We don’t discuss this.
Around noon Jack appears, as Jack does, with the energy of a weather event and the subtlety of one too.
“Tristan,” he says, leaning over the counter. “I need you to settle something.”
“I’m working.”
“It’s quick.” He looks at Lola with the brightnesshe gets around things that amuse him, which has been a constant since she arrived. “Lola. If you had to choose between ring toss and the maze as a pure entertainment experience—”
“Maze,” she replies, without looking up.
“That’s what I said,” Jack says triumphantly.
“I said ring toss,” I mutter. “On the basis that the maze is deliberately disorienting and ring toss is at least honest about what it is.”
“The maze is also honest about what it is,” Lola points out. “It saysmaze.It’s not pretending to be a straight corridor.”
“Fair point,” I concede.
“I knew I liked her,” Jack says.
“You say that every time she agrees with you.”
“I say it every time she’s interesting, which is constantly.” He steals a piece of fried dough from the plate and points at Lola. “Tonight, carnival opening. You’re coming.”
“I’m not—”
“I’m not asking.” He’s already backing away. “Tristan will bring you. It’s on the schedule.”
“I don’t have a—”
But he’s gone, the impressive vanishing act he does when he’s said what he came to say and wants to exit before the response arrives.
Lola looks at me like I’m responsible for him. I guess in a way, I am. The pack membership isn’t always convenient.
“He does that,” I say.
“I’ve noticed.” She returns to the prep work. “I’m not going to some—”
“You don’t have to go. But the opening night is worth seeing. The full lights, the whole town out. It’s the one night a year where Sweetwater Valley is alive and busy.”
She’s quiet.
“And you’ve been working all day,” I add. “Youshould see it.”
“You sound like you’re trying to sell me something.”
“I’m not.” I check the burner, adjust the temperature, wipe my hands on the cloth. “I just think you’ve been running a long time and a carnival at full light is a nice thing to experience for an hour.”
The silence has a different quality than her usual silences. Less deflection, more consideration. I don’t push it.
The afternoon heat builds and the prep work winds down. At some point I look up and realize the light has gone golden and long and we have been working side by side for six hours. I’ve worked alongside pack members for years and the experience of working alongsideheris different in ways I’m still mapping.
She’s efficient without being cold. She makes small dry observations about things, the kind that aren’t quite jokes but land in the same place, and she has clearly decided that I’m a person whose company she can tolerate without bracing herself, which I know because she’s stopped holding herself quite so tightly when I’m in the same space.
It’s a small thing. But it’s also enormous.
I’m cleaning the prep station when she reaches across me for the stock list—she’s doing inventory, methodical and self-directed, nobody asked her to—and her arm crosses mine. It’s not a collision. Just a crossing, her forearm over mine for a second at most,a geometry of two people in a shared space.
