Chapter 31 #2
“I am, too. It feels like no time has passed,” I say.
“Has he shown you the card he was supposed to give you yet? I found it going through some old things. I just dropped off another box of his stuff when we got here yesterday. Can’t wait to move up here with Pam later this year.”
The card? I suddenly remember Reid saying he made a card to give me in middle school. “No, he hasn’t.”
“Well, remind him, it is the cutest thing ever. He has—had such a crush on you.” Sean smiles and pats my shoulder, walking back to tend the grill.
We gather around the porch as Reid opens his gifts. Tyler gave him a shirt from L.L. Bean, which makes Reid double over in laughter. Not sure why nautical New England apparel is funny, but it’s clearly an inside joke between the two. The cutest bromance I’ve seen.
My fingers tingle as I hand him his gift. He opens the gift bag and is pleased with each record. Pausing at each, flipping them around. He stops at the Sum 41 record, pausing a beat longer, then looking up at me.
“But still, we're trying one more time.” He recites a line from the song that I’ve memorized better than my family’s birthdays. The butterflies inside me panic and swirl around, tensing my shoulders. “Thanks, Anni. This is perfect.”
Reid stands up and gives me a hug, his body warming and relaxing me.
We separate, “You’re welcome, we’ll have to play them at your place soon.”
“Definitely,” he says, giving me a fist bump.
I never thought anywhere else could be hotter than Southern California, but I was wrong. Today is nearly one hundred degrees, and I feel like I’m melting. I don’t think I can exist outside. My fair skin is too sensitive to this sunlight. I hope August cools the valley down.
I slather on my SPF80 before heading out.
I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea to tell Reid I’d walk to his place today, but here I am.
Stomping down the sidewalk while wearing a comically large sunhat.
I look like a flying saucer, but I have enough freckles on my face and shoulders and do not need more.
Chloe is working at the bookstore today, and we decided to drive up to surprise her. Selfishly, because the air conditioning in there is equivalent to north pole temps. Unfortunately, Tyler is booked at work and can’t join us, but he sent us a list of books to pick up on his behalf.
Reid only lives three-quarters of a mile from us in a little townhouse.
His place is cute and simple. It fits his personality perfectly, really.
Everything he could need on two floors. His living room has a large squishy dark brown couch, and his walls are covered with music posters and records.
He has about three giant bookcases filled with books, and even then, he has books stacked along corners of walls.
I think his collection qualifies as a library at this point.
There’s a little galley kitchen off to the side of the living room that has light green cabinets and a window above the sink that overlooks his neighbor’s garden.
His bedroom and the bathroom sit on the second floor, directly above.
I’ve never been in his bedroom, but I peeked inside once and noticed he painted one wall a dark jade green. Clearly, he has a favorite color.
I turn the corner heading down Reid’s street, and I see him bolt out of his house to meet me on the sidewalk.
“Whoa, someone is eager to get to the bookstore.” I head to the passenger side of his pickup truck and slide in.
“The air conditioning in my house is busted. I’m leaving sweat puddles around my house.”
“You are revolting.”
“You love it.” He winks at me as he cranks the air conditioning in his truck.
Shivers cascade down my arms, and I’m not sure which is the cause, the wink or the cool air blasting through the vents.
There is only one long seat in the front. So, nothing divides Reid and me except for about ten inches of the seat. Sometimes when he turns corners too fast, I’ll slide a bit over to his side.
Even though I’m trying to be just his friend, it still feels like too much to be that close to him.
And yet, I don’t want to lie to myself about how I actually feel.
But we are trying this friend thing, so it’s going to be ten inches of distance and fist bumps for the foreseeable future.
Neither of us has brought up the last conversation we had on Flame.
That was technically our last interaction, but that memory is tied with other embarrassing ones, and I try to bury it as deeply as I possibly can.
Reid clicks on the radio, and I’m hurled out of the misery tornado forming inside my head.
He keeps flipping through the channels until he lands on a station he deems acceptable.
It sounds like alt-rock, Reid’s favorite.
He has posters of Blink 182, Sum 41, and Smashing Pumpkins all through his house.
