by Evie Bennet
“Short for Elizabeth, I’m afraid,” I sighed, pretending to be disappointed. The extra syllables always made me think of my mother’s sharpness. “Am I still the only one?”
“I think we can safely assume you’re unique.” He resettled astonishingly close to my shoulder, his bemusement lightly coating me like powdered sugar. “Not everyone has such a hard time deciding on cereal. You need some help?”
I laughed, hoping my cheeks weren’t as fat as they felt. “No, I just… got distracted.”
“Thinking?” he probed.
“Occasionally.”
“Probably all those pretty poems.” His tongue flicked against his lip. A glistening spot rested in its wake. “The discount bags are the best bang for the buck.”
A giant bag of cocoa crisps peeked out from the lower bin. He quirked an eyebrow in question.
No one was telling me what to eat anymore. Plus, if Reed recommended it we’d be tasting the same thing. For breakfast. Not each other. Not yet.
I was definitely getting ahead of myself. It was just cereal.
“Thank you. You’re full of helpful recommendations.”
“I do what I can.” He hauled two bags up, one for me, one for him. It took up almost the entirety of the rest of my basket, so he shrugged it into his. “I’ll carry it for you.”
“No, I couldn’t…”
My fingers grasped at the empty air between us.
It was fine. I could handle a bag of cereal without burdening him with inconvenience.
Rearranging my face into neutral, slightly exasperated fondness, I reasoned, “You’re going to run out of room.”
“Don’t worry about it. I was just getting a few essentials for when…” His gaze dipped down and to the side. “The need arises.”
Wasn’t that what everyone did?
Swallowing my instincts to take the bag and run, I touched his arm, my veins stretching like they could break out of my skin and crawl around him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now seeing as you’re stuck with me until the checkout, what else can I get for you? I know it’s not big, but this grocery store can be intimidating.”
He was so charming, an absolute dream.
Every little joke he dropped made my smile grow but not wide enough to break.
He kept checking my reactions to make sure I liked his jokes. It felt good being needed by him in some small way.
Although maybe it was more like I needed him, a lonely freak looking for attention.
I winced at my own internal monologue, tugging at my hair.
By the time we went to the checkout, he hadn’t gotten anything except the cereal and a few frozen meals like pizzas and pastas.
“You should try the pre-made meals for two,” I suggested lightly. “They’re stovetop, but they have the ingredients and sauce in the bag. You literally just stir for ten minutes and all the veggies and meats and everything are done.”
“Sounds dangerous,” he mused, helping me load my items first. “Eating vegetables, trusting me not to start a fire…”
“What?” I laughed.
“It’s not me. Our stove is the worst. It’s probably a million years old and…”
The word our tightened in my chest, anxiety slowly working its way down my fingers. My smile felt frozen on my face, eyes going dead, barely registering that his lips were still moving. He couldn’t—he didn’t have a girlfriend, right? The woman at the coffee shop… or Al… would’ve told me. They wouldn’t have rooted for me to fail.
People didn’t do that, right?
Not like… not anymore.
Reed had to be a good guy. Who randomly helped someone with their groceries?
I thought back to the diner, even to the dive bar. Everyone was fairly hospitable. What if I’d completely misread this? What if people were just supposed to be nice here?
“Betty?”
His fingers ghosted over the curve of my shoulder, eyes narrowed in concern. I was having a hard time breathing. Had I inhaled too much? Not enough? He squeezed my arm.
The thrill of his touch sent a shudder through my nerves.
“Sorry. Did you say your girlfriend cooks?”
He blinked, taken aback. “No. No girlfriend. Just sometimes my dad turns on the stove and forgets and then we have tomato soup toxic sludge in the morning because the fire alarm doesn’t work.”
“Isn’t that a health code violation?”
He glared at the conveyor belt inching our things forward. “It’s a trailer park, Betty. Nobody cares.”
He cared, which meant I cared.
“I’m pretty mechanically inclined. Maybe I can fix it or at the very least I could make you a meal that isn’t burned or on a bun.”
He looked at me a little sideways, narrow slats of appraisal under long, dark eyelashes. “I’ll have you know that Al’s is an institution.”
“They make a mean milkshake, but not everything worth having is on an Al’s menu.”
His eyebrow arched, making my cheeks burn. “Oh yeah?”
Swallowing hard, I tried not to peel my skin off. My whole body wanted to stick to him, to lay myself bare under his gaze. His mouth. Fuck, that mouth. The tips of my fingers tingled with the memory of how it felt.
I was sick. No, I declared. Just… hungry.
I distracted myself with paying and loading up my tote bags, which Reed seemed to find amusing.
What was interesting about reusable bags? What was interesting about me, for that matter?
Without being asked, Reed lifted one of my bags, following close at my hip to my car. My heart kept pounding faster in anticipation.
What was he scanning for? A threat? Was West Ridge unsafe or was he trying to figure out which car was mine?
Heat creeping up my neck, I unlocked the old-school Dodge that seems to fit in better in West Ridge than it would the rest of America.
