Marin looked pensive.“I really don’t know.”
“Here: why don’t you grab my phone and try to Google something fun we can do?”Blake suggested.He nodded down at where his phone was jammed into a cupholder.Marin picked it up.“Pin’s 1031.”
“Date of special significance?”Marin asked.“Or a big fan of Halloween?”
Blake chuckled.“It’s uh, kind of weird to be honest.”
“Try me,” Marin replied without looking up from the phone, a smirk coloring his lips.
“It’s the date Jace got stabbed with a fork at IHOP in sophomore year of high school.”
“What?”Marin gasped, mouth falling into a stunned gape.“I gotta say I was not expectingthat.”
“I told you it’s weird!”Blake grinned, throwing a hand up from the steering wheel.
“What—why would you make that your pin?!”
“It was a memorable occasion!When you have to walk one of your best friends into the ER with a fork jutting out of his hand, it sticks with you,” Blake explained.Marin tossed back his head and laughed.
“Why did he get stabbed with a fork?!”
“He was trying to steal someone else’s pancakes.”
“Well, whose pancakes were they?”
“Who do you think?”
“Would I be on the money if I said Matt?”
“You would be correct.”
The atmosphere in the car was much lighter after that and Blake felt at peace as they eased into their typical repartee.There was no point in being morose, after all—Blake didn’t want his anxiety to ruin what could potentially be their last day together.
As they rolled onto the Bay Bridge proper, Blake told Marin about the various shenanigans he and his friends got up to over their years together, the merman interrupting only to urge him to pull off on the Fremont exit.
“So wherearewe going?”Blake asked as they inched through the Embarcadero.
“Pier 45,” Marin answered.“I thought we’d pay Laffin’ Sal’s cousin a visit at the Musée Mécanique.”
Blake glanced at him, face awash with disbelief and horror.“No.”
Marin continued to smile placidly.
“No, no!Marin!”Blake shook his head, already beginning to grin and laugh despite himself.“Amillionplaces in San Francisco to visit and you want to find another one of those awful nightmares?!”
“What can I say?I’m a fan.”Marin shrugged, almost unable to contain laughter himself.
“Oh myGod.You can’t be seri—you’re dead serious, aren’t you?Marin.”Blake knocked his forehead onto the steering wheel as the car rolled to a stop at a red light.“Oh myGod.”
Thankfully, by the time they arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf, Marin was far more interested in the nearby antique cable cars, and Blake was able to forgo the Laffin’ Sal visit merely by admitting that he’d never gotten the chance to ride one.They proceeded to queue up at the intersection of Beach and Hyde, wind ripping through their hair as they huddled together for warmth.
“You lived here forfour yearsand you never rode the cable car,” Marin chastised, expression stern.“You can’t truly call yourself a San Franciscan if younever rode the cable car.”
“I don’t know!”Blake returned as he handed off their tickets to the man collecting fares on the side of the vehicle.“It seemed like tourist stuff to me.”
Marin rolled his eyes with a grin and they climbed up onto the side of the car, hanging from the support grips.Even though they weren’t moving yet, Blake stared down at the road with a dubious scrunch of his nose.He had a sinking feeling that the second they started moving, he’d pitch straight into the asphalt and decorate the length of Hyde Street with his face.
“Here, turn facing forward for now,” Marin told him, grabbing onto the lapels of Blake’s coat and angling him around.“There’s something I want to show you a little later.”
