A few minutes later, we pull into Pieces and Pies. It’s all windows on three sides, and it’s lit up in green, red, and white. Braden puts the car in park. “Best pizza in Michigan.”
At the restaurant, he opens the double doors in a way that forces me to walk under his arm, allowing him to look down at me as I pass.
Waiting at the hostess stand is a curvy blonde, whose eyes light up at the sight of us. Her reaction is definitely not for me. Great. I hear Braden curse under his breath.
“Brade!” she squees. The name tag on her vest says “Alice.” She moves to give him a hug, eyes sweeping over me, but Braden turns to the side and puts only one arm around her. The difference is subtle, and more satisfying than it ought to be.
Braden steps away from her and sets a hand gently at the small of my back. “Hey, Alice, this is Hadley.”
Her mouth goes slack. “I’ve never seen you guys here before.”
Technically, there’s nothing rude about what she said, but it’s definitely a challenge of some sort. Braden rises to it. “Yeah, we haven’t been here yet. But we’ve been out a few times. Right, Hadley?”
I nod. “Totally.” I shouldn’t be encouraging him, but I can’t help myself.
“How many was it again?”
I just shake my head, forcing back my laugh.
Alice’s eyes give me a once-over again. “Oh. Well, you didn’t mention it, Brade.” Then she grabs two menus from the back of the hostess stand. “Here, this way.”
She leads us to a small two-top in the middle of the restaurant. I trail her, watching the effortless way she moves. Her vest stops right at the smallest part of her waist, and her hips sway as she walks. Even in her ugly uniform, this girl is seriously pretty. She slaps the plastic menus down at our seats.
Braden looks at the table. “Hey, Alice?”
She presses her lips together. “Yes?”
“I was kind of hoping we could have table twelve.” Braden gestures with his head to the booth at the back corner of the restaurant.
“Ugh, Brade. You are so needy.” But she doesn’t actually look annoyed. She picks the menus up, her fake nails clicking on the plastic, and walks over to Braden’s desired booth.
“Thanks, Al.”
“Have fun.” Her hips swing again as she saunters away. And, to his credit, as Braden slides onto the sticky faux leather of the seat, he doesn’t pay much attention to her.
Situated in the booth, we pick up our menus. I’m distractedly scanning the pasta section when Braden’s menu hits mine and pushes it down, away from my face. He’s leaning in close to me, his elbows on the table. “Sorry about her. I checked the schedule, and she wasn’t supposed to be in tonight.”
I didn’t know he worked here, and I’m ready to ask him about it when somebody says, “Hey, Varsity.” It’s equal parts mocking and friendly.
I look up, even though nobody in their right mind would ever call me Varsity. The voice is coming from a cute, dark-haired guy about our age.
Braden answers with a hand slap. “Hey, man.”
The guy is wearing a Pieces and Pies T-shirt, with a towel draped over his shoulder. He and Braden complete a complicated handshake, and he turns to me with a friendly expression on his face. “And you must be Hadley. The reason I’m working tonight.” He looks pointedly at Braden, who laughs.
Braden introduces us. “Hadley, this is James. James is a sophomore and captain of the junior varsity swim team. He’s covering my shift tonight.”
“And Braden is the worst, and captain of nothing,” James says cheerfully.
Braden ignores the insult and lowers his voice. “By the way, dude, thanks for warning me about Alice.”
“Yeah, sorry, man. She traded with Lauren, I think. Probably because she didn’t know you already traded with me.” He directs his attention back at me, speaking conspiratorially. “The poor girl has it bad for Varsity here.” He claps Braden on the shoulder. “But she’s all right. Even if she has terrible taste in guys. No offense,” he says to me. “Don’t let her crash your…thing.”
“None taken,” I answer cheerfully. “I can barely stomach him.”
Braden raises his brows. “Even on our very official date?”
“Can you not?” I say.
Braden looks at James. “Apparently, I found the only girl in the world who doesn’t want to acknowledge that she’s on a date with me.”
“Right, the only one,” James deadpans.
I laugh too loudly, and seeming to have made up his mind, James gives Braden an approving look. “Shit, Brade! I like her.” He looks at me. “I like you.”
“Um, thanks.”
“You should try to keep her around. I could use somebody else to knock you down a few pegs.”
I expected Braden to stop James before he even finishes the thought. But he doesn’t. I’m so surprised at first that I don’t realize he’s waiting for me to answer.
I object, “I barely agreed to tonight!”
Braden leans back in his seat. Looking at James, he shrugs. “She’s not sold yet. So be cool, man.”
James replies, amused, “Smart girl. Because you do know what this guy is like, right?” He points to Braden with his thumb. “Conceited ass doesn’t even begin to cover it. Like I said, the worst,” James concludes.
Braden smirks. “Every time you call me the worst, I’m taking a dollar from your tip.”
“So, what—I’m down from five to two? I think I’ll be all right.”
“Oh, we’re up to three times now?” Braden says. “I only counted two.”