“Well, this is me. Where’s your bike?” Although my voice was light, my fingers clenched hard around my keys until they dug into the delicate skin between my fingers. How much could I prolong our chat? What was normal? Did he even want normal when he was clearly so extraordinary?
“I walked.” He shrugged, his lone plastic bag looking frail and stretched at his side. “The park’s not far.”
Even though it wasn’t cold, I shivered, the metal teeth grating harder into my skin. “Oh! Let me drive you!”
Get into a car with a relative stranger in the middle of the night.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Really, it’s the least I can do after your grocery tour.” My cheeks strained in an attempted smile. A real one. But it was dark and cold, and I was a little scared that the great guy I’d built up in my head couldn’t be true, couldn’t be real. He wouldn’t like me if he was.
I prayed he wouldn’t humiliate me.
With an uncharacteristic sigh, he turned his face towards where I assumed the trailer park was, but his feet were still pointed at me. There was an article about feet always indicating the target of approval, of attention. “Look, thanks for the offer, but I’m not expecting anything just because you fixed my bike and I carried your cereal. I’m a big boy. I can walk.”
“What are you…” I let out a nervous chuckle, trying to suppress the tremor working its way through my body. “Obviously you’re capable of walking, I just thought…”
He glanced down at my hand, the keys splayed out between my fingers. “You thought what?”
He could tell I was a freak. Who could look at me and think otherwise? I was shaking. I was unstable.
I had to forcibly relax my grip on the keys and breathe. “I just get nervous sometimes. About things. A new town after dark…”
Under the harsh light of the parking lot, he might actually see me up close for everything I was. Everything I could be.
Who was I, anyway? Was I different now that I lived in West Ridge?
I felt better but maybe I was projecting what I wanted instead of what w
as really happening.
I looked down at my impromptu weapon of the key. Weren’t they supposed to keep things safe? Start them? If I used them to attack, I was more likely to hurt my hand than any assailant. For that kind of defense, I’d need to get more than a little blood under my nails.
“Are you afraid of something happening?” The dubiousness in his voice made me shrink even more.
Nothing was going to happen. Nothing bad, anyway. I wouldn’t let it. I had control, now, more than I ever did. Maybe something good could happen.
He didn’t have to like me, though. I’d be fine if he didn’t, I tried to convince myself. I barely knew him. He barely knew me.
The only reason he was backing off was because he thought I was afraid. Or crazy. And I wasn’t, was I?
A challenge blazed quietly in the silence, darkness collecting so starkly on the hollows under his eyes.
Was I?
I took a deep breath. “I’m afraid you won’t meet me for coffee tomorrow.”
He blinked in surprise.
It tore me up inside to picture the world in which he knew how badly I burned for him and left me to smolder in my twisted ashes, but I couldn’t stay locked in my garage forever. I’d have to take a risk.
“If you don’t, who will guide me on which muffins to try?” I chuckled, the sound foreign to my own ears. “Or distract me from my awful poetry?”
“I’m sure it’s not that awful.”
He was coming around. I needed to be casual. I could do this.
I popped open both sides of the car. “I know the car looks a little old-school, but it’s safe. I can even drop you off a block away if you’d like. Just so you get your exercise.”
He rolled his eyes, noting the way the keys dangled loosely in my fingers. “I guess you could drive me a couple of blocks if you really wanted to.”
“I do.” The words hovered in my mind as I blissfully slipped behind the wheel, attached to the sparkling idea that maybe we could say them again someday.
That was crazy. I was crazy.
“Besides,” he cleared his throat, angling his body towards me in the bench seat. “I still need to know what time we’re meeting to test out this whole Reedsy business.”
My death-grip on the wheel loosened as soon as we were out of the parking lot. Reed was still charming. Maybe tired, just like me. But he kept studying me out of the corner of his eye, glancing at our surroundings like he was looking for something.
Was he looking for me? It seemed like too much to hope.
“Here’s good,” he said.
“I can take you the whole…” At his surprisingly serious expression, I trailed off. That wasn’t what he told me to do for him and I needed to listen to what he really needed.
With that mantra pulsing under my skin, I pulled off and parked.
“Thank you.” There was some strange expectancy hovering between us, the trailer lights glowing just up the road. They jittered in the dark reflection of his eyes. He didn’t move.
Should I kiss him? Would he try to kiss me?
I awkwardly spun my ponytail, the silky texture of my hair soothing me. “See you tomorrow, Reedsy.”
His lip quirked up in a soft half-smile. “See you tomorrow.”
I sat in my car, forehead pressed against the steering wheel, breathing deeply until the low rumble of a motor caught my attention. It had to be him. I felt it in my gut then confirmed it with my own eyes when I saw a hot guy in a bandana heading up the sidewalk.
Almost mechanically, I got out of the car and started towards the coffee shop, watching the way his jeans clung to the underside of his ass when he went up the steps.
I was so thirsty it was embarrassing.
My gaze diverted to his messenger bag. Did he expect to do some writing today? Maybe I should’ve brought mine. Or maybe he would read to me… maybe he wanted to show me everything.
The idea stabbed and twisted my brain like a corkscrew attempting to relieve some pressure.
