Chapter Seven
Callie leads me back to the lobby and through the door to the restaurant, my hand still firmly clasped in hers. We break apart long enough to hit the bathrooms and wash off all the arcade germs. I drop into a booth, and she scoots in next to me.
"Thanks for that," she hums. "I had a great time.
I'm starving now, though. What's good to eat here?
" She reaches over me to slide a menu out from the stand on the table and lays it out in front of us.
"Oh, this looks good!" She points to a picture of a giant plate of nachos and then looks at me expectantly, but she's so close to me right now that my brain is short circuiting.
I'm not even sure what she's asking but it doesn't really matter so I just smile and nod.
I could have just agreed to give her a kidney, and I'd be fine with it.
A waiter comes over to take our order, and she takes the reins, greeting him with way more sunshine than he's used to.
She orders a big platter of supreme nachos, a sweet tea for herself, and manages to coax a preference of root beer out of me.
I realize she was asking if I wanted to get this gigantic plate of nachos to share with her, and I'm glad I managed to respond because fuck yes, I do.
As the waiter turns to leave, she gently lays a hand on my knee and leans into my shoulder.
Somewhere in my little lizard brain, an instinct tells me to wrap my arm around her shoulder, so I do.
Her contented sigh tells me it was the right thing to do, and for the first time, I think I might actually pull off a successful date.
Then, of course, the Dickhead Brigade enters the chat.
Brendan and Jay come bounding through the door, beer sloshing out of the bottles in their hands as they shove each other around and make asses of themselves.
They're shouting at each other, and people in the restaurant are turning to glare now.
I genuinely couldn't imagine being that embarrassing in public.
Then they spot us and start whooping, and I cringe when I realize it's because my arm is around Callie. I'm trying to remember how many years you get for manslaughter when they rush our table and slide in the booth, shaking the table with their general buffoonery.
I look at her in silent question. Should I move my arm? She squeezes my knee with a small smile and thank fuck because I've already considered soldering it to her. I sigh. Time to get this over with.
"Callie, you already met Brendan, and this is Jay.
Jay, Callie." I point to the poof of long curly hair surrounding the vague shape of a human being.
He's got a red flannel tied around his waist over a black Metallica t-shirt that's more hole than shirt at this point, and he's sliding a beanie back over his mess of hair after swiping it back from Brendan's pocket.
That must be what they were yelling about when they walked in. I shoot them both warning looks.
Brendan holds up both hands in surrender, and Jay is significantly less of a pig than he is, so I relax a little. Callie starts rubbing little circles on my kneecap with her thumb and my soul leaves my body for a second. She really is trying to kill me.
"It's nice to meet you!" She beams, but she learned her lesson about handshakes and her hands are currently preoccupied with driving me insane, so they stick to verbal pleasantries only.
"It's been a while. How have you been, dude?" I'm pretty sure Jay watched Dazed and Confused at one point in his childhood and just adopted it as his personality for life. I actually kind of like him, to be honest. He just has questionable taste in friends.
"I'm good. Working security at the Panacea Center. What about you?"
"Oh man, I got this new machining job at that factory in town, and they pay like forty bucks an hour. It's boring as fuck but it's easy money. My girl moved in with me, too. So now my apartment's got all kinds of girly shit in it, but it's clean now and it always smells nice so it's all good.”
Callie lets out a soft giggle and I'm positive I can feel it in my bones. Jay's a nice guy, and he's good with tech, but otherwise I’m pretty sure he's got maybe three brain cells hiding in that beanie. Callie seems to like him too, and I feel a little better about them crashing our date.
This is a date, right? As if on cue, she squeezes my knee again and I swear she can read my mind. The contact brings me back to the conversation.
"That's awesome, man. I'm happy for you."
“Thanks, dude. Shauna’s great, too. She’s got me doing all kinds of healthy shit.
She got me new clothes for work and everything.
She made me…" He pauses before backtracking, quieter now. “I, uh... I didn’t have time for the band anymore, so I quit. We still play in Johnny’s garage sometimes, though.
” I can tell there’s definitely more to that story, but I’m not going to push it tonight.
“What about you? What have you been up to outside of work? "
It's a simple question, but now I'm debating whether I want to mention my book idea to them. I wanted to tell Callie all about it tonight, but I'm not sure if I want it to be a group project. Fuck it, I decide. I'll give them the bare minimum and talk to her about it after they leave.
"Well, I actually came up with an idea for a book I want to write. It's not much yet, but I've been working on that, mostly." My gaze drifts to Callie. She rolls her lips into a flat line and looks at the floor. I regret this decision immediately, but I don’t know why.
"Dude, that's so cool! Is it like a fantasy story or what?" I nod, and I know I've lost what little of Brendan's attention I had. The only fantasy he's interested in is fantasy football. He's scrolling through his phone now. Maybe if I downplay it, we can move on?
"Yeah, I came up with the idea at work and it all just flowed out into an outline before I knew it.
I don't know if it'll even go anywhere. It's not that great yet, just a vague idea.
" Callie pulls her hand away and starts picking at her nails and my stomach plummets.
I'm not sure what exactly I said wrong, but I can tell she's uncomfortable now. I give her shoulder a light squeeze and she looks up at me with a weak smile. I’ve got to turn this around or the ship is going to sink before it ever sets sail.
I'm spared the hassle of coming up with a reason to kick them from the party when Jay's phone starts vibrating on the table.
"Ah, shit," he mutters, swiping the phone from the table.
"That's my girl. She must be coming home early.
