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I lift my cone to toast hers. "To ice cream."
"To ice cream."
"I can't believe you don't like this anymore," I say as I devour mine. "Mint chocolate is the bomb."
"Correction," she says, lifting her cone to my lips, "cherry is the bomb."
I take a lick, then consider. "It is the semi-bomb." I lean in as she moves it away. "May need a few more licks to decide for sure."
She just laughs, pushing me away. "You've got your own."
I extend my cone out to her. "Which I'm happy to share with you."
She just shakes her head. "Some things don't come back."
"But some do," I say.
It's only when her gaze flickers my way that I realize we weren't talking about the ice cream.
I clear my throat. "So, about tonight."
"Not sure I can," she says.
"Oh?"
"I've got this thing."
"This thing."
It's there again, crackling in the air. This unsaid something.
I've never been a paranoid guy. Or even a particularly observant one. But I know this: there's something she's not telling me.
"I had a great time, though," she says quietly, finishing her ice cream.
How she ate it so damn fast is beyond me. Unless she planned her early exit all along.
"That your way of saying you want to go?" I say.
"You OK with that?" Her eyes are part challenge, part sad.
"Does it matter if I am?"
"No." She tosses the napkin and the end of her cone - ha, some things haven't changed - into the garbage.
"Alright. I'll walk you to your car."
"You don't have to."
"I'm not walking you to your car because I have to."
When I hold out my arm, she takes it. We walk in silence.
It's getting dark, almost night. The time of hot dates and wild nights out. Wonder which she's doing.
Or maybe it's back to the grind - how she used to back in the day, late nights in the library, studying.
When we get to her car, she looks so nervous and sad and yet kissable, those pouty lips, with the bottom one way fuller than the top, like they were crafted to kiss, that I can't help it. I kiss her.
She pulls away, trying not to look happier. But she is. I know I am.
"When you said we'd come here as friends... did you mean it?"
Her gaze is searching, and finds its answer long before I ask, "Is it so wrong to want to be with you?"
Her chuckle makes her whole face go sad again. Why is it that when I'm around her, half the time I can't land on the right thing to say? It's usually so easy for me.
"I don't know," she says. "It doesn't feel like it, but... I don't know."
She gets in her car, and, through the window pane, I can see her say, "Goodbye, Landon."
I watch her pull into traffic and drive away.
**
On my way back to my car, I check my phone. Nothing from her, but a few missed calls from Nolan, and a pissy text: You dead or what?
I call him up. "Not dead, sorry."
He sighs. "I was so enjoying the thought of inheriting Dad's green leather couch."
"Why?" I say. "You pass out on it often enough anyway."
He chuckles. "True. Speaking of - you down for Storm-ing the club at LAVO?"
"Greyson is too?" I ask, surprised.
Ever since he got married to Harley, he barely goes out. Other than that brotherly intervention the other day. Not that I blame him. He has a wife he loves, and a kid to look after. Clubbing doesn't exactly rank up there with those.
Not that it's a sacrifice I'd happily make. Kids are great and all, but I've seen too many friends devoured by the whole 'perfect parent' identity. Before you know it, they haven't had sex with their wife in months, are gabbing about how 'Anthony's just great with these Baby Einstein videos, he even learned to walk two weeks earlier than normal', and are genuinely oblivious to how little the rest of the world cares. Or maybe I'm just an emotionless monster.
"Hello? Landino?" Nolan says.
Huh. I've been zoning out a bunch today.
"Yeah?"
"I said no, but who needs him anyway? He's always scaring the hot ones off."
"By asking them what their intentions are?" I chuckle. "He's just making sure our baby brother Emerson doesn't get roped in again."
"That was his own damn fault," Nolan declares, chuckling himself. "Although Jesus, Cynthia was worth every penny."
"Say that to Emerson's savings." I shake my head. "How much did he lose on her?"
"Don't want to know," Nolan says. "I feel kind of extra-bad about it too, since I banged her after they broke up."
"Nolan."
"I know, I know. But I got back some of the cash she stole from Emerson, so it wasn't all bad."
"You martyr, you."
"OK, enough about me, though. How's the case going?"
"Shitty."
"And Kyra? You land that one in the bag yet?"
I'd almost forgotten. How this all started. Me bragging and being a tool with my brother. Now's my chance, though, because I have pulled it off.
