8. Mackie
MACKIE
“Are you ready for an adventure?” are the first words out of my mouth when he gets into my car, and I don’t mean for them to sound ominous but they definitely do.
He gives me a look, eyebrows up, mouth slightly open, and I laugh because if I’ve learned anything over the past few weeks of getting to know Zach it’s that he’s basically down for anything but he never would have turned a trip to the pet store for cat food into an adventure.
He would have had the food delivered and called it a day.
“What kind of adventure?”
“I don’t know, little bit of this, little bit of that.”
He buckles his seatbelt staring at me, and I see his eyes flick down to my mouth then back up.
I’m about to make fun of him for it but then he leans over and kisses me, when he pulls back he’s got a smile that’s almost shy.
I want to grab his face and pull him back in but he’s already settling into the seat.
I put the car in drive and his hand goes straight to the door handle, fingers curled around it like he’s expecting me to veer into oncoming traffic.
I want to be offended but honestly it’s kind of cute how concerned he looks, bracing for impact even though we’re barely going faster than twenty-five.
“Are you planning to jump out of a moving vehicle?”
“I’m just now realizing this is the first time I’ve ever been in a car with you driving.” I see him check the side mirror, then my speed. Probably calculating stopping distances in his head because that’s how his brain works. “It’s slightly terrifying.”
“Why is it terrifying? I’m a great driver.” I press the gas a little harder, accelerating as we approach the intersection right at the light changes.
“That’s a yellow light. Yellow light. Mackie, you’re about to run a yellow light!” He’s gesturing with one arm and clutching the door with the other like we’re in a high speed pursuit.
“Yellow means go faster, everyone knows that.” I slap the back of my hand against the roof of the car as we cross under the light and the look he gives me tells me he thinks I’m legitimately insane.
“I just earned us five minutes. Aren’t you even a little superstitious?
Running lights is good luck. Yellows earn you five and reds earn you ten. ”
“Five minutes of what?”
“I don’t know. The game of life? It’s like going through checkpoints on the racing games. You should be thanking me for making that checkpoint.”
I take a turn a little sharper than necessary and watch him grab the handle for real this time.
“Don’t be nervous. When I was fifteen my dad signed me up for this high performance driving school and I can do all the things.”
He looks at me, one hand still death-gripping the door, the other braced against the center console. “What things?”
“Oh, you know, panic stops, threshold braking, wet roads, J-turns. I know how to drive stick, do pit maneuvers—”
“Mackie, there’s no way you actually—” He stops and rubs his hand over his face. “You pit maneuvered a car?”
“WELL NOT INTENTIONALLY!”
“So you unintentionally pit maneuvered a car. How does that even happen!?”
“It means there was an incident in a Costco parking lot that we don’t talk about and my mom’s SUV has never been the same.” I shrug. “Anyway the point is I’m a very skilled driver and you’re safe with me.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
“That’s a you problem.”
He laughs, but it’s more of a choked helpless sound, and his hand finally relaxes off the door handle.
The pet store parking lot is oddly full for a Saturday afternoon, which means I have to circle twice before I find a spot. Zach raises his eyebrows and I can tell he’s silently judging my parking job because I’ve ended up slightly crooked and maybe a little too close to the line.
“Don’t say it.” I point at him.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking that we’re at a pet store.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and looks between me and the building. “Why are we at a pet store?”
“My mom needs cat food. For Mr. Noodles.”
“You have a cat?”
“My parents have a cat. He’s like fifteen and he hates everyone except my dad.
It’s a whole thing.” I’m already getting out of the car because if I sit here any longer I’m going to have to explain the entire history of Mr. Noodles and how he once bit a plumber and my mom had to pay for the hospital bill and the stitches.
“Come on, this’ll be quick. In and out.”
“Why do I feel like that’s not true?”
“Because you’re a pessimist.”
“I’m a realist.”
“You’re a goalie. Aren’t you guys supposed to be insane? Where’s your sense of spontaneity?”
“I left it in the car with my will to live.”
I grab his hand and pull him toward the entrance and he lets me, which is basically Zach’s love language at this point, just letting me drag him into whatever chaos I’ve decided we’re doing today.
The cat food is in the back of the store, which means we have to walk past literally everything else first, and I’m already getting distracted by a wall of squeaky toys shaped like various foods.
There’s a squeaky taco. A squeaky pizza slice.
