Chapter 14
Fourteen
Filming is moving forward, but Ben Carter seems to be struggling with the role. Was he really the right choice?
Article clip by The LA Reporter magazine.
Zeke sits on the loveseat in his room, inviting me with a gesture to do the same.
I sit next to him, not too close but not too far.
I notice that none of the boxes that line the walls of his room have been unpacked, and the walls are still bare.
Besides the mess of boxes, his room is tidy.
No dust on the bookshelves, and the bed is neatly made. I approve.
“So . . .” I say. “What do you most want to see in Seattle?”
“Everything,” Zeke says. “I know I made it part of our deal, but are you sure it’s not going to be too much of a pain to show me around?
” His D&D stuff is set up again on the table in what looks like an epic campaign, with figures of goblins, warriors, and dragons staging a battle on a map that takes up the entire table.
I shake my head. “Not at all. I think it will be fun. Plus, it will be good for my campaign. People will love seeing pictures of what we’re doing and that we’re hanging out outside of school, too.
” I desperately hope that they’ll love it, anyway.
“And it will prove to your parents that we’re friends, right? ”
Zeke nods. “Right.”
A TV on the wall behind Zeke shows a paused video game. A character with blonde hair in a blue outfit stands in a field of green. “Is that the game you were talking about?”
Zeke turns his head to look. “Yeah. It’s the first open-world Zelda game, and it’s my favorite, even though Tears of the Kingdom is awesome, too.”
I blink. Half of that sentence did not make sense to me.
Zeke turns back to me. “Do you want to try it? Zelda games are always really well done, and they’re more puzzles than anything.
I bet you’d be really good at it since you’re killer at calculus.
The characters are all well-developed, the art is gorgeous, and the storyline—” Zeke closes his mouth and mimes zipping it shut.
“Sorry. I could talk about Zelda all day.”
I smile. “I don’t mind. I do want to join you on your channel.” But maybe not today, I think. I’m still nervous about that. I can’t quite predict how people will react. “Why don’t we make our plan first and then see if we have time?”
“Sounds good. Well, I’ve heard of Pike Place Market.”
“We definitely need to see that.” I pull out my notebook with our rules in it and my fuzzy pink pen and write it down. “It’s one of my favorite places in the city. The energy there is amazing, and you can get the most random, cool stuff.” I add a star next to it.
Zeke scoots a tiny bit closer on the couch, and I stiffen. He leans closer to me to read the notebook. Why is my whole body on fire? This is ridiculous.
“Awesome. It sounds like you really love that place.”
“It’s been too long since I’ve been,” I say. “There’s also the first Starbucks ever close by there, so we should definitely go.” I add it to the list but then look up. “Are you a coffee drinker?”
Zeke shrugs. “Occasionally.”
I add to the list “get pumpkin spice lattes and convert Zeke into a coffee lover”.
Zeke grins, and why do I love that smile so much? His smile is like a pan of brownies fresh from the oven—warm and rich. That must be the reason. Not that his lips look delicious. I feel my face reddening so I shut off that line of thought.
I swallow. “As long as we’re there we might as well go see the Fremont Troll.”
“Okay?”
“You’ll see. It’s only like ten minutes away from Pike Place.” I add it to the list. “Anything else you’re dying to see?”
Zeke shrugs again. “You tell me. You’re the native.”
I think for a minute. “Well, the MoPop is a really cool pop culture art museum. And there’s the Seattle Aquarium, which is super fun.” I glance up to see if Zeke approves. “The aquarium is mostly for little kids, I guess, but it’s still interesting to see local fish and . . . stuff.”
Zeke nods, content to watch me write and plan out his life.
I clear my throat. “Well, there’s nothing else I can think of now, but we can always add to the list later if there’s something else you want to see around here.”
“So after I visit all these places, I’ll be a true Seattle-ite?” Zeke asks, a hopeful look on his face.
I smile. “Either that or the most touristy tourist there ever was.”
Zeke puts on a mock offended look and reaches behind him to throw a pillow at me. I gasp and hold up my notebook to defend myself. I’m about to reach for another pillow and throw it at him, but that would be flirty, wouldn’t it?
“And,” I say, deliberately letting go of the cushion. “We will take pictures of everything we do and post them on social media for our classmates—and parents—to see.”
“You are forgetting one thing,” Zeke says. “What about the Space Needle? We have to go up! I cannot live in Seattle without seeing the Space Needle.”
My stomach drops. “Umm . . .”
“Have you been?” Zeke asks. “Is it a cool view? It’s expensive to go up, I know, but I’ll cover it.”
I click my pen tip in and out. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been.”
Zeke’s eyes go huge. “What? Too touristy?”
I shake my head. “No . . .” I can’t say it. It’s too embarrassing. “I—I—”
“Never had time?”
“No, I just—”
Zeke gives me a concerned look, and it’s really sweet. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m terrified of heights.”
Zeke pauses. “Hmm. That is a tough fear to have.”
I put the notebook back in my backpack, hoping that that will signal the end of our list-making for now.
“You’re not going to make fun of me? Or push me to go rock climbing or something?
” That’s what Noah did when he first found out about my fear.
He took me on a surprise date to a rock climbing place.
It was indoor, and padded, and supposedly completely safe, and he had this plan to help me get over my fear, but I just couldn’t do it.
I screamed and made a complete idiot of myself.
Zeke looks surprised. “Why would I do that? Everyone has different things they’re afraid of.”
“Yeah?” I say, relaxing just a tad. “What’s your biggest fear?”
“Spiders,” Zeke says without hesitation.
“Spiders?” I laugh. “You’ve come to the wrong place.
They are everywhere here. Before we moved to the neighborhood we’re in now, we lived in a smaller house that had two bushes on either side of the front door.
Every day I’d leave the house and have to wave a stick in front of my face or I’d hit a spiderweb. ”
Zeke shivers. “Oh my holy fudge. Don’t tell me that.”
“Why spiders? Did one bite you as a kid?”
Zeke shakes his head. “No, nothing like that.” He picks up a dragon figurine from the D&D table and examines it. “They’re just . . . so creepy and ugly. Have you seen pictures of them up close, with their eight eyes and just . . . ewww.” A shudder rolls through Zeke’s body.
I can’t help but laugh. “They are gross.”
“I am utterly terrified of them.” Zeke smiles, and he’s so relaxed, so unafraid to admit to being who he is. How does he do that?
“Well, that’s how I feel about heights,” I say. “I know it’s closed in. I know theoretically we won’t fall off, but I can’t go up there. I can’t.”
Zeke sets the figurine down and reaches in my backpack with a questioning eyebrow. I nod. He takes out the notebook and pen and flips open to the page of things we want to do. He scribbles something and then hands it to me.
On the notebook I read, “Space Needle. But only if Callie is ready.”
My heart warms.
I can’t face that fear, but Zeke’s thought is sweet. I know he won’t push me to do something I don’t want to do.