“Why do I put up with you again?” Autumn’s words were tinged with mock exasperation.
Jack elbowed her. “Maybe since I brought you here in the first place?”
“You’re just going to lord that over me forever.”
He nodded, as if to say, “duh.”
Autumn turned her focus back to me. “Jack, this is Jamie. We knew each other in high school.”
She didn’t say we were together, just that wekneweach other.
Ren looked between Autumn and me with sudden interest. “Wait, you get to call him Jamie?” He whipped his head around, eyes like saucers, waiting for me to explain.
She looked perplexed. “What do you call him?”
“James?”
Autumn’s face contorted. “That makes you sound like a lawyer who hasn’t touched grass in years because he’s cooped up in his office.”
“I am a lawyer…Hey.”
Jack was also looking between Autumn and me, and something passed when he met Autumn’s eyes. He quirked his eyebrows. “This is Jamie?”
“Yeah. The one and only.” I did my best not to sound smug.
Jack’s eyes focused on me for a moment, as if he wanted to ask something but seemed to change his mind. “I would have paid good money to see a teenage Autumn stumbling over her words on the debate team.”
“Stumbling? More like ripping people to shreds and taking no prisoners.”
Autumn blushed, and Jack gave her a look, but I couldn’t decipher it.
“Like that time at the Hollygrove Debate?” I asked.
“You mean at districts? When we argued that the infrastructure of Seattle could withstand a zombie apocalypse?”
I explained to our clueless counterparts. “Our argument was that we could take the monorail to the Space Needle, and the zombies wouldn’t be able to operate the elevator to the top.”
At the time, I couldn’t believe how passionate she got about something so silly, but her energy and hard facts had won us the debate. That day, no one had been prepared for our level ofdedication or our zombie apocalypse knowledge. That was also when I’d learned Autumn had never been to the top of the Space Needle, and so I’d rectified that immediately as a reward for our win.
Ren looked from her to me and back. “So you’d trap yourselves in the Space Needle?”
We both laughed, as if we were the only ones in on the joke.
“There’s enough food and drink and a view of the entire city to see where to go next.” Autumn chuckled. “Plus, we’d know how to fortify shit, obviously.”
I brought up another classic. “My other favorite debate was about two songs by the same indie artist spanning decades and which had the bigger social impact and why.”
We’d debated the lyrics, bars, and overall genius. Both songs were incredible. I tried not to look as Autumn’s hand found itself on my forearm for the briefest moment before she cradled her chin.
“Later, I’ll play the songs for you. Their haunting melodies remind me of that new tune you were working on the other night.” Autumn mimed playing a guitar.
Great. And he played guitar.
Jack, to his credit, immediately tried to change the subject. “That’s really Leo’s thing. You know, Mr. One-man Band,” he explained to Ren and me. “He always jokes that all he needs to complete the ensemble is a tambourine. He was so high that night.” Autumn started laughing at Jack’s mention of a tambourine. She was about to explain, to clue us in on the inside joke, when Ren spoke up.
“Stop already. I’m not used to this. I’m never on the outside of an inside joke,” Ren griped before waving his fork between Autumn and Jack. “Tell us instead, how did you two meet?”
I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the details. At least Autumn was with someone like him. He made her happy, clearly, but did she need to brag about him this whole damn dinner?
