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“What if I prefer white wine?” I interject.
Cole arches a brow at me. “Do you?”
“No . . .”
Blaze laughs awkwardly. “Cabernet is okay with me.”
Mason nods and scrams, likely in a hurry to get away from me.
“So, Blaze, where are you from?” I ask, placing my elbow on the table at an angle that has my back turned to Cole, edging him out of the conversation altogether.
I’ve asked Blaze this question before, but hopefully tonight our wires don’t cross.
“Los Angeles, and before that, New York.”
“Big move. Are you happy here so far?”
“Yeah. I love it. I moved to Los Angeles for love, and it turns out that was a pretty dumb reason to haul my crap across the country. I got dumped a week after moving there.”
“Yikes. That’s hard. So why Turks and Caicos?”
He laughs. “It’s actually funny. I thought I’d booked a flight to Turkey.”
I blink really slowly, trying to process this.
He thought he . . .
“Wound up here by accident,” he continues. “I didn’t have enough money to get another flight.” He shrugs and laughs it off. “So here I am. It worked out, though.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s like my brain is fogged over, keeping me from understanding. “You wanted to go to Turkey,the country?”
“Yeah, I was supposed to go backpacking across Europe with a group of guys all summer.”
Slowly, I ask, “And you wound up here by mistake, stayed ...and got a job?”
Cole wisely keeps his mouth shut. I don’t dare look at him.
Blaze laughs, but not hardenough, you know?
To him, it’s something that could happen to anyone. Like, okay, I meant to go to Paris, France, but I ended up in Portland, Oregon, because they’re both cities that happen to start withP. Whoops.Guess I live here permanently now.
The wine comes just in time.
Mason pours me a heaping glass, for which I’m incredibly grateful.
Blaze pushes back from the table. “Be right back. I need to use the little boy’s room.”
He leaves, and Cole and I don’t say a word. I’m not sure we breathe. It’s imperative that I don’t look at him right now, or I’ll break. I’m anSNLcast member midskit, trying to stay in character instead of losing it in a fit of giggles. I roll my lips between my teeth, press down, and keep a sharp focus on my wine. Cole clears his throat, only barely succeeding in stifling his laughter. My smile is fighting for its life, but I resist with everything I have.
“Turkey, huh?” he says, and I have to squeeze my eyes closed and think about sad things. A kitten stuck up in a tree, Bambi’s dead mom, my credit card bill.
When I think I have my composure, I feign a superior tone and lay it on him. “What you see as a lost idiot stumbling through the world,Isee as a free spirit adapting to new environments. How rare!”
“Imagine if he accidentally booked a flight to Syria. He’d be bartending for ISIS right now ...”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can help it. Then I have to turn away and cover my mouth with my hand to keep him from seeing how much I’m struggling here.
Damn it, Cole.
