All the walking around gets the both of us hungry so we stop at a restaurant for dinner. It’s been too long and I’m willing to bet that the rest of our friends are still waiting in line for a water ride, or whatever ride it was they chose to wait in line for.
“Can we just alternate this time?” Carson suggests when we reach the front of the line. “You paid for butterbeer, so I should pay for lunch.”
I shake my head. “You paid for Trent!”
“We’re not naming the minion Trent!” He laughs. “Besides, he doesn’t count.”
Since I'm the one holding onto the minion, I squeeze it tightly in my arms. “You just hurt his feelings.”
“I’m only counting anything we can eat.” He points to the minion. “We’re not eating William.”
“We’re not naming the minion William, either,” I say before sighing. “I guess if you’re only counting food, then fine. You can pay.”
“Thank you.” He pays and we take our trays over to a table that just cleared up. I place my tray down and sit the stuffed minion on the chair next to me before I perch myself on the cold, metal chair. We start eating and not much is said between us. I normally don’t mind it because I’m rather used to it but with my average-tasting tacos from the Mexican restaurant, I’d rather have something or someone to distract me.
It’s not much longer before I find myself unable to finish my food. Maybe I’m just used to the taco trucks near my house or amusement park food is so not worth the price (I’m going with the latter here). There’s also the possibility that my mind is still on the boy in front of me, eating his loaded nachos without care.
For once.
“Hey, you okay?” Carson’s muffled voice asks as he wipes his mouth with a napkin.
I blink and nod. “Yeah,” I lie. “Just a little worried about Friday’s test.” Due to the multiple people who did horribly on the mid-term, our professor is issuing a re-do midterm. Something he should have done because, since the original test, there hadn’t gone a day that a studentwasn’tbegging for one. We got to a point where Lucia started a petition just for it.
Carson softly smiles at me and reaches over to touch my hand. Well, he touches the splint but I can still feel him regardless. “You’ll do fine.”
“But what if I fail?” I whine.
“Please,” he says. “You’ve been doing great in our sessions so far. Understood the material quickly. It’s never been ayouproblem. You’ll pass.”
I shake my head. “Do you really believe in me?”
“Well, yeah.” He shrugs. “I’ll always believe in you, D.”
Oh great, my face is burning up and it has nothing to do with the tacos I ate. Why do so few words have to affect me so greatly?
“Well, you were easy to understand,” I admit, attempting another bite at my tacos before pushing the plate away. “Ugh, I can’t do this anymore.”
He pulls the plate closer to him and takes a bite of an untouched taco. After a few chews, his face scrunches up. “Yeah, that sucks,” he agrees after swallowing the bite. “Maybe it’s the cilantro.”
“It’s never the cilantro.” I wrap an arm around the stuffed minion. “At least Anthony didn’t get to eat it. The lucky guy.”
“We’re not naming him Anthony!”
“Well, it’s better than Bartholomew,” I laugh, remembering his first suggestion.
He exhales, allowing his bangs to fly away from his face. “Then you can call him Barty if that’s better.”
“You are going to die on this Bartholomew hill, aren’t you?”
Carson laughs and it doesn’t sound fake or diluted. It’s a wholehearted, genuine laugh that I don’t remember ever hearing before this moment.
He has me laughing alongside him and as we’re enjoying this moment between us, I realize how much I want this to keep going.
How I don’t want any of this to end.
“So, if you weren’t having the time of your life with the coolest guy on the planet”—he winks—“what would you spend your birthday doing?”
I playfully roll my eyes. “Honestly?”
