass? The theme to Jeopardy plays inside my head.
He looks at Pedro and says, “Triple hard shell with two guac, one sour cream, extra green chile salsa, and peanut butter.” Hand on the small of my back, he leans in and adds, “Fiona?”
That's an order I've never heard of.
“Did you just order peanut butter with your tacos?” I ask gleefully.
“Yes.”
Pedro shrugs. “Weirdo, but he's not wrong. I tried it after my dad lost his shit when Fletch asked for it the first time. It's not bad.”
Fletch gives me a triumphant look. “Try it with me.”
“I don't have that level of taco courage.”
“You want your normal order, Feisty?”
I grit my teeth. “Yes. No peanut butter.” Fletch squeezes my hand.
“You don't know what you're missing.” He kisses the back of my hand as Pedro cocks an eyebrow and steps into the kitchen to get something.
“Guacamole and peanut butter do not go together.”
“Why not?”
“Because they have distinctly different mouthfeels.”
“So do our tongues.”
“What do our tongues have to do with–oh!”
Not caring one bit who sees, Fletch takes me into his arms and kisses me, a full-throttle, no-holds-barred, public-claiming kiss that leaves me thoroughly wet, physically boneless, and a bit disoriented by the time he's done.
“See? Different tongues have different feels but they taste perfect together.”
“Right,” I say, struck dumb. “Yeah.”
Pedro brings our two trays and moves on to the next customer, giving Fletch the evil eye.
We move, my body floating, and settle into a booth.
Fletch surveys his tray for a moment, then moves the guac, salsa, sour cream, and peanut butter in alarmingly familiar ways, aligning them and arranging a series of four knives in specific patterns. His precision comes with an intensity that's making me hold my breath.
A ball of lead forms in the pit of my stomach. He reminds me of–
“Fiona! Fletch! Imagine running into you here!” Mallory is wearing a stylish black wool peacoat, her arm hooked into Will's elbow. The two of them are sporting red cheeks from the cold, but other than that similarity, the they couldn't look more different.
Mallory is excited.
Will looks like someone took him hostage.
Taco hostage.
“Hey,” he says glumly, making Fletch cock an eyebrow.
“Hey, man. You okay?”
“Oh. Sure. Just, you know,” he says, thumbing toward the menu board and ordering counter. “Getting tacos.”
“Real tacos,” Mal notes, eyeing my soft tacos like they're evidence in a Hague trial.
And then she looks at Fletch's plate. Cocks her head. Narrows her eyes. One of her longer curls picks that moment to boing up, brushing against an increasingly tight jaw.
Will watches, more wary than I like.
Moving slowly, she sits down on the edge of the booth next to Fletch. Her eyes don’t leave his tray.
“Is that... what is that?” she asks, pointing to the peanut butter.
“Peanut butter,” Fletch answers happily, picking up the first knife and–
No.
Oh, no.
I move over so Will, still in his zipped-up winter ski jacket, can sit down, too.
Fletch plunges the clean knife into the container of guacamole and carefully spreads it on the edge of his taco. He picks up the second knife and moves on to the peanut butter, doing the same. Third knife, sour cream, same.
Salsa, same.
The four layers are evenly distributed, of approximately the same thickness, and have a visually pleasing appearance.
And then, with Mallory eyeing him like Perky with PMS eyeing a menthol cigarette, Fletch takes a perfectly composed bite of the edge of his taco.
As he chews, her eyes drift to my plate, where one of the soft tortillas flops like a homeless man's threadbare blanket.
Finishing his bite, he swallows, reaches for mineral water, takes another gulp, and looks at Mallory. “You seem overly interested in my tacos.” He glances at the counter. “Why don't
you guys order?”
“Peanut butter?” Mal says in a low, breathy voice, like a homicide investigator viewing a novel way someone's been murdered, as if a perp has killed a human being using only an expired Starbucks gift card and an IUD.
“Yeah.”
“Is it… what does it taste like… I'm intrigued!”
“Really?” Will grunts, standing up. “I'll go get our orders.” He leaves quickly, almost guiltily, abandoning me with these two weirdos. Pretty soon they're going to start talking about–
“The ratio,” Fletch says pleasantly. “It's all about the ratio.”