Time to go, B." We exchange parting pleasantries, but the relief is short-lived.
Callie's still picking at her nails when the waiter stops at our table and deposits a plate of nachos the size of a hubcap in front of us.
"Enjoy," he mumbles, clearly hating every second of his job.
He slides a handful of wet wipe packets under the edge of the plate and then he's gone.
I take my arm back and grab a stack of napkins from the dispenser.
"This looks so good, but it's about to get messy," I say, tapping her hand to get her attention.
She snaps out of it a bit and agrees, picking out a nacho piled high with chicken and cheese and carefully taking a bite.
I decide maybe the direct route is best with her.
I've noticed that she's definitely got people-pleasing tendencies, and I don't think she's actually going to tell me what's wrong unless I ask.
"Hey, is everything okay? Sorry about the guys, it's hard to go anywhere in a town this small without running into someone you know."
"Oh, it's fine! I just get quiet around new people sometimes," she explains, but it still sounds like she's holding something back. "So, tell me more about this book." She shovels another nacho into her mouth and waits.
It's go time.
"Ok, so basically it's a classic D&D campaign-style fantasy.
There's a party of adventurers and they come up to this little village in the mountains and the innkeeper tells them that they'll need to lock themselves in their rooms at night because there's a monster roaming the village after dark and no one can quite pin down what the monster is but they know it's taking people from their beds in the night and they're never seen again.
There are no bodies, no blood, no traces of a struggle, nothing. They're just gone."
In the midst of my infodump, it seems like whatever was bothering her has faded. She's got her head resting on her hand while she listens intently, nachos temporarily forgotten, so I continue.
"The party agrees to investigate and kill the monster in exchange for food and lodging while they're in the village.
They spend a few nights staked out and find that the monster is actually a woman, and she's not taking anyone.
She's helping women and children escape from the village because a band of bandits has taken over the town and enlisted all the men to join them.
It's no longer safe for those who can't defend themselves, so the woman, whose husband was murdered by the bandits because he wouldn't join them, is helping them escape into the next town over and she has plans to fake their deaths once she gets everyone out. "
She still looks interested. Good, I'm not boring her yet. I feel like I'm word-vomiting and I'm not great at explaining things out loud, so I rush through the ending.
"So, the party agrees to help her take out the bandits instead.
I'm still working on the fine details but I'm thinking the leader of the party is going to be a woman who took up adventuring after she killed her abusive husband and went on the run, so she's going to be extra willing to help.
Maybe when they're done, they invite the woman to join their party. "
She's quiet for a moment, and I'm about to open my mouth to tell her I know it's not that great, and it's okay if she doesn't think it sounds interesting and whatever other self-deprecating bullshit I can say to make her not feel bad for hating it when a smile splits her face.
"Holy shit, Devon. That sounds amazing."
My jaw drops. "You think?"
"Yes! I'd read the shit out of that!"
Now it's my turn to glow, and she leans back into my shoulder, so I slip my arm around her again.
It's always felt awkward sitting like this with anyone else, but she fits tucked under my arm perfectly.
It's like I was made to be wrapped around her.
We both eat in easy silence for a few minutes before she turns enough to look up at me again.
"So, where'd you get the idea?"
Do I tell her the truth about the annotations and risk her thinking I'm nuts? Or do I lie? I don't think I could lie to her even if I wanted to, and I'm honestly not surprised to find that I really don't want to, so here goes nothing.
"Well," I start, dragging out the word. "You know that book you set aside for me the other day?"
"Yeah," she nods, and now she's smiling. She has to know about it already, because the look on her face is purely conspiratorial. She must realize it, too, because she quickly shifts into an innocent smile.
"When I started reading it, I noticed that there was a bunch of handwriting in the margins.” I pause, giving her the opportunity to say something about it before I dive headfirst into it, but she just crinkles her eyebrows at me.
“There wasn’t anything written in it when I took it off the shelf,” she says mildly, but I can tell she’s full of shit. “Unless I missed it?”
“No, you definitely would have seen it. It’s on almost every page.
It’s okay, though. I didn't think much of it because it was a used book, but then I started reading the notes and they were actually really insightful.
I spent the whole night reading the book, and it was pretty good, but it was the annotations that gave me the idea. "
I thought that would be the embarrassing part, but she nods like this all makes perfect sense to her. The anxiety over the last part is what's really going to give me a heart attack, though.
"Well, and... uh... and you kind of inspired it, too.
" Her eyes widen, and I rush to explain, looking down at the table before I lose my nerve.
"The woman in the village, the one that's saving all the people?
I don't know, I just kind of imagined her with your face.
And things are rough for her now, but before the villains showed up, she was a lot like you.
All sunshine and kindness. She's not all fleshed out yet, but I think she's going to have a flower and herb shop where she sold arrangements and remedies before everything went down.
So, when they kill her husband and destroy her shop, they think they kill her too, but she uses her healing knowledge and survives. "
She lays a hand over mine on the table, and I glance back at her. "She didn't need to be strong before," she muses. "So, she didn't know she could."
"Yeah," I whisper, because of course she understands perfectly. "And I don't know, I know I don't know a ton about your life yet or anything, but it just reminded me of you. You seem like the type of person who's stronger than you know."
She looks up at me, pulling away just enough to put a few inches between us, and her eyes are watery.
Fuck, did I say something wrong again? But then the corners of her mouth curl up, and before I even realize what's happening, her hands are locked together behind my neck and she's closing the distance.
Oh, thank fuck.