Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

This…sucks. I stand up and look around. No heat. No money. Objectively, it sucks. So why do I feel a sense of excitement, like I’m a kid at Christmas? This is exactly what I’ve wanted.

The laptop finally boots, and then, because that was apparently too much work for it, the fan turns on with a loud whir. Across the room, the fridge starts up with a hum. That thing must be decades old. I can practically smell the Freon leaking from it. And then—I should have known this was coming—the fuse pops with a loud snap and the lights go off again.

“Goddammit,” I swear.

“I’m going to wait in the car,” Maria says.

I don’t blame her. I hear, rather than watch, Tina flip the fuse. Light returns.

“Probably not a good idea to run the fridge and the laptop at the same time,” she tells me.

This is…fucked up. On the other hand, even if I suspected shenanigans, I can’t figure out how they could actually have arranged to make this happen.

“Because I’m nice,” Tina says, “I’ll tell you what it took us two months to figure out. Just don’t use the fridge. Not for anything. You’re a block from a grocery store. If you don’t store perishables, you don’t need the fridge.” She takes a deep breath. “Also, save anything on the laptop before you use the microwave.”

“Don’t tell me.” I eye the blue-hinged beast before me. “The battery doesn’t work.”

“Not really.” She sighs. “It’s like having all the detriments of a laptop with none of the portability.”

I shake my head at her. “Why do I get the impression that you’re enjoying this?”

Her smile is just a little shaky. “You seem to be under the impression that my life is some back-to-nature serenity camp. It’s going to be amusing watching you realize that it’s not simple. It’s not a tourism home stay. You’re going to crash and burn.”

I let out a breath. She stands in place, her hands in fists.

And that’s what it is. I want. For me, it’s simple. For her…she hasn’t had time for bullshit. I know she’s attracted to me, at least a little bit. I also know she doesn’t want to be.

I want her.

But you know what I want most? I don’t want her to break down and quash her reluctance. I don’t want her to surrender to me. I want her to want to want me, not to want me grudgingly against her will.

“You’re right,” I say. “I’m full of shit. I have no idea what I’m doing. This is going to be hard, and maybe I’m going to fail and fail and fail again.”

Her eyes widen.

“But you know what? There’s one thing I’m not going to do. I promised you when we started that you were important. So I’m not going to call your life a back-to-nature serenity camp or a tourism home stay. I may be clueless. I may be taken aback. It may be that I have no idea what to do with $15.22 because I have never even gone grocery shopping before. But this is your life. It matters.”

She inhales sharply. “Fine.” And then she turns to leave.

“One other thing.”

She turns back to me slowly. She doesn’t say anything.

“It’s okay to like me,” I tell her. “Eventually, just about everyone does.”

TINA

My hands are shaking by the time I go to his car.

It’s okay to like me.

Too late; that seed was planted weeks ago. I’m a shitty enough liar that Blake’s already seen everything I wanted to keep hidden. This isn’t going to work.

A voice in the back of my mind stirs—my mother’s voice, dimly remembered. Xingjuan, you have to be careful.

Ha. As if my mother was ever careful about anything. I yank the door handle—it still freaks me out that the handle comes out of the car for me as I approach—and, once I’m in, slam the door.

Maria is waiting for me in the passenger seat. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t point out that my hands are shaking. She knows I’ll say something about it as soon as I’m ready.

This isn’t some beat-up, decades-old Camry like my parents drive. Blake gave me a brief explanation on the way over. This is a completely electric vehicle, something so new and space-age shiny I wasn’t even aware that it existed. It has a thousand features I didn’t even know cars could have. This car, with its dark leather and sleek electronic displays, probably cost him more than four years of my college tuition.

It takes me two minutes to figure out how to adjust the seat and mirrors from their previous position—chosen to accommodate Blake’s long legs. There are no levers, nothing manual. Everything slides whisper-smooth into place at the touch of a button.

That leads me to the second problem: I don’t know how to turn the car on, and I’m not about to go back and ask him. There’s no key, no ignition—it’s an electric car; what would there be to ignite? There’s not even a big button labeled “power.”

I finally get out my phone in desperation and send a text.

Blake, how do you turn your car on?

The answer takes a few moments. Are you sitting in the car? Do you have the electronic fob?

Yes. And yes.