A squeaky chicken that I pick up and squeeze three times before Zach gently removes it from my hand and puts it back on the hook.
“You don’t have a dog.”
“We could have a dog.”
“We’re here for cat food.”
“Right, but what if we were here for a dog?”
He puts his hand on the small of my back and steers me forward and I let him because if left to my own devices I’d be here for three hours playing with dog toys and making them squeak.
“Mackie.”
“Fine, fine, cat food, I’m focused.”
We find the food. We grab the bag. We’re walking toward the registers and I’m thinking okay, maybe I can do a normal errand like a normal person.
And then I see it.
There’s a tiny cup by the register. One of those clear, plastic cups they keep betta fish in, which has always struck me as extremely cruel, imagine living your whole life in a cup, and this one is gorgeous.
Dark red body with huge fins that fan out like he’s showing off, like he knows he’s too pretty for this plastic prison next to the dog treats and the gift cards.
I stop walking.
Zach doesn’t notice at first, he gets a few steps ahead before he turns around. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I’m already reaching for the cup. The fish flares his fins at me. We’re having a moment.
“Mackie.”
“What?”
“You’re holding a fish.”
I look down at my hands. I am, in fact, holding a fish.
“I’m just looking at him.” I am not just looking at him. I’m already in love with him. “Isn’t he beautiful? Look at his little face.”
“He doesn’t have a face. He’s a fish.”
“He has a face to me.” I set the cup on the checkout counter next to the cat food and the cashier doesn’t even blink, which tells me this has probably happened before. “I’m getting him.”
Zach stares at the cup, then at me, then back at the cup. “Okay, so... what’s your plan here? Because I don’t have a tank at my apartment. Do you have a tank at your house?”
“Uhhh.” I did not think this through. “Guess we need a tank?”
I give him my best smile, the one that usually works, the one I’ve been deploying strategically since I was four years old and figured out that my dad would give me basically anything if I smiled at him just right.
Zach sighs, a long defeated exhale that tells me I’ve already won even though he hasn’t said yes yet.
“Goddammit. Fine.” He points toward the back of the store. “Go pick out a tank. I’ve clearly been tricked.”
“You’re the best!”
“I’m an idiot, is what I am.”
“An idiot who’s about to be a fish dad!” I’m already halfway down the aisle, cup clutched to my chest. “His name is Shredder, by the way!”
“We’re not naming him Shredder!”
“Too late, it’s already done, Shredder and I have bonded!”
Setting up the fish tank takes forever. Which is ridiculous because it should be two steps: add water, add fish.
But Zach insists on reading everything, literally mouthing the words as he goes, stopping to Google “do betta fish need hiding spots” on his phone.
He’s wearing reading glasses. I didn’t even know he had reading glasses.
He looks like a concerned parent researching preschools and I kind of want to make fun of him but I’m also kind of melting.
He’s got his sleeves pushed up and I keep looking at his forearms, which is possibly weird, but whatever. They’re good forearms.
“You could help,” he says.
“I’m supervising.”
“You’re lying down on my couch.”
“It’s called horizontal supervision.”
He shakes his head but he’s smiling, and I roll onto my stomach so I can watch Shredder swim around in the little plastic cup, still waiting for his tank to be ready.
He flares his fins at me through the plastic.
I flare back, puffing my cheeks out, and Zach catches me doing it.
He doesn’t say anything but I can see him trying not to laugh.
It takes another twenty minutes before Shredder’s finally in the tank, and I’ve been lying here so long my arm is asleep.
The cushion shifts when he drops onto the other end of the couch.
“Hey.” I turn my head to look at him and he’s right there, closer than I expected, and all the want from the past four days comes rushing back at once.
“I missed you when you were on your road trip, Fish Daddy.” I try not to laugh when I say it but a giggle escapes anyway.
“Mackie, please, I’m begging you. Don’t ever call me that again.”
I sit up and scoot closer to him. “But you’re a fish dad now.”
“Fish owner. Co-owner. Whatever. I’m subletting the space on top of my bookshelf for your fish.”
“Our fish.”
He laughs, pulling me toward him and I stop caring about whose fish it is because of the way he’s watching me. His eyes have gone dark and there’s a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth and god, women would kill for lips like that and he just has them without trying.
“I thought about you,” he says. “The whole time I was gone.”
“What did you think about?”
“You.”
“No shit, Zach. What about me?”
His face immediately goes pink. “You know.”