I took the bite, messily. “That’s the lemon-orange crumb.”
This I remembered specifically, because it had sounded so good. Once inside the coffee shop, we discovered the owner, a guy in an EAT SLEEP FISH baseball hat, was closing up. At the register, a dark-haired boy and his girlfriend, clearly regulars, were getting one last hit of caffeine to go.
“Anywhere else close by to eat at this hour?” Ethan asked them as they paid up.
The girl, wearing shorts and a T-shirt that said CLEMENTINE’S, looked at the boy. “World of Waffles, but it’s not exactly walking distance. Or there’s the Wheelhouse.”
“No,” the guy said flatly. “The coffee there tastes like burnt towels.”
“There’s a twenty-four-hour café at the Big Club,” she suggested. “Lousy coffee, but great people-watching.”
“Auden,” the guy said. “Are you trying to give terrible suggestions?”
“At least I’m suggesting,” she replied. To us she said, “Look, this place is as good as it gets even in daylight hours. Your best bet is to take some pie and drinks to go.”
“Please do,” said the guy behind the counter. “I’ll even give you a deal. Pie is never as good the second day.”
Choosing had taken time with so many selections, all looking delicious, and the owner walking us through the particulars of each. In the end, we’d left with two large coffees, a pie pan filled with one of just about everything, and two forks. The slices looked gorgeous in the case. In the dark, though, it was all about the taste.
“Oh, man.” Ethan sat back, whistling between his teeth, then pointed at the pan. “This one, on the right, is IT. Chocolate and crunchy. And maybe orange?”
I reached across him with my own utensil, taking some. “Pot de crème and mandarin. He said that one was his favorite.”
Ethan helped himself to another huge forkful. As he moved it toward his mouth, a mandarin slipped off, landing on my arm with a splat. “Whoops. Sorry.”
“Look at you,” I said, as he picked it up, still chewing. There was a spot of chocolate on his nose. “You’re a mess.”
“Try to catch this,” he said, rearing back with the segment. I opened my mouth. He threw it, going wide, and hit my ear. “Bad throw. Sorry.”
“Give me that,” I said, taking the pie plate. I dug out another mandarin, pinching it between my fingers, and he set down his fork, readying himself, mouth open. I started laughing even before I launched it, sending it sailing over his head.
He turned, watching it hit the sand. “Well, if you were aiming for the water, I’d call that close.”
“I was,” I said, and then he smiled at me and reached out, pulling me in for a kiss. He tasted like chocolate, and as a breeze blew over us, swirling up sand, I closed my eyes tightly, thinking no, now I wanted to stay in this moment, forever.
This was weird, I knew, as I’d only met him a few hours ago. But with our walk, the dance, all the talking, and now pie, Ethan was already familiar in his quirks and tells. The way he squinted, tightly, before saying something he felt strongly. The slow lope of his big, tall guy walk. The feeling of his class ring, cold and smooth, against my fingers when he took my hand. The trill of his ringtone, a pop song so unexpected that the first time I’d heard it, I’d had to laugh.
We’d been sitting in the sand, sharing pictures on our phones. I showed him Jilly, my mom and William, and the one picture of myself I actually liked, which had been taken under a gazebo at a wedding the previous spring. In turn, I got to see him with the guys he’d been friends with since preschool, posing shirtless, all of their hair wet and cowlicked, by a backyard swimming pool. I’d just been leaning in closer to examine a shot of him on the soccer field when the phone rang, the tone a clip of a girl singing over a bouncy, fizzy beat.
“What is that?” I said, laughing as he scrambled to silence it.
“Don’t do it,” he said, holding up a hand. “Do not mock. You don’t know the whole story.”
I waited.
“If you must know,” he said, looking down at the phone, “it’s Lexi Navigator.”
“Seriously?” All I knew about Lexi Navigator, a teenage singer with a statuesque build and a huge amount of dark hair, were the skimpy outfits and plentiful feathers and body glitter that were her trademark. She was the kind of entertainer defined by the fact that I could name at least three of her outlandish getups off the top of my head, but not one of her songs. “I would not have guessed that.”
“I said don’t mock,” he reminded me.
“Then tell me the story.”
A sigh. Then he squinted. “Okay. So, it’s the beginning of junior year and my buddy Sam’s dad, who’s an entertainment lawyer, gets this block of tickets to a Lexi Navigator show. We’re not doing anything, and it’s the whole VIP thing: limo, backstage passes, all that. So we go.”
“No girls? Just you?”
“What, six guys can’t hit up a Lexi Navigator show in the name of male bonding? You gotta live, right?” I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. “So the seats are, like, third row. We’re all just laughing, making fun of the opening act, having fun. Then she comes out, and there’s fireworks and confetti and she’s in this dress that shoots lasers, wearing a wire basket on her head . . .”
“Wait, a wire basket?”
He shrugged. “That’s what it looked like. And the show is crazy, right? All these greased-up dancers, balloons falling, little girls screaming all around us. Then, about halfway through, she goes into this more mellow part, brings down the lights, puts a stool on the stage, takes a seat.”
“Still wearing the basket?”
“No, by then she’d changed, like, ten times. She had on, like, a crown of snakes and a bikini tuxedo.”
“Of course she did.”
“So she starts talking about the next song,” he continued, “and how it was inspired by her grandmother dying the year before. And then she starts singing, and about a verse in, she’s crying.”
“Really.”
“Yup.” He squinted. “And we’re all sitting there, only a few feet away, and I can see the tears and they’re real, and suddenly I start thinking about my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother’s passed, too?”
“No, she’s fine. Healthy as a horse. Which is what makes this all so stupid.” He sighed. “So I’m watching, and she’s crying, and I’m thinking about Nana, and you know, maybe I get a little emotional myself.”
I waited a second. Then I said, “Maybe?”
“I did.” He coughed. “And, unfortunately, it was seen. And documented by my buddies.”
I reached over, taking his hand again. “Oh, dear.”
“Exactly.” He folded his fingers through mine. “And of course they won’t let it go, even when she changes into a mermaid costume with a real flipper. They’re threatening to post it everywhere, immediately, and I just want to die. And kill them. Or kill them, and then die.”
I laughed. “That seems kind of extreme.”
“You don’t know my guys,” he said. “We’ve been mocking each other since we were in diapers. It’s like an art form. I’m never going to live this down.”