Seventeen generations of terrified ancestors start screaming in my astral plane.
“YES!” Mal gasps, moving closer to him. “The mouthfeel has to be perfect.”
At the word mouthfeel, he grins at me, my tongue still tasting that kiss.
“My perfect ratio is about micro and macronutrients,” he starts, though it's hard to hear his words over all of my past lives scrambling in an effort to blameshift the torture I'm going through right now. What karma did I incur to deserve this? I finally fall in love with a guy and he's–
Hold on.
Love?
“The corn shell has the carbs. I'm trying to convince Pedro to carry cassava-flour tortillas. They're gluten free, too, and...”
I project my consciousness into 1842 on the Dakota prairie during a snowstorm that causes widespread famine, to give myself some relief.
Sadly, it doesn't work, so I pick at my taco until Will comes back with their orders.
Fletch looks across the booth at me. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
Will does a double take. “Uh oh. When they start saying fine, you know the honeymoon's over.”
For the next ten minutes, Will and I sit next to each other and eat our food like normal people. Which is to say, we don't count out macronutrients, talk about manganese and folate micrograms in avocado, or discuss how combining peanut butter oil and green chile salsa does something to brown fat.
Which you want more of.
I guess. It's hard to understand Fletch's words over the sense of despair that changes my blue-light aura into a broken yellow taco shell of doom.
I cannot believe I am watching my bestie and my new boyfriend bond, word by word, bite by bite, over the perfect ratio.
“This is crazy,” Will mutters to me as he wipes his mouth, balling up his napkin and tossing it on top of his failed taco. My own failed taco mocks me, as if it's turned grey and is dissolving into a cloud of ash, to be carried off by Thanos's finger snap.
It didn't make the cut.
“How can they do this to food?” I say out of the corner of my mouth. “It's like they're D&D nerds with dairy and legumes.”
“I heard that,” Mallory says sharply, then she grins. “You two are just jealous.”
“Jealous?” Will and I say in unison. Then we snort.
“Of what?” I ask.
“That we have elevated mere calorie consumption to something with more meaning.”
“You've taken a positive emotional experience and deconstructed it to the point of despair,” I counter.
Will nods. “Thank you for putting it into words,” he says, patting the back of my hand.
Fletch's eyes narrow as he watches that gesture.
“Well, I, for one, am thrilled to discover one of your friends is as smart about taco ratios as I am!” Mallory says in a voice I know is joking, but Fletch might not. She looks at Will. “How about we invite them to come on our trip next weekend?”
“Trip?” Fletch asks.
“We rented a two-bedroom cabin in Maine. Middle of nowhere. There's skiing nearby, but snowshoeing right at the cabin. Plenty of fun sledding. Parker and Perky were coming, but he had to cancel–some subcommittee assignment about concrete road dividers or something. You guys want to come?”
“We're second choice?” I ask, a little hurt. Mal's eyes catch mine and widen.
“No, of course not! We asked Parker and Perky to join us, before you two were...” She looks at Fletch, who looks at me, then down at Will's hand, then up at Will.
Who removes his hand.
Huh. I've got a possessive one, don't I?
“Before we were what?” I ask Mallory, but my gaze holds Fletch's, and we sit there, soaked in the energy of definitions.
“Before we were a couple,” Fletch finishes.
Definition achieved.
“Are we?”
“You're my girlfriend,” he says, making Mallory practically pee herself with joy.
Will just nods slowly.
“As long as you say yes, of course,” Fletch adds.
“How can I say no?”
He reaches across the table for my hand. “That’s not a yes.”
“Yes, Chris,” I say obediently, happily. “I’ll be your girlfriend. Not that we need a label, because labels don’t define people, but...”
“Fiona?”
“Yes?”
“That’s better. Just yes.”
“Then it's settled,” Mal says. “Next weekend is going to be so much fun! We'll make tacos for dinner one night.”
Will and I groan.
Fletch and Mal just laugh.
Chapter 15
“What do you mean, we have to hike up that hill to the cabin? Why can't we drive?” Mallory asks as we stare at the large sled next to us. Will hands her a printout of the email from the owner, a friendly explanation of how this remote rental cabin works. It's been a week since we ran into her and Will at Taco Cubed and here we are, the four of us, on a weekend getaway.