James turns toward me. “I’m sorry. Just because you chose to eat with this guy doesn’t mean you should get bad service. Have I mentioned, Braden is the worst?” James holds up three fingers in Braden’s direction. “He distracted me. Can I get you something to drink? Maybe to take the edge off being out with him? I could probably dig up something with a bite in the back.”
“Easy,” Braden mutters, rubbing at his shoulder, but James only looks encouraged.
“A Coke, please?” I ask.
“Coming right up.” And he heads off without taking Braden’s order.
I gesture toward James’s back. “So you guys are friends, right?”
“Yeah, we met at club swimming over the summer. He’s pretty much my best friend. But don’t tell him I said that. Wouldn’t want it going to his head.” He crinkles his eyes and slides the menu back and forth on the table. “So, Hadley. Very important. What kind of pizza do you like?”
I look down at the giant menu and close it, overwhelmed with options. I had enough trouble with my outfit. “Pepperoni?” I shrug. “I’m not that picky. I pretty much just like pizza as a rule.”
“Like all humans?”
I can’t help but grin at the recollection of our texts. “Yeah.” The air between us pulls tight. “But no pineapple. Fruit does not belong on pizza.”
“Agreed.” He nods approvingly. “Okay, so how do you feel about pepperoni, green pepper, onion?” he asks as he points at the list of toppings on the first page of the menu. Then he looks up at me to see my reaction. In this light, his eyes look more green than hazel.
“That’s actually my favorite.”
We smile at each other until James leans between us, dropping a Coke in front of me, and another soda in front of Braden.
“Hashi,” Braden says to James, “can you get us the usual? Don’t forget the sides.”
“Oh, please, Roberts. I never forget the sides.” They bump fists.
As James walks away, I ask Braden, “Hashi?”
“Short for Hashimoto.”
“Ah.” I pause. “And I forgot to ask you the other day, how’d it go with your teammates after I dropped you off? Everything cool with them?”
“Yeah. Honestly, their little p
rank worked out for me.” He looks meaningfully at me. I study my hands. He continues, “Plus, it gave me an out for dying my hair.”
“Dying your hair?”
“It’s a stupid tradition. The team bleaches their hair a couple weeks before conference, then everyone shaves it off, right before. Some people say it makes you swim faster, but it’s crap. I fight it every year; I don’t need to change my hair to swim fast.” He runs a hand through his, all right, kind of nice hair. “And I told them that their prank and my lack of narc-ing should give me a free pass.”
“That’s a really weird tradition.”
“It is. But most of the guys’ hair is so fried from all the chlorine they don’t really care.”
There’s a beat of quiet, the two of us leaning into the booth. Before I can think myself out of it, I blurt out, “Can I ask you something?”
He runs his fingers through his blond strands. “No products, air-dried. Just one of the lucky ones, I guess.”
“Not about your freaking hair.”
He laughs, and I realize belatedly that he was kidding. He nods. “What is it?”
“Why did you ask me out?” My eyes shift over to the hostess stand, and I catch the movement of Alice’s head as she quickly looks away. She picks up a rag and pretends to clean some menus. “You evidently have other people interested. People who are…nicer to you?”
Braden follows my gaze, and Alice drops her stack of menus. They clatter loudly to the floor. When I turn my attention back to the table, Braden is focused on me.
“I’m not really into nice.” He pauses and then shakes his head. “It’s boring. And there’s seriously nothing worse than boring. Plus, I happen to love both attention and a challenge, and when you saw me in a Speedo, you told me to cover up.”
I bite my lips to keep them from turning up. “That bothered you?”
“Well, yeah. I get it, but it wasn’t exactly the ideal reaction. And we go to the same school; I wasn’t some creepy stranger.”
“Jury’s still out on that one,” I respond, but he looks at me like I proved his point. I ignore it. “So if I start giving you attention, telling you how great you are, you’ll be satisfied and move on to your next victim?”
“And by victim you obviously mean date.”
“Obviously.” I smirk.
His eyes narrow. “Are you fishing for compliments?”
I lean my head back in exasperation. “Not even. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
He studies me for a second before he answers, “Well. Since you’re fishing, I guess I like your honesty. I hate getting my ass kissed. And mostly, I think I like all the opportunities to show you how wrong you are about me. A new challenge every couple minutes. The dream.” He turns on his megawatt smile.
“So would you like me to vocalize all my bad thoughts about you, then?” I tease. Except the truth is that I like what I just heard. Because he basically said that he’d rather have a sparring partner than a cheerleader.
Amusement sits on his lips, but his words are more serious. “And I liked the way you talked about your family. How they make you happy.”
“You said that answer was boring.”
“I lied,” he says, sliding to the edge of his seat, closer to me. “I think it’s part of the reason I went to your door today. Talked to them and everything. I wanted to be able to picture what you described.”
Maybe I am kind of wrong about him, because I would have never guessed any of that.
The way he’s looking at me is so intense. “And I don’t know…Don’t you think there’s something between us?”
It feels like a strong magnet is pulling me toward him. I swallow. “Maybe.”
“If we were really on our fifth date, what else would I know about you?”
