Chapter 15
LAINE
Reid
Night market downtown Saturday me and Blake are going. You should come. Not a date. Just... tacos and bad cover bands. Low pressure.
The text arrives while I'm reorganizing my medicine cabinet for the third time this week. I don't get why it always seems so full. I swear I'm not buying all these face creams. Maybe I have a reverse burglar or something, who keeps bringing me extra stuff. That's the only explanation.
I stare at the screen until the words blur. Me and Blake. Not just Reid. Both of them. Together.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I should say no. Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to say no. Being around one of them is complicated enough. Being around both of them, after what happened with Blake—
But hiding in my apartment isn't exactly working either. In the last two weeks I've reorganized everything that can be reorganized. I know every crack in my ceiling. I've watched so much Netflix that the algorithm has given up trying to recommend things.
Jamila's voice echoes in my head. What do you actually want your life to look like?
I still don't know. But I won't figure it out by avoiding the question entirely.
What time?
The response is immediate, like he's been holding his phone.
Reid
Saturday. 6pm. I can pick you up?
No. Absolutely not. Twenty minutes in a car with both of them sounds like torture. Too much space for conversations I'm not ready to have.
I'll meet you there. Where?
Reid
Main entrance. By the giant inflatable taco. Dress warm.
I snort. Of course there's a giant inflatable taco.
See you then.
I drop my phone and stare at my perfectly organized medicine cabinet. Every bottle facing forward, every label aligned. It's ridiculous, but at least it's something I can control.
Saturday night arrives gray and drizzly, because of course it does. Winter in the Pacific Northwest is no joke. I know it could be worse, but I miss the sun.
I change clothes twice—jeans feel too casual, the long skirt feels like I'm trying too hard—before settling on dark jeans and a sweater that hopefully says 'I'm fine and definitely not overthinking this.'
The walk downtown takes forever because I keep slowing down. Stretching out the minutes before I have to face whatever this is. Reid trying to fix us. Blake pretending we didn't kiss a week ago. All of us acting like any of this is normal when nothing about it is normal.
By the time I reach the market, my hands are shaking and it's not from the cold.
The inflatable taco is impossible to miss—this massive, ridiculous thing bobbing against the gray sky like someone's fever dream. And there they are, standing underneath it.
Reid's in a gray henley and light blue coat, bouncing on his heels. Blake's a few feet away, arms crossed over his red flannel and black vest, watching the crowd like he's expecting trouble.
They haven't seen me yet.
I could turn around. I could just pivot on my heel and walk back the way I came and text something breezy like, so sorry, got food poisoning, possibly dying, rain check?
And then I could go home and crawl under my covers and not deal with any of this for another week. Another month. Another lifetime.
But I'm so tired of walking away. So tired of stretching out the distance between me and whatever's waiting on the other side of knowing.
Reid keeps glancing at Blake, opening his mouth like he's about to say something, then closing it again. Blake's jaw is tight. They look like themselves, but not the version from before. There's a little more space between them. A little more tension.
"Laine!"
Reid spots me and his whole face lights up.
He waves with both hands. He's not trying to play it cool, and I love it.
"You came! You're here. Under the giant taco.
This is already the best night of the week.
" He's grinning, the big smile—the one that made me think staying might actually work.
The one that made me believe love could be simple if you just wanted it enough.
God, I missed that smile.
He takes a step toward me, then catches himself. Rocks back on his heels. Still being careful. Still giving me space. But the energy is radiating off him—that barely contained Reid energy that makes the air around him vibrate.
"I said I would."
"Yeah, but..." He rubs his neck, and the bounce dims for half a second. "After everything, I wasn't sure." Then the grin reappears. "But you're here. So. Victory. I'm counting it."
Blake looks up, and our eyes meet for maybe half a second before he looks away, focusing on something over my shoulder. But in that half second, I see everything we're not saying.
The kiss. His confession. My apartment three days ago when we talked about nothing and everything for hours. The lie we're both keeping from Reid.
