Chapter Six Mateo
(I Saw Us in the Mirror)
Regardless of where he lives or how much money is sitting in his bank account, nothing I've seen from Jamie suggests he's a snob about food.
Still, it's fun to watch him light up when he pumps bright orange cheese sauce onto a pile of canned chili and tortilla strips.
He grins around a ridiculous bite, then hurries to pull on a pair of disposable gloves before he helps me serve more of our hungry crowd.
We're in the middle of a rush, but it hasn't been like this the entire two and a half hours we've worked together, and I'm glad we've had a chance to talk around occasional interruptions.
Our small talk means even more than it did the night we met, all of it coming with context we lacked before, and we learn more about each other without attaching promises to every word.
I think everything about those hours at the beach crushed us with hope, and while I won't give any of that time back, Jamie and I both need this now.
We've got three more years to wait before our future starts.
"This is really your church, huh?" he asks.
"It really is—has been my whole life."
"Does your family still go here?"
"Most of them," I say, handing over two trays of tacos. "We could run into someone today."
His head whips toward me at that. "Your family? Here? Why didn't you say something?"
"Believe it or not, I wasn't that eager to see that look of terror on your face."
A group of five or six kids runs up to us then, food tickets in their hands, and we swap them for nachos they’re likely to drop.
"Are you—I mean, does everyone here know you're—" Jamie stops and looks around until well-practiced composure replaces fear. He could come back with sarcasm and a smile, but I think he always saved his most caustic responses for the press. “Wow. Even at church.”
"Even at church, yes," I say. "There were only so many times I could turn down dates with their beautiful, single daughters before they became concerned enough to push for more information."
"And they're fine with it?"
"What did you say earlier? 'Teacher, coach, and saintlike volunteer,' right?" I smile. "But no, I'd say there's been a range of acceptance. The people you met today are on the good end of it. And if Crissy and Isa are around—”
“Crissy and Isa?”
“Cristina and Isabella. My sisters. They said they might be here with their kids, but I haven’t heard from them today, so who knows.”
“Okay,” Jamie says.
His tone makes me wonder whether it is, but I let it go.
“What about your family—your parents? Have they ever suspected that you like men? I know there was a rumor a long time ago, but it was buried beneath stories of many beautiful women and no small amount of late-night trouble. What would they say if they knew about me?”
He goes back to his tower of chili cheese nachos for several seconds, then wipes his mouth and sighs from beneath his baseball cap before he answers.
"My parents blasted all rumors, no matter what they were.
It was easier for them to dismiss everything off the ice as nonsense—orgies, arrests, cocaine, brawls, men—even if it might be true.
'You need to focus, Jameson. Make them talk about what you do on the ice.
'" He sighs again. "You? I don't know what they'd say.
I really don't. I let them down when I broke my leg, so maybe I don't have much further to fall. "
I'm close to pointing out that a freak accident and a shattered leg shouldn't be causes for parental disappointment, but I've seen worse as a teacher, and Jamie doesn't need a lecture today.
I don't know what he does need once he's done licking salt from his fingers, and I've tried to push most of what I want aside while I study the sad blue eyes I see in my sleep.
“How much does Kai know?”
“Enough to understand why I’m at the bar alone these days.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You were alone the night we met.”
“But I hadn’t been there in months,” he says. “And I wasn’t supposed to be alone after.”
He isn’t alone today. He's here with me, and now I need to figure out what comes next. Then Eileen returns with her husband in tow, and I don't have to ask why before she answers on her own.
"Our grandkids want to stick around for a while, and this guy was pouring our life savings into infinite attempts to land a metal ring around the neck of a bottle," she explains. "Thought I'd drag him back here to keep him out of trouble and give you boys the rest of your shift off."
I glance at Jamie because I'm not sure whether his plans include more time in a place he hadn't meant to be for longer than a minute or two. He glances at me because I'm supposed to speak on our behalf either way.
My response isn't much more than a flustered thanks as we switch places, followed by the press of my fingers against the small of Jamie's back.
