Chapter Three
Riot
I rolled out of bed with Calvin still on my mind and kept him there through the ride over.
By the time I got to the rec center, that hadn’t changed.
The side lot was already busy. Kids ran in packs between the basketball court and the patch of grass near the picnic tables.
Somebody had music going from a speaker by the open doors.
Old-school stuff, loud enough to carry but not loud enough to drown out the laughter and shouting.
Heat sat on everything. Smoke from the grill drifted across the lot, and Drift stood over it with a spatula in one hand and a towel over his shoulder like he’d been born annoyed at charcoal.
Merk and Holler were setting out coolers. Sledge had dragged two extra tables into the shade and was pretending not to bark orders while he barked orders. Reaper leaned against one of the tables meant for food and stole chips from a bag someone else had opened.
“Those are for the people,” I told him, placing a case of soda by the drinks table.
Reaper crunched loudly and didn’t move. “I’m people.”
“You’re a problem.”
“Problem people are still people.” He purposely crunched even louder. “It’s somewhere on the internet. Look it up.”
Across the lot, Holler laughed at something a kid said then got nailed in the shin with a foam ball. He cursed. The kid ran. Drift yelled from the grill for somebody to keep the little monsters away from the hot coals.
Nobody listened.
I grabbed a stack of paper trays and started setting them out near the side dishes. Pasta salad. Potato salad. Baked beans. Coleslaw sweating in plastic bowls. Cheap tablecloth trying to lift in the breeze. Normal day. Good day. Better than normal, if Calvin showed.
That thought stayed close all morning. I ignored it and kept moving.
Around noon, the place got fuller. More people. More noise. Kids weaving through adults. Someone’s auntie dancing with a soda in one hand. Music switching tracks. Drift cursing at a flare-up on the grill. Sweat stuck my shirt to me, and my cut felt heavier in the heat.
Then I saw him.
Calvin came through the gate from the sidewalk side, moving like he was trying not to look like he was checking the whole lot first.
Short. Slim. Brown hair fixed despite the heat.
Hazel eyes working the crowd. T-shirt, shorts, sneakers.
He looked put together without trying too hard.
Or maybe he tried and made it look easy.
I clocked him right off and kept my hands on the stack of trays. No shout. No wave. No making it a thing. If he wanted near me, he’d get there.
He paused by the drinks first and talked to some older woman I didn’t know. Smiled at a couple kids that nearly cut in front of him. Taking his time. I liked that he didn’t rush. Liked that he looked around without looking lost.
Then his eyes found me.
My whole focus narrowed in one clean shot. Heat had already been sitting on my skin all day. That look added another layer.
I set the last tray down and straightened. Reaper followed my line of sight, snorted once, and shoved another chip into his mouth.
“Well, damn,” he said. “Shorty actually came. Fuck. Now I owe Mayhem ten bucks.”
“Shut up.”
I kept my tone easy, but my mouth wanted to do something stupid like grin.
Calvin started my way slowly, not dragging it out, just not acting eager either.
He stopped once to let a little girl run past with a hot dog in each hand.
He stepped around Holler, who was carrying ice.
Then he reached the food tables, where I stood with Reaper.
Up close, he looked good enough to be a problem, a little flushed from the walk. Hair still put together.
“You came,” I said.
“Hi,” Calvin said, looking at the bowls lined up in front of us. “I came for free food and community spirit. Mostly free food.”
I wiped my hand on a towel and leaned a hip against the table. “Glad your priorities are straight.” His T-shirt clung a bit at the middle. He smelled like heat and soap and being outside too long.
His gaze landed on me then dipped to the side dishes. He smiled a little. “I’m also here to support local grill-based outreach.”
“Drift’s trying his best.”
From the grill, Drift lifted his head. Smoke rolled around him, and he looked mean enough to bite somebody. “I heard that.”
Calvin looked over my shoulder toward him and nodded. “He does look committed to the cause.”
Reaper choked on a laugh. He grabbed a serving spoon and shoved it into the macaroni salad bowl. The sun caught the edge of his sunglasses, and he looked between us like he’d just bought a front row seat.
