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He couldn’t help but smile, genuinely smile, at her obvious apprehension. Although why she was so nervous, he didn’t know. “Good. How ’bout you?”
“Okay,” she said and then shook her head, briefly shutting her eyes before opening them again and trying on a smile. She had a really cute smile, wide and all teeth. “I’m fantastic, I mean.”
He stared at her for a beat, completing a quick catalogue of her features: her dark arched eyebrows, light-brown eyes with the slightest ring of honeyed green on the edge, her hair faded from dark brunette to purple at the bottom. He licked his lips before the faintest curl tilted them up as he repeated, “Fantastic.”
“Are you, um…” She waved a carrot stick in the air. “What do you think?”
Leaning toward her, he lifted his eyebrows. “Of what?”
She glanced over his shoulder then met his eyes once again. “The picnic.”
“It’s great.” He grabbed a cheeseburger from one of the platters while Samantha scrubbed the side of her fist against her forehead before laughing. A little maniacally.
“Dear Jesus,” she murmured. “The soundtrack of this conversation is like an anvil falling from the sky.”
Mike stuttered on his breath as he laughed. He didn’t laugh often, but when her shoulders sagged in relief—or maybe embarrassment, he wasn’t sure which—and she gave in to her own laugh, he couldn’t help himself.
He squirted ketchup on his burger before placing it back down next to the other condiments. “Are you the coyote or roadrunner in this scenario?”
Samantha’s cheeks flushed, and Mike found himself smiling again.
“I’m not sure,” she said and bit into the carrot stick. His eyes snapped down to her mouth as she chewed and swallowed. And for one moment, one long and heavy moment, everything seemed to still, the light breeze, the birds, the music, it all quieted around them. Or maybe he imagined it because once their eyes met again, it all went back to normal, sounds and feelings and anvils crashing around him.
And he had to get away.
“It’s good to see you,” he said then walked away from her, back to his table, where Jimmy smirked at him. “What?”
The little shit shook his head, snagging a potato chip from Mike’s plate.
“What?”
Jimmy lifted one shoulder. “What was that with Sam? You trying to flirt with her or something?”
“Leave it alone, Jim,” Adam scolded, propping Emma up on his shoulder.
“I don’t flirt.” Mike curled his shoulders over his plate, sticking his fork into the macaroni salad.
“No?” Jimmy stole a pickle from Mike’s plate. “Of course you don’t. You don’t do anything fun. One hundred percent serious, one hundred percent of the time.”
Mike shoved a forkful of food into his mouth. “Fuck off.”
His brother patted his shoulder as he stood up. “Didn’t quite catch that grunt, but I heard bears like to eat alone.”
“Fuck off,” Mike said louder and clearer this time, to the horror of their mother at a nearby table.
“Michael!”
Jimmy slid his arm around their mother’s shoulders, innocent as always, while Adam stifled a laugh. Then Mike really did let out a grunt and tucked back into his food.
4
Finding a seat at a table next to Nancy, a neighbor from down the street, Sam plopped down on a chair as her brother pleaded his case to their father.
“I told Ava I’d be there.”
Their dad leaned one elbow on the table, his other hand reaching out toward Eddie, sniffing around the grass for crumbs. “So?”
“So?” Gavin repeated on a whine, swiping his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
