“What is the Komodo Dragon!” Gracie unnecessarily shouts across the small space.
“Ding ding! First points on the board go to table two. But, um, you don’t have to say ‘what is’ before your answers.”
I snicker as Gracie mutters, “I was trying to be official,” under her breath.
“Question two: How many eyes does a honeybee have?”
I buzz in with the correct answer, shocked Gracie doesn’t push the button before me. “Five.” I turn toward her and smile. “Do you think Mae planted that question from Ohio?”
She gives an awkward smile and shrugs.
The MC asks two more questions, both of which Gracie gets correct. It’s starting to get uncomfortable in here, like when you’re watching a college basketball game and one team is getting completely demolished. With only a few questions left in this round, some patrons give us sideways glances. I inherently know that we should not stay for a second round.
“Question seven: How high can penguins jump?”
I buzz in with confidence. “Trick question—penguins can’t jump.”
Gracie swivels her head slowly, and it’s at this moment I know I’ve made a grave error.
“Penguins can’t jump?” she hisses. “Seriously, Danny? You’ve never seen a penguin jump from an iceberg to another iceberg? Or into the water?”
Another table buzzes in correctly with “nine feet!”
I face her. “Ninefeet?” I ask incredulously. “That’s not possible. Are these penguins stacked on top of Lebron James’s shoulders in a trenchcoat or something?”
Bickering about penguins, we completely miss the next two questions. My partner is not pleased.
The MC brings us back, announcing, “Final question. This one