“Since you’re here,” I said, “you can help.”
Calvin put a hand to his heart and looked offended. “You saw me walk in and thought, yes, that man longs for unpaid labor.”
I grabbed a stack of lids and slid them aside to make space. Then I tipped my chin toward the empty trays at the end of the table. Reaper moved over enough to let Calvin in.
“You did volunteer yesterday,” I said.
Calvin stepped in beside me. Close enough that I caught the soap-clean smell on him under the heat outside. “I was young then. Reckless. Full of trust.”
Reaper snorted and handed him a serving spoon. Calvin took it, their fingers missing each other by an inch. Good.
“Put that in the potato salad,” I said.
“Yes, bossy.”
I liked how quick he was. Liked that he didn’t overdo it.
For a minute, we worked without talking.
I peeled back lids. Calvin set utensils into bowls.
Reaper moved trays around and pretended not to pay attention.
Kids screamed somewhere near the basketball court.
Music switched to something with a heavier beat.
Drift yelled for more buns. Holler yelled back that he had hands and could grab them himself.
Calvin glanced toward the grill. “Your friends seem pleasant.”
I stacked napkins into a holder and slid it closer to him. “That’s because you caught them in public.”
With one hand, he adjusted the bowl of coleslaw so it sat straighter on the table. His forearm brushed mine this time. A simple touch but it still landed.
“I respect a group committed to customer service,” he said.
“Don’t let them fool you. Holler only smiles because people feed him.”
At the far end of the table, Reaper slapped the back of my arm with a pack of plastic forks. I shot him a look. He stared at Calvin, then at me, and mouthed, “Nice.”
I stared back and mouthed, “Asshole.”
Reaper’s grin stretched wider. Juvenile motherfucker. He wiggled his brows like he was twelve. I muttered a curse at him under my breath.
Calvin turned his head a little. “Was that aimed at me? Because I feel I’ve been excellent so far.”
I grabbed the extra bag of buns and tossed it toward Reaper just hard enough to make him catch it against his stomach. “Not you. Him. He was born irritating.”
Reaper clutched the bag like he’d been mortally wounded. “Friendly workplace.”
Calvin smiled and looked down at the spoon in his hand. That smile was small, but it got me anyway.
A little boy came running up to the table with wet curls stuck to his forehead and asked if it was time to eat yet. Calvin bent some to answer him, his voice soft and easy, and pointed him toward the line by the grill. The kid took off immediately. Calvin straightened and shook his head.
“Kids move like they’ve got warrants.”
“They probably do,” I said.
“That explains the energy.”
He laughed under his breath. I liked hearing that too much.
A few more people lined up. Reaper took over directing them toward plates and cups, mostly so he could talk shit while being useful.
Calvin stayed beside me on the side dish table and helped where he was needed without me asking much.
He picked up on the flow fast. Replaced serving spoons when they slid into bowls.
Refilled napkins. Shifted stuff around so people didn’t jam the line. The male was smart and observant.
I kept my focus on the table because if I let it drift, it landed on Calvin too hard. On his mouth when he talked. On those hazel eyes when he cut a look at me. On the way his hip brushed the table edge when he set a fresh bowl of pasta salad down where the old one had been nearly scraped clean.
A woman asked where the mustard was. Calvin found it before I did and handed it over with a bright smile that made her laugh. Then he looked at me again like that counted for nothing.
It counted.
Later, when the first rush slowed, Reaper wandered off toward the grill to bother Drift.
Calvin wiped his hands on a napkin and looked out over the lot.
Kids on the court. Adults under the shade.
Sledge at a picnic table talking with Merk.
Holler carrying a case of water on one shoulder like he wanted witnesses.
“You guys do this a lot?” Calvin asked.
I set a lid back on the beans and shifted closer to keep the sun out of my eyes. “Stuff like this? Yeah.”
He nodded. His profile caught me for a second. Clean lines. Short brown hair sitting right despite the heat. Hazel eyes narrowed a little from the sun. He looked good standing in the middle of our mess. Too good.
“I like it here,” he said.
“That right?”
