AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I doubt you’ve ever had to try.” Her throat spasmed when his eyes locked on to hers, going coffee-dark. “But what I meant,” she said tightly, “if I remember Angie’s Astrology correctly, is that Geminis are funny, creative, loyal, and…they’re also—”
“Yes?” he pressed. “Don’t leave me hanging. Geminis need constant reassurance, or we develop complexes.”
Tempted to hold her cold glass up to her suddenly scalding cheeks, she said, “Charming. Geminis are notoriously charming.” She slipped her feet out of her shoes so she could wiggle her toes. “Wait, if you’re a Gemini, that means you have a birthday coming up.”
“In a couple of weeks.” His lips twisted. “Fifty-four seems so much older than fifty-three somehow. Like sixty is right around the corner.”
“Well, you look phenomenal.”
“Thank you, Mira.” After another silence so electric it buzzed under her skin, he asked, “Have you ever been to Seattle?”
“Once,” she said. “I was sixteen, and my mom took me and Jen to a Depeche Mode concert over spring break. It was ahugedeal.”
“When?” He leaned his elbows on the table, a storm-like intensity gathering in his eyes.
“When was the concert?”
He nodded.
Counting the years in her head, she said, “I was a sophomore, so it must have been in ’88.”
“I was at that concert.”
She gasped. “Shut up! You were not!”
Sitting back again, he said, “I’ve seen them four times, and that show was one of the best. The Makers weren’t big then, and I remember it was one of the last concerts where I was able to just be a fan in the crowd without having to wear a hat and sunglasses.”
“I can’t believe we were at the same concert. You were really there? You’re not messing with me?”
“I was there, Mira. We might have sat right next to each other, bumped into each other at the merch table, and we never even knew it.”
The space between them stretched and shrank all at once, time flickering from then to now and back again, until he said, “I think it’s your turn.”
She twirled her glass while the music, changing to something more upbeat, inspired her to ask, “What’s your favorite song?”
He straightened. “That’s a very complicated question.”
“I wasn’t going for complicated,” she said, bringing her straw to her lips. “Otherwise, I would have asked if you knew how magnets worked.”
He made a dismissive sound. “Nobody knows that. It’s a miracle.”
She smiled around her straw. But when he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, when it came back out slightly wet, her sip took a sharp left down the wrong pipe.
“I’m going to tell you my favorite song.”
Clearing her throat, she slid her feet back into her shoes and said, “Okay.”
“It’s ‘Straight to Hell’ by the Clash.”
“I have a poster of Joe Strummer smoking a cigarette above my bed.”
“Mira,” he said, deadly serious, his gaze penetrating. “Marry me.”
She snorted, then replied with “Okay.” As a joke, of course, obviously. “Wait, how was that question complicated? You answered it like a champ.”
“Ah!” He raised a finger. “Allow me to explain. While ‘Straight to Hell’ is my brain’s favorite song, we all have a second favorite song. The song that lives in our heart. The song we belt out in the car or in the shower with tears streaming down our faces. The song we never admit to loving as much as we do because nobody else would understand.”
“Our heart song,” she said.