He's carrying all of it. I can see it in the rigid line of his shoulders, the way he's folded himself inward, taken up less room than a person his size should ever take up. Like if he shrinks enough, maybe the weight of it won't show.
I shouldn't have kissed him. I know that. I knew it then, too, which is the worst part—knowing something is selfish and doing it anyway because knowing felt more important than being good.
But instead of pulling away, I doubled down and kept the man at my apartment, talking, for way too long. The kiss was bad, but the talking, getting to know him, getting more comfortable with him, that was worse.
Because the more time I spend with him, the more I like him.
"Hey," he says, voice flat.
"Hey."
The words land between us like stones. Reid doesn't notice, thank god. Or maybe he does, because he's suddenly still.
Silence stretches. People flow around us, laughing and talking, but we're frozen in our little triangle of awkwardness.
Reid claps his hands together, breaking the tension.
"So! Food first, right? There's this taco truck—Marco's.
I've been stalking their Yelp page for like three days.
The guy's from Oaxaca, uses his grandmother's recipe.
Somebody described the carnitas as 'transcendent.
' That's the actual word they used. Transcendent.
" He's already walking, talking over his shoulder, hands gesturing.
"There's also Korean fried chicken, or this Thai place that supposedly does a green curry bowl that'll—but no.
Tacos first. We can branch out later. This is a marathon, not a sprint. "
Blake and I exchange a look. Not a loaded one—just the automatic glance of two people watching Reid be Reid.
"He's been planning this all week, hasn't he," I murmur.
Blake's mouth twitches. Almost a smile. Almost. "You have no idea."
The crowd swallows us almost immediately.
Saturday night means bodies everywhere—families with strollers, drunk college kids, couples sharing overpriced kettle corn. The smell of grilled onions mixes with something sweet and the bass thump of music from somewhere deeper in the market.
Someone's elbow catches my ribs and I stumble. Suddenly the crowd feels less festive and more like a mob. Too many people, too close, pushing from all directions. It's not anything I haven't experienced before in cities around the world, but for Eugene, it's a lot. I'm out of practice.
Reid steps in front of me.
Not dramatically—just a shift, his shoulders angling to cut through the crowd like he's done this a thousand times before. Creating space for me to follow.
And Blake moves behind me. Close enough that I feel the heat of him through my jacket. Not touching, but there. A wall between me and whatever's coming from behind.
Suddenly, I'm not alone battling the crowds. I'm walking in a bubble. Protected.
Travelling with these guys would be amazing. No shoving or jostling, or worrying about the money in my fanny pack.
Reid clears the path. Blake guards my back. I move in the space they've made for me, and for thirty seconds it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
Like this is how we're supposed to work.
The thought catches me off guard. Not because it's new, but because it reminds me of something. Maria and Sofia and Andrés in their tiny kitchen in Limón, moving around each other like they'd choreographed it. Three people, one rhythm.
Nope. That's not what this is. That's not even in the same universe as what this is.
And isn't that the most confusing thought I've had in the last week. And considering how confusing the last week has actually been, that's saying a lot.
The crowd thins near the food trucks. Reid drops his chin on the counter of Marco's truck like he and the vendor are old friends.
"Okay, be honest with me," Reid says. "The habanero or the verde? And I need you to take this seriously because I will come back and hold you accountable."
The vendor—a stocky guy with a huge grin and forearms like tree trunks—laughs. "Verde. But the habanero, she's got a kick. You like the heat?"
"I live for the heat. My buddy here—" Reid jerks a thumb at Blake without looking. "He thinks ketchup is spicy."
"I've never said that," Blake says from behind me.
"You didn't have to. I've seen you eat."
The vendor is already laughing, pulled into Reid's orbit the way everyone gets pulled into Reid's orbit. It's effortless. Like breathing.
Blake hangs back, hands in his pockets, still removed, still observant. But there's something looser in his posture now. Reid's energy is hard to resist, even for Blake.
Reid orders for all of us without asking what I want. Normally that would annoy me. Tonight, somehow, he gets it exactly right—carnitas for me, al pastor for himself, and something simple and no-nonsense for Blake.