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He smirks, and that knocks my annoyance down by five percent. He’s too cute when he smirks. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course, but?—"
“I’ve got this.” He pulls on his tee shirt, then goes to the door while I remain hiding beneath the blanket. He mumbles something to the delivery guy, then closes the door, so I peek my head up. What he’s holding doesn’t make any sense. Three pizza boxes for the two of us.
“How much do you think I can eat, Anderson?”
He laughs. “I don’t ever eat pizza, and when I do, I go a little overboard. Come on. It’s way past lunchtime.” He vanishes into my kitchen.
Alright then. I yank on some clothes, because it feels weird to walk around and eat without them, then join him in the kitchen. The boxes are open, and the pizzas look strange. “What, um, what’s all this about?”
“So, because I go overboard on pizza, I like to make each half different. Left to right, we have half cheese, half pepperoni. The middle is half pineapple and anchovy and half veggie supreme. The third is half meat lovers and half vegan.”
I am mystified. Looking up at him, I’m sure my face tells him my question.
He grins. “It’s fun to mess with them. Dig in.” He grabs a slice of each one, and I am fascinated to see him try to eat six slices. I snag a pineapple and anchovy and a vegan, and follow him out to the living room. He eyes my selections. “See? You have to start trusting me with these things.”
“Okay. First, meat lovers and vegan should be illegal. It’s naughty in a way that I can’t wrap my head around. Second, how in the hell did you remember pineapple and anchovy?”
“That it’s your favorite, you mean?”
I nod, too smiley to speak.
He hesitates and takes a bite of his slice before washing it down. “I remember the field trip we took, and how we ended up lost and at a Pizza Hut because it was the only restaurant around that all the kids were happy about and could take all of us. And everyone ordered their own pizzas, and you got pineapple and anchovy?—"
“And it was the one time you didn’t make fun of me for something.”
He nods. “As much as I was an absolute dick to you—still sorry for that, by the way—I was intrigued. So, I ordered pepperoni because I wasn’t brave enough to be that weird, but I watched you dig into yours with abandon, and you enjoyed it so much that I was jealous. After that fiasco, I tried it myself, and well, I’ve been hooked ever since.”
I’m lost. “You couldn’t order the kind of pizza you wanted? I don’t understand.”
“And that’s what I like about you. It wouldn’t occur to you to be self-conscious about your pizza toppings. You weren’t afraid to be judged for it. You ordered it and enjoyed the hell out of it.”
“It’s pizza. It’s meant to be enjoyed.”
He leans close and kisses me, tasting like heaven. “You are meant to be enjoyed.”
I don’t know why, but that makes me giggle and blush. “Shut up.”
He laughs. “You’re so damn cute.”
I cannot take his full attention right now or the fact that he remembered all of that, so I focus on something else or I will spiral out into wondering what that means. Why does he remember so much stuff that I tried to forget? That trip was a disaster for me. We were supposed to go to Six Flags, and somehow, we ended up at a Pizza Hut in a tiny town. It was one of the old ones that still needed remodeling. Crap, I’m spiraling. Whatever.
I was so disappointed and annoyed, but the kids in my class were worse. Whining to the teachers and chaperones and demanding to speak to someone over them. It was the first time I really understood the difference between me and them. All those factors made the day awful.
But for Anderson, it was the day to learn my favorite toppings.
“How long did you have a crush on me, Anderson?”
He pauses, no longer digging into his pizza. To my surprise, he’s downed four of the slices already. “Pretty much from the day I met you. Is that a problem?”
I’m not even sure how to process that, but I laugh. “No. Not really.”
“What is it?”
“I just … I wish I’d known about your crush back then.”
He slowly nods. “I wish I had been given the tools to understand it back then. But being a kid and not understanding what I was feeling made for a bad time. If I could change that history, June, I would.”
