“Yeah? What’s my favorite color?”
“… Green?”
“Blue. What pizza toppings do I like?”
“I really don’t think they’re going to ask about—”
“See? We’re screwed.”
Adam draws in a breath, a serious set to his brows. “Do you want to bail?”
I shake my head. “We can’t bail.”
Mae made it clear she wouldn’t take down the post unless we played along, and she strikes me as mildly unhinged, so I wouldn’t put it past her to promote it even more if we piss her off.
So really, there’s only one solution.
“We have ten minutes to learn everything important about each other.”
CHAPTER TENADAM
“So, we met at work,” Eleanor says matter-of-factly. “Where was our first date?”
We find a couple of free lounge chairs across the pool from the stage, and I open the bag of pretzels I snagged from the snack bar on the way over and hand them to Eleanor. She needs to eat something, and I figured these would be a safe choice, since they’re packaged and bland.
I make myself comfortable, legs stretched out and one of the complimentary towels tucked under my neck like a pillow, while Eleanor sits with her legs crisscrossed on the chair next to mine, pretzels cradled between her palms and her back ramrod straight. She is taking this extremely seriously. Which is hard for me to wrap my head around, to be honest, because she’s right—we have zero chance of winning. None whatsoever. Despite the fact that Eleanor seems to know this, it’s obvious part of her is still hoping.
Maybe it’s a side effect of seeing her suffer through apanic attack earlier, but I am not equipped to crush that hope. So I play along.
“Where’s your favorite date spot?” I ask her.
“I don’t know. Just pick somewhere.” When I take too long thinking, she huffs and says: “How about Bestia?”
My nose wrinkles automatically. “A dinner date? That’s so boring.”
“It’s not boring, it’s classic.”
“I think the word you’re looking for iscliché.” I’m aware that this conversation is going off the rails a bit. That none of this is particularly important, in the grand scheme of things. But Eleanor’s nostrils flare when she gets indignant. It’s cute and I can’t help myself. “What about the zoo?”
“Was this a date or a fourth-grade field trip?”
I snort a laugh, and Eleanor’s lips twitch with the urge to smile in response. “Oh, or the botanical gardens!”
“… Sure. Fine. You took me to the botanical gardens.” She shakes her head and shoves a pretzel into her mouth.
I turn my face toward the sun and grin. “And since it’s right there, we took a stroll through the zoo after, so you could see the sloths.”
This actually does sound like fun. I’d go on this date. Not with Eleanor, necessarily. Though it takes surprisingly little effort to picture the two of us strolling through the gardens, one arm slung across Eleanor’s shoulders to keep her close.
“How’d you know I like sloths?”
“You had that calendar on your desk,” I say, feeling some mixture of caught out and smug. “One of the months had a photo of sloths, and after the month was over you tore out the page so you could hang that picture up.”
Her eyebrows hike up toward her hairline. “I forgot about that.”
The unspoken addendum is that she can’t believe I remembered. Which admittedly is kind of weird. It’s not like I remember every little interaction we’ve ever had. But we started at Exeter together, and then she became a bit notorious in our shared circles, and then the whole thing with Maya happened. So yeah, it’s fair to say Eleanor has always been on my radar.
I clear my throat. “So, next question. Biggest pet peeve?”