He glanced at me. “It feels lived in.”
That sat with me. Simple line. Honest one.
Before I could say anything, Holler came by and stole three cookies off a tray.
“Those are for the people,” Calvin said, a verbal echo of what I’d told Reaper earlier, making me feel like we were on the same wavelength.
Holler kept walking. “They took too long. Snooze and lose.”
I looked at Calvin. He looked at me.
Then both of us laughed.
The afternoon dragged out in a good way.
Plates were filled. Coolers became lighter.
Drift kept the grill going. At some point Sledge got talked into helping a little kid fix a bike chain.
Merk spent twenty minutes in a folding chair letting two older ladies flirt with him while pretending he hated every second.
Calvin stayed close without making it obvious. Sometimes he wandered off for five minutes, got a drink, talked to somebody, watched the basketball court. Then he’d circle back near the food or the shade by our tables. I never asked him to stay. He kept doing it anyway.
By the time the sun started dropping, the lot had softened some.
Still hot, but easier. A fire hydrant farther down the block had been opened up, and kids tore through the spraying water in swimsuits, shorts, T-shirts, whatever they had on.
Their yelling carried all the way to the rec center.
The street got wet, shoes slapping pavement.
Parents half watched from lawn chairs and curb edges with paper plates in their laps.
I leaned against the side of one picnic table with a bottle of water in my hand and watched the block settle into that evening mood.
Music still played. Laughter came in pockets.
Holler and Drift argued over whether the last burger belonged to either of them.
Reaper had his feet kicked out in front of him and was talking shit to Merk, who looked two seconds from dumping a drink on his head.
Calvin stood near me with a cup of lemonade and watched the kids in the hydrant spray.
“One of them is going to eat pavement,” he said.
“Probably.”
He took a drink. Condensation ran down his cup over his fingers. “And yet they keep sprinting.”
“Built different.”
He smiled and shifted his weight onto one leg. His shoulder nearly brushed mine. I’d been paying attention to where every part of him was the whole time.
A kid shrieked when another one shoved him closer to the hydrant. Water sprayed across the street, catching the last light. Adults laughed. Somebody yelled to stop running. Nobody stopped.
Calvin looked at me then, quieter than he’d been most of the day. “This is nice.”
I turned the bottle in my hand and looked back at him. “Yeah.”
There wasn’t much else to say to that. He was right.
Being around him all day had settled into something easy. No push. No performance. Just him sliding into the rhythm of things like he’d been circling our space long enough to know where to stand. I liked the way he fit near me. Liked how my attention kept going right back to him without effort.
Down the table, Reaper made a gagging noise at Holler and got flipped off. Sledge laughed. Drift lit a cigarette and stared into the middle distance like cooking for people had taken ten years off him but he’d enjoyed every second of it.
Calvin tipped the cup back for the last of his lemonade then crushed it lightly in his hand. A bead of moisture ran over his knuckles. He looked down at the cup then over at me again.
“So,” he said, “if I wanted to continue my volunteer career, purely for the prestige, what are the hours?”
I unscrewed my water bottle cap and took a drink before answering. My mouth wanted to smile already. “Tomorrow evening.”
He shifted closer to hear me over the music and the kids tearing through the hydrant spray. The side of his arm brushed mine for a second.
“At the rec center?” he asked.
I looked out at the lot for a beat then back at him. Reaper was still talking shit two tables down. Drift was flicking ash into a crushed soda can. Nobody was paying us much mind.
“No,” I said. “I meant with me.”
Calvin blinked once. Then he looked down at his cup like it might have something helpful to say. His mouth twitched.
“That sounded almost smooth,” he said.
“Almost?”
He rolled the empty cup between both hands. A kid shrieked near the curb. Someone laughed too loud by the coolers. Calvin glanced toward the noise then back at me with that same small smile that kept sneaking out all day.
“It was good,” he said. “I just don’t want you getting cocky.”
I huffed a laugh and set my bottle on the picnic table behind me. “Too late for that.”
“Tomorrow night.” His mouth twitched. “I’d like that.”
I was down bad and didn’t care. “Me too.”