Chapter 33 Wonderland #2
When I’d finally had enough of him winning, I dashed back toward the sand and held up my hands in mock surrender. “You win, you win!”
“I’m glad you finally figured that out.” He walked up to me and slipped an arm around my waist. “Ready to leave yet?”
“Not really.”
“Me either.” He pulled me closer. “Let’s just walk.”
I thought he would strike up a conversation, or that I would start babbling about all the things he’d missed, but it seemed like neither of us could get any words out.
The only sounds around were the waves crashing over one another and the faint and fickle crackles of an abandoned fire pit.
Every now and then, he would look down at me and kiss my lips for no reason, hold me a little tighter with no explanation. When we’d made it halfway down the tourist section, we could see the faint lights of beach patrol cars in the distance, so we headed back toward his car.
“Ready to go somewhere else?” He opened his trunk and tossed me a towel.
“At two in the morning?”
“Yes.” He walked over and pressed a smaller towel against my hair. “Good to know your habit of asking as many questions as possible hasn’t changed.” He looked into my eyes. “Your incessant blushing hasn’t either.”
“Excuse me?” I slid into the car. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that I never saw you blush that much around any of your other boyfriends.”
“That’s probably because you were too busy wishing you were my boyfriend.”
“Never.” He slid behind the wheel and looked over at me. “Then again, if I’d known what I know now, I might’ve have wished that. Only after your braces were off, though.”
I laughed and he sped off, driving past the shops and bars on the other side of the pier. To my surprise, quite a few of the places were still open—still hosting small crowds of people who were home visiting for the break.
Carter eventually parked in front of a microbrewery, and for what felt like an hour, the two of us sampled shots of each and every concoction the manager suggested.
In between laughing about absolutely nothing and swallowing bitter beers, our lips found ways to be connected whenever we seemed to struggle with words.
“I baked an ‘I Hate Carter’ cookie for my first assignment,” I slurred. “I got a four out of five.” I moved back as he tried to kiss me. “I got a four point five out of five when I made, “I Wish Me and Carter Were Never Friends” Pie.”
“So, what did you get when you made an ‘I Miss Carter Fucking Me’ pie?”
“Okay, okay. That’s enough, you two.” The manager stepped in front of us and set down a bill. “I’m cutting off your supply. Conversation and alcohol.”
“We’re not that drunk!” I attempted to push the check away, but all I did was push at the salt shaker on the other end of the table.
He shook his head. “Yeah, I can see just how sober you are right now.” He took Carter’s keys off the table and put them in his pocket. “I’m sure one of you was going to insist that I hold them until tomorrow anyway, right?” He smiled at me. “Get the hell out and have a good night.”
Laughing, we stumbled out of the bar hand in hand, walking aimlessly against the thinning crowds—acting as if we were the only two people in the universe.
As we approached a new tattoo shop, we gave each other a knowing glance before rushing toward it.
This time—after downing a few ‘sober-up’ drinks per the technicians, we thought out what we wanted first and agreed to get the same thing: Small black and grey fountain pens with each other’s name on the handles.
It took much longer than necessary for us to get the ink—mostly because we couldn’t stop laughing at each other and they eventually had to put us into separate rooms.
After the lead technician placed a final piece of gauze over my collarbone, I met Carter by the door.
“What’s next?” I asked. “We have to do at least one more thing before the sun comes up for this to count as a true whirlwind date. It’s a well-known fact.”
“You just made that shit up, Ari.”
“I did.” I smiled. “But only because I don’t want to go back home yet.”
“No worries.” He smirked. “I wasn’t planning on getting you back home any time soon.”
I blushed. “Stay focused. What’s next? Gayle’s?”
“That, or we could always try something new. Since we don’t have a car, we could walk down a few blocks .There’s a brand new specialty diner called Carmen’s that’s closer than Gayle’s.”
“What?”
“It opened a few months ago and it has twenty-four hour service, too. I’ve heard the breakfast is pretty good.”
“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “That wasn’t a what, like ‘what is it?’” It was a what like, ‘Why is that even an option?’ Like, how could you suggest such a thing?”
“To be different for a change? To maybe switch things up?”
Silence.
“Yeah…” I said after a while. “Yeah, I guess we should switch it up a bit tonight. We could both get pancakes instead of waffles—at Gayle’s.”
He laughed and I couldn’t help but join him. He pulled me close again, smiling down at me and “promising” to lead me toward familiarity.
When we were five blocks away from the diner, he suddenly let me go and pulled out his phone.
“Who are you texting?” I asked.
“Josh. I’m asking him to come and pick up my car as soon he can.”
“He knows how to drive your car now?”
“No,” he said. “Nicole does, though.”
“What?” I raised my eyebrow. “So why wouldn’t you just text Nicole? Why text Josh at all?”
“Because they’re probably together right now, and she doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to answering my texts.”
“By ‘together’, you mean the two of them are probably together right now as ‘friends’, correct?”
“Of course.” He smiled, pulling me close again. “Just friends.”