It was fine. I’d be fine. It was just coffee with a friend in a new town.
If we happened to be flirting, that was healthy.
The woman behind the counter’s eyes lit up in recognition as I took my place behind Reed in line. Noticing the woman’s reaction, he turned around. Momentary panic had my shoulders clenching upwards, but one sweeping glance and smile from him and I was floating, swept up in a one-armed hug.
“Hey,” he said against my cheek.
Hopefully my wistful gasp was inaudible. “Hey.”
“You still willing to accept my muffin recommendation?”
“I don’t have any reason not to.”
Reed insisted on treating me to my first coffee and muffin. The woman behind the counter beamed encouragingly and I had to press the back of my hand to my cheek in the hope my blush settled into something reasonable. Smirking, Reed threw an extra dollar in the tip jar.
“Shall we?”
We settled into his regular table. It felt surreal, like having dinner with the mayor or tea with the Queen. Not that Reed was a celebrity. It just felt… intimate, somehow. Bizarre and special.
We made idle chatter about how I was settling in. The easy way he slouched made me want to lean forward and take his hand or slide my feet against his under the table.
It was too early for that.
But it could happen, one day. That’s what we were doing, right? Building a path.
I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I need to stop being weird. Focus. Listen.
I took a deep sip of the coffee, adrenaline the biggest factor in my attention span. Reed guessed my preferred number of creams and sugars fairly accurately. It was a useless skill, according to him, but I found it quite interesting. Unique. I was never good at guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar either, but always found it fascinating when people did, just by some innate sense I wasn’t sure could be learned.
As for the previous night’s hacker adventures, he didn’t stay up as late as he had been, so at least I got some sleep.
“Last time I was here, someone wrote something in my Word doc.”
The coffee veered off-course, almost going down the wrong tube. “How fun.” I gulped, pursing my lips.
“You don’t know what they said. It could’ve been, ‘hey, ugly’.”
He was teasing.
“It wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because anyone with eyes knows you’re not.”
His eyebrows raised incrementally.
That baiting little flirt. He wanted me to admit he was hot.
Cheeks coloring, I looked out the window.
“So now that you’ve read some of my stuff, do I get to read some of yours?” Veins thrumming, seeking to scramble out of my body, I looked up at him. The neutral, interested expression didn’t give much away. “A read for a read?”
“No, it’s really bad.”
“I doubt that.” He took a measured sip of coffee, tongue smearing his lips for any leftover liquid. It took physical effort not to let my mouth hang open in a pant. His eyes crinkled in challenge. “Indulge me. Just one. A long one, if you’ve got it.”
With deep, measured breaths, I scrolled through the collection of them on my phone until I managed to find one ambiguous enough I could share. Fingers trembling, I made the words bigger.
What if he hated it?
What if he hated me?
Swallowing thickly, I ripped the words off my screen and threw them into the air like weeds for him to see.
“Scanning, aimless scrolling
For a picture that isn’t there
Deleted, and destroyed, floating somewhere in its ashes
But no longer on my mirror
Bare
Now barren.”
He looked at me with the same concentration as when he was writing. It made my hairs stand on end. That energy changed the chemical makeup of the universe, of the words.
“Something I can crack and cut an
d break
Briefly showing an expression
As distorted as my memory”
My choice in showcase poems was terrible. I could stop. I should stop.
His eyes flickered from my phone to my face, chin subtly nodding to continue. My teeth clattered together with effort, whether to keep the words in or let them out, I wasn’t sure.
It was only fair. I read his whole novel. I changed it. I could read the last few lines.
“A Picasso of passion
Of bricks and windows
Car seats and stains
Unsure if things are scratched and sturdy
Or well-loved and strained
But it’s nothing.
It’s barren.
It’s nothing at all.
Another piece of a puzzle from a box without a cover
Jammed together until the cardboard is bent
The feet broken
A perverted dance of a desperate image
One that darkens and crumbles, fading faster than a flash
Until we’re shadows, dazzled by the shavings of what could have been a light.”
The trigger on the side of my phone darkened the screen. It made a plastic, heavy sound when I slid it onto the table. In my peripheral, I could tell he was studying me, absorbing everything. Whatever it was.
“You don’t have to say anything.” I shrugged, glancing out the window. “It’s just poetry.”
My daily insanity.
The mild steaming background noise provided a nice, easy ambiance for thinking. Reading. Writing. I should’ve brought that book back, but it might’ve been weird to explain should I have been caught. Plus, I liked having it as an anchor of that day. The woman from the counter might’ve noticed if I returned it and said something. Or Reed, seeing me donate it back to the shelf… he might have thought I was some weirdo who randomly dropped books off at coffee shops, who wrote poetry about… nothing.
It was nothing. Just a way to deal with the past that was better off buried. It was bad. I was bad for digging it up again.
I sighed, ready to change the subject, but as soon as we made eye contact, Reed’s sharp expression pinned my tongue down.
“I know it’s appropriate to give snaps at those corner café readings, but I’ve always found the practice to be painfully awkward. I’m not really sure what’s appropriate to do. Or ask. Or, um, say, for that matter.”