I can recognize the song playing, but I’m not sure who the band is.
Reid is drumming along on his steering wheel and belting the lyrics.
I love that about him. I mean, I don’t love him.
I just like that. Oh, whatever, never mind.
He sings and side-eyes me as I join in on the chorus. We sing along together. He reaches for the volume and turns it up higher while we both shout the bridge.
I try not to think too much about how these lyrics are a scary parallel to the thoughts I was just having, and the tornado starts spinning again.
I shake those thoughts away and let the impromptu karaoke moment bury those thoughts down as I swing my head around.
I pull my fists to my chest as if I wrote these lyrics myself and sing with all my might.
The song ends, and Reid starts cracking up and lowers the volume. “I had no idea you were so passionate about Papa Roach.”
“Oh, is that who sings it? It’s like one of those songs that I just happen to know all the lyrics, but I couldn’t tell you the band that sings it or even what the song is called.”
He throws a sideways smirk my way. “Well, it’s ‘Scars’ by Papa Roach. For future reference.”
I realize his truck has a working radio, and I remember his car in college didn’t. “Your radio works? Did you get a new car?”
He quickly flashes his face over to me, and I can’t quite read his expression, but he just as quickly faces the road again. “This is the same car. I got the radio fixed before I made the road trip up to Oregon. I couldn’t handle all that quiet anymore.”
Our conversation is on the brink of teetering to rocky territory, but thankfully, Reid pulls into the parking lot, and I’m rescued by the sight of Chloe’s waterfall of ashy blond curls through the window.
We hear her squeal before we see her as we walk in and get hit like a slap in the face with the icy air of the store. I can feel the heat radiating off my limbs as Chloe rushes over, greeting us with a hug.
“What are you guys doing here? I won't get off for another hour.”
“I think the earth is melting, and a bookstore is our only salvation,” Reid says as his face relaxes, and he does a small spin with his arms at his side as if he’s praising the lord of the books.
“We’ll hang here until you’re off, and then we can go get some ice cream.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. Let me know if you guys need anything.
I’ll probably be stuck at the registers because it looks like the whole county figured out that we keep it cold in here.
” Chloe turns to shuffle back to the registers, where four more people have joined the line since she greeted us.
Reid and I both get large iced green teas from the connected cafe and aimlessly wander the book aisles.
We spend ten or fifteen minutes not saying much.
He and I follow each other in content silence, occasionally pulling out some books to look at or show each other.
He picks up a paperback from the historical fiction section, and I grab the third book in a series I’ve been reading.
We take our respective choices to the big armchairs in the corner of the store.
We comfortably settle into the chairs and read, not expecting the other to strike up a conversation, just peacefully reading.
I appreciate that he is not saying anything and that we can both happily sit in quiet reading our books.
I’ve felt a sense of calm wash over me recently.
I recall being so self-conscious of each movement not that long ago.
I felt like everyone was always watching me and calculating my moves, judging me.
As if my life choices didn’t measure up to the expectations of passing strangers.
The feeling now brushes past me, a distant memory.
I feel relaxed here. It feels like my place, my home.
I settle deeper in my seat and flip to the next page of my book.
As I do, I can’t help but peer up from my book every so often and look over at Reid.
Our chairs are side by side with a small table in between, but the chairs are slightly angled toward one another.
Depending on what page I’m reading, I can gaze up at him naturally.
A motivation to read faster, I suppose. His hair is shorter now since it’s summer, and he can’t stand his hair getting in his face.
I gotta say, I do miss the way his hair would curl around the baseball caps he wears to work, but his shorter hair looks good too.
It’s short on the sides, and the top has enough volume that it still flops in front of his forehead.
He pushes it back every few minutes. I’m not sure if he is enjoying the book he is reading because his nose is scrunched up, and his thick eyebrows are knitted together.
I refrain myself from reaching over and smoothing the tension between his brows.
I keep trying to keep my eyes on the book in my hands, but my eyes flick up to Reid each time he fingers his hair from his forehead.
He catches me taking one of those stolen glances and meets my gaze with a soft smirk.