AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Local hero, Cassidy Darling, has brought the cat safely to the ground. Mr. Darling, what were you thinking as you took off your shirt to bundle this cat in? Were you thinking of the baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger?"
"Uh," Cassidy said, head spinning. "No."
Then River was beside him, holding the cat carrier, eyes wide with relief.
"Thank you so much," they said over and over.
Cassidy tried to nod, but his body had reached its limit. As if they saw something in his eyes, River put a hand between his shoulder blades, cool and soft against his burning skin, and encouraged him through the crowd toward the bathrooms. Once shot of them, River took the bundle of Priest and Cassidy’s shirt, untangled the cat, and deposited it in the cat carrier.
"You," River threatened Priest. But they didn’t get any further than that. "And you."
For a second. Cassidy thought there was another cat that he hadn’t noticed. Then he realized River was talking to him.
River handed his shirt back and Cassidy slipped it on.
"Excuse me for a moment," he managed, then he ran out the door to the parking lot and splattered the snow with coffee and stomach acid.
CHAPTER 10
River
River: People, amirite?
Adam: Aww, people are great! How was day 2? Make any friends??
Adam: Also remind me to tell you about how Gus almost got us banned from the new yarn store!
River: People, amirite?
Simon: ugh, yes -__- you are right
River: Any interest in thoroughly deriding humanity together?
Simon: only if it’s over pie.
River: But of course.
Peach’s Diner was a staple in Garnet Run. It didn’t matter who you were or what you did, sooner or later you found your way there and once you had, you couldn’t wait to return. The pie was great, yes. But Peach’s was a place where you could hide in plain sight and people would usually leave you alone.
River had tea and pie ordered by the time Simon slid into the booth across from them, pulling off a gray and white knit hat with a yellow pom on the top.
He sketched a salute and River smiled.
Their friendship had happened slowly, and it was a relationship that River treasured. Simon had an anxiety disorder that made socializing hard for him. But since they’d first bonded over being the two people at every gathering who never said much, the relationship they’d struck up was one that valued ease and comfort and dispensed with the social niceties that neither of them valued.
Pie and tea were placed before them on the table: peach and jasmine for Simon and cherry and chamomile for River. Melba winked at Simon but said nothing and gave River a squeeze of the shoulder. Then she left them alone, as they preferred.
"So," River said. "The most horrible thing in the world has happened."
Simon’s face asked, Oh, god, what?
"Ugh." River hid their face in their hands. "Ihaveacrush."
Oh no, Simon’s face said. Who?
River groaned, took a bite of cherry pie and a sip of chamomile tea, and told him everything.
When they got to the part about the ladder and the Christmas tree, Simon’s eyes widened.
"No shit? I saw that on the news," he said.
"What?!"
Simon snorted and pulled out his phone. When he handed it to River, the video on screen showed a shirtless Cassidy cradling a tiny bundle in his arms. His handsome face was creased with pain—although River doubted someone who wasn’t looking for it would notice—and his muscles bulged. He looked for all the world like the hero on the cover of a romance novel.
River groaned.
"That’s the guy?" Simon asked. "Jeez. Well. Uh. Wow."
"I know," River groaned. "It’s pathetic."
Simon waved this away, but River knew he understood their angst. One thing they appreciated about Simon was that he didn’t engage in the kind of toxically cheery encouragements that some people meant well doing. He understood the basic realities of the universe, which were that people generally sucked and when they didn’t you just had to stick around for a little while to see that they did.
"Okay, so how do I stop … you know?"
Simon grimaced. "Well, after tomorrow you don’t have to see him again, right?"
River nodded, the truth of that instantly deflating them.
"You don’t wanna stop."
River shoved the last bite of pie in their mouth, letting the sweetness of sugar, the tartness of cherries, and the richness of butter mingle in their mouth in the perfect pie ratio.
That was what love should be like: disparate ingredients combining to produce something greater than any one was on its own.
"When I first met Jack," Simon said softly, leaning in, "he terrified me."
"He can definitely be a dick," River muttered.
Simon glared, eyes flashing, then allowed that, yes, he could be.
"It wasn’t that, though," Simon said. "It was that he reminded me of all the people all my life who didn’t have to experience what I experienced. I didn’t trust that he had any context to understand me or my life."