It means I'm guiding him away from something uncomplicated the same way I'd brought him toward it a few hours ago, and when we find some room to stop, I step away and let my hand fall to my side.
"So," he says.
"So."
Jamie ducks his head for a second or two, then his attention is on me again. "You want to do the rides and games and shit."
"If I have a friend to do them with, yeah," I shrug.
"What about Harper and Lizzie?"
"They already know we're here, and I think they understand two people at a carnival together are not inherently betrothed," I say, pausing a moment later. "Do you really get sick on rides?"
"Only the ones that look like literal death traps."
I chuckle and wave my arm toward one of the ticket booths. "Let's go buy wristbands, and then you can lead the way."
We do, and he does, and for a while, the two of us wander from one end of the carnival to the other. There's no hurry as we point out the things we'll return to soon, and there's no pressure to talk much either. We know how to be quiet. It's been true all along, and we walk with it now.
Our first ride together is the Tilt-A-Whirl, and it's almost unbearably sweet, this former hockey agitator and superstar opting to start with a simple carnival classic.
It makes perfect sense somehow, and from there we go to the swings, our legs dangling in the air like we're better at fighting gravity than time.
We trade a few silly shouts mid-ride, and the levity continues after we land, conversation more comfortable as we adjust to the idea of having fun together.
A break for games comes next. First, we toss wiffle ball after wiffle ball into chalices, a stupid amount of concentration at war with our grins.
It’s almost as though our respective skills could possibly come into play in this game of lucky bounces, and we tease each other endlessly about it.
We shoot water into clowns' mouths after that, but both of us lose to a girl missing her two front teeth, and more laughter carries us to the next game.
It's one I know well. A favorite, actually.
Sibling battles were fierce when I was a kid, but I could beat my sisters at this more than they beat me, even if there's probably luck involved here, too.
We're going to roll balls into numbered holes, racing to move our horses from start to finish, and when Jamie rushes to sit down, I'm at his side quickly.
I'm overwhelmed by the urge to tell him a hundred stories, but while we wait for more players to join—more people means bigger prizes!
—I try to bite my tongue and look anywhere else.
I end up staring at his t-shirt.
Jamie's already acknowledged that he hadn't dressed for plans to get out of his car.
He and Harper joked about it. And his jeans are great—I've admired them a couple of times today—but I'm not confident his shirt won't disintegrate.
It's worn so thin, and while I'm not complaining about seeing more of him, I reach for a small tear at his side.
My finger slips through and grazes his skin, and it doesn't escape me that I've never touched him here before. When he trembles, I think it hasn’t escaped him either.
I haven't looked up yet, but I don't think he's dared to look down, and I take another few seconds to find the weakest version of my voice.
"I could've looked in my trunk again. I could've found you something to wear."
"Will it make anything better if I have a closet full of your clothes?" he asks.
We're interrupted then, but it's probably for the best. I pull my hand away so I can play, and I swear the heavy beat of my heart is keeping time with childhood memories and nothing more recent than that.
It slows me down though, and Jamie wins a stuffed penguin while I finish in the middle of the pack.
"Congrats," I say once we're a few steps away. "Are you going to give that to Harper?"
"I always have," he smiles, tilting his head when he lets it turn into a smirk. "You're not mad that I won, are you?"
"Why would I be mad?"
The smirk is slow to fade, but then he shakes his head. "I'm hungry."
With a stuffed animal in his hand and holes in his shirt, he leads us back toward the food court.
We stop before we're anywhere near the tacos we abandoned, and I feel like I should've known where we'd end up long before we arrived.
The funnel cake smells predictably incredible, but I pause incredulously when I catch Jamie studying the small menu.
"Really? Funnel cake and powdered sugar aren't enough on their own? You have to add toppings?"
"Mmmm, pretty sure powdered sugar counts as a topping."
I roll my eyes. "Okay, yes, but you're adding extra toppings."
"And mango chipotle wings were going to be your big end-of-summer adventure," he points out.
"Tough talk from the guy who will vomit if we go on a big-kid ride."