“Ha. I know I said that squares are a cross between a cake and a cookie, but I’ve been thinking about pie. I found this recipe for an apricot square, and it had a lattice crust top, like a pie. And lemon squares—they’re so close to lemon meringue pie, except, you know. No meringue. So maybe we need to add pies to the bars and squares family tree.”
I shook my head, amazed. Where had this guy come from? Yeah, he wanted to be a baker, but still. What seventeen-year-old talked and thought about squares and bars this much? “You’re a strange person, Daniel Ramos.”
“What? I’m not strange for being Team Pie. Lots of people like pie.”
“Yeah, but I doubt they think about how to classify baked goods as much as you.”
“You having second thoughts about Operation Lemon Squares?”
I laughed. “Nope.”
“That’s good. Ready for our selfie, yet?”
The seating area had picked up with more people eating lunch now. I nodded.
He stood and came around to my side of the table. “Here, let’s take one biting the patties.”
With one hand, I held the patty near my mouth, but I put my other hand around Daniel’s upper arm and pulled him closer. We needed to level up this fake relationship so we didn’t just look like two friends hanging out. He seemed to get the idea and moved in closer. He snapped a few pictures—some of us holding the patties near our mouths with our eyes wide, some of us biting into them, some of us chewing while laughing, and some of us with my head rested on his shoulder.
The pictures were ... perfect. Silly. We looked genuinely happy together. No one would look at these and think anything other than this was two teenagers in love.
This was what Devin and I looked like once. Maybe a long time ago.
Daniel tapped the screen with his finger. “These are, like, the most Toronto pictures ever. We’re counting these shots as just one for the parameters, right? Is there a more Toronto food than Jamaican patties? It’s too bad my aunt’s empanadas never took off like these—she’d be a millionaire.” He sat back across from me, popping the last bite of his patty in his mouth. “We should ask the patty shop if they want to use this photo in their advertising.”
I laughed.
“Samaya?” a voice behind me said. I turned ... and crap. It was Hana.
“Hey, Hana!” I stood. “What are you doing here?” Evergreen Brickworks was pretty far from our neighborhood in East Scarborough. I hadn’t expected to see anyone I knew here today.
She pointed to a Brown couple a distance away at a vegetable vendor. I hadn’t seen her parents in years, but I remembered them. “My parents are trying to be allfarmers’ market bougie, lately. They bribed me to come by promising we’d go for boba tea on the way home.”
Hana sat in the seat across from Daniel at the table and turned to me. “Oooh, this is the gamer boyfriend.”
I cringed. Of all the people at Earl’s for Daniel to meet first, why did it have to be Hana Dawar? Daniel didn’t know anything aboutDragon Arenayet. And he was wearing one of his hockey T-shirts. This was a disaster. Our whole plan was about to go up in flames. I bit my lip, looking at Daniel, panicked.
Daniel took my hand in his. And wow. Itwascold. But not in a bad way or anything. Just ...cool. Smooth. I felt my breathing calm with the pressure of his cool fingers.
He smiled warmly at Hana. “I’m Daniel Ramos. Samaya’s been talking about me?”
I nodded and found my voice. “This is my friend Hana from school.”
Hana nodded. “What are you guys doing here?”
Daniel pointed to the shelter table. “We’re volunteering at the shelter bakery booth.”
Hana looked at me. “Ah! Cool! So adorable that you game togetherandvolunteer together.” She looked across the hall toward the shelter booth. “That’s the shelter we had that class trip at, right, Samaya? The construction project? I still have a picture of me in a hard hat on my Insta.”
I frowned. “I didn’t go to that.” If Hana was there, she could have been the one who took the picture of Daniel. “The shelter has a no-pictures policy.”
She shrugged. “Everyone was taking selfies. It’s not often we do, like, real construction work.”
Seemed like there were a lot of rule breakers. I looked at Daniel, hoping he could help here.
“I was volunteering that day,” Daniel said without skipping a beat. “I don’t remember you, though. It was so awesome so many came to help out. The kids love that playground.”
Hana swung her hair over her shoulder. How was it so shiny? Unfair. “I don’t remember you, either. What school do you go to? Where do you live?”