Adulting.
“Even an SUV with chains can get stuck. It's only a quarter mile. No problem,” Fletch responds. “My grandparents have a place in Rowley on the beach, and when it rains bad enough, the road washes out and we use a cart. This is nothing.” Meanwhile, Will's pulling suitcase after suitcase out of the back of his Volvo SUV, a fairly new vehicle he and Mal bought this year, in preparation for having a family fairly soon.
It's really been helpful for all her luggage.
“We have to walk up that?” After two days of pouring rain, the hill is nothing but mud.
“There's a sled.” He points. “The owners covered it all.”
“Is there internet?” Her nose crinkles up as her mind races to explore all the possibilities.
“There's a dish. Some kind of satellite internet. But you have to be really close to the cabin for a signal,” Will says as he acts as her sherpa, loading suitcases and bags. He peeks into one. “Is this grocery bag full of nothing but bacon, brownie mix, eggs, and coffee?”
“Yes.”
“And this one is taco makings?”
“Uh huh. The refrigerator stuff is in the cooler.”
Will and I share a look only Taco Hostages would understand.
“Good thing I brought steaks and asparagus,” he mutters.
“I LOVE ASPARAGUS!” I shout, a little too loud.
“Are you a stinky pee person?” Mal asks as we lock up the car and start our ascent up the muddy hill.
“Huh?” Fletch asks.
“You know. Asparagus pee. Some people have that gene. Like cilantro. It tastes like soap for some people. Genes.”
“I don't know. I don't smell my pee,” I confess.
“What does it smell like?” Fletch asks, grunting as he pushes the sled out of a rut, helping Will.
“Like asparagus,” Mal says slowly.
“Never noticed,” he says, and then that's the last we hear from the guys, other than grunting, until we make it to the top of the hill.
When we're on the porch, which is soaking wet from the rain, I take a moment to turn around and appreciate the sweeping, panoramic beauty of this place at twilight. The three-hour drive was worth every minute. It feels like we're at the tippy top of the world, the road down below the only sign of civilization. To the right of the cabin is a huge lean-to full of wood. Solar panels, separate from
the house, are in an array to the left, facing south. The front door is unlocked, which surprises me.
Then again, thieves would have to work damn hard to get here.
“Never knew bacon and coffee could be so heavy,” Will complains as he unloads the sled, flashing an ungrumpy grin at Mallory, who bats her eyelashes. They're cute together, a study in contrasts that have come together to be a comfortable combination.
Is that what Fletch and I look like to an outsider?
Our boots are covered in muck, and we each take turns scrubbing them on the boot scraper, then carefully step inside the door. Lifelong New Englanders, all of us, we're trained in boot etiquette when it comes to mud and snow.
No one wants to step on a lump of wet mud in socks or slippers later.
Three trips from the sled to the house and we're done. I kick off my boots, unzip my weekend bag, and find my purple furry slippers, a gift from Mom and Dad last year.
“Cute!” Mallory says, eyeing her three suitcases. “I'm not sure where mine are.”
“Which bedroom do you guys want?” Will asks. There's a big living room, the kitchen to the left, all of it open. A small table with four chairs between kitchen and couches serves as a dining room. Straight ahead is a hallway that bisects the two bedrooms. An open door at the end of the hall shows me that's the bathroom.
The place is small, cozy, and very rustic. Fletch is kneeling in front of the woodstove, lighting it, and it’s already putting out a wonderful woodsy scent.
And now we're deciding which bed he and I are going to share, to sleep together for the first time.
“That one,” Fletch says without ceremony, hauling his duffel bag and my carry-on into the room. I follow him, Mallory smiling at me as Will starts moving her luggage in, piece by piece.
The guy's going to need some time.
In our bedroom, Fletch puts my bag next to the closet, dumping his duffel on the floor at the foot of the bed. Before I can say a word to him, I'm on my back on the quilt, his mouth on mine, our bodies still encased in thick coats.
“This is fun,” he says, looking down at me with eyes that feel like I'm being invited into eternity.
“It is.”
“I'm happy to be here with you.”