“I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Start me out with the basics. We sort of skipped regular stuff, because of your French writer guy.”
I can’t help but laugh. “I guess you’re right. Um, okay, well…I’ve lived here, in Lakebrook, forever, since kindergarten. And I told you about my family.”
“What else?”
“Um, I’ve had the same friends as long as I can remember. You know about Tyler, but there’s also Becca Gomez and Greg Miller—they’re dating each other. Do you know either of them?”
He shakes his head.
“Well, you would have met Becca. She was supposed to work the meet last week, but Greg got sick and I had to cover for her. And I work at her family’s diner, Belavinis, so we have that in common, I guess. Both work at restaurants.” The restaurant is hectic around us, full of loud voices and young employees hustling from table to table. “What about you? Do you like working here?”
“Yeah, I do. I sort of need to be busy. I’ve always worked, because I tend to get into trouble if I have too much free time.”
“Of course you do.”
“Nothing too crazy, though. Well, except…” He pauses dramatically.
I sigh. “Except what?”
He shrugs. “It was years ago. Like, I was just a kid—twelve or thirteen, maybe. And I was hanging out with these guys on the baseball team and these idiots said I wouldn’t be able to do it, so obviously I had to prove them wrong.”
I give him a half-annoyed continue look.
“So. I may have thrown a rock—a pebble, really…at a fire truck.”
“As in the vehicle that helps firefighters save actual lives?”
“That’s the one. The pitcher said I couldn’t hit the center of the logo, which I did—bull’s-eye.” He meets my gaze. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Nobody was in it.” He laughs and then grimaces. “But our dumb asses got caught. The actual firefighters weren’t that far away, which we didn’t know, and they heard my—really, very little—rock slam into the side of their truck.”
“You were such a little shit!” I clear my throat. “What happened?”
“Well, it was technically government property—so I had to talk the police out of charging us with a minor felony.”
I burst out laughing. “So you were brought into the police station, for a felony, at twelve?”
“I may have been thirteen.”
“And…?”
“And I pleaded my case. And I gave them some sad eyes and we were on our way—I mean, after a lecture and calling our parents. I was grounded for a month, but my criminal record remains clean. Plus, I proved that idiot pitcher wrong.”
“Which is clearly the most important part.”
“You already know me so well.”
“So you’re telling me I’m on a date with a felon.”
“A fifth date.”
“My mom will be so proud. Actually, are you sure you haven’t met her before tonight? She is a lawyer. Maybe she defended you for dognapping? Or blowing up a mailbox or something?”
“Nah. Not my style. But I did take a victory lap of fifth grade.” He grins. “Couldn’t pay attention. Swimming helped with that a lot, though. And that’s it. The extent of my troublemaking past.” His eyes glint before he continues, “Otherwise, the big stuff: my family has lived here for six months. We moved after sophomore year ended. And my mom had to restart her catering business when my dad got the job here, so they’ve been busy lately. Which is why they weren’t at the meet.”
“Moved from where?”
“Outside Chicago.” He takes a sip of soda. “How’d you get into photography?”
“It wasn’t until a couple years ago. Science was always my favorite subject, and freshman year my counselor suggested I try photography, since it’s basically just the law of reciprocity—like, focusing and controlling the light.” I shrug. “And I got really hooked. I think it’s something about making the world look the way it feels.”
His brow wrinkles.
/> “What?”
“Just…before. When you were fishing for compliments.” I roll my eyes, but he adds, “The photography thing. It’s…it’s cool to hang out with somebody who might get how I feel about swimming, but with her own thing. You know?”
And I do know. It’s one of the reasons I like hanging out with Tyler and Becca so much. Because they both have things they love, and we talk about them all the time. And I have to admit, the way he described competing in the pool…It made me feel the same way.
Braden says, “Like, you just made it sound interesting in one sentence.” I’m surprised to find that his expression is so sincere.
I can’t help feeling like I’ve done this with him before—the talking, the laughing, the teasing. It’s easy. It’s fun.
And then James drops our pizza between us, breaking our gaze, and sets down a shaker of crushed red pepper and a side of ranch.
Braden and I talk and laugh while we eat. I learn that he is an only child; that he’s focused on the University of Michigan for a swimming scholarship; and that his favorite class is his advanced English course, Modern Thought and Literature, because he likes debating philosophy with his teacher. Each new fact feels like a clue—some fitting easily with who he seems to be and others taking me by surprise, like the English class. Before I know it, it’s hours later, and the restaurant looks like it’s shutting down. At the first small lull in our conversation, I tell Braden, “We should probably get going.”
He looks around at the busboys wiping down the empty tables. “Shit. You’re right.”
“I think they might technically be closed.”
Braden checks the time on his phone. “Ha, they are.” Then he meets my eyes. “I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here for three hours. It went by so fast.”
And I don’t know whether to be comforted or scared to know that he’s as lost in this as I am.
* * *
Several minutes later, Braden pulls into my driveway and turns to face me. The song on the radio floats between us as he watches me.
Coming Up for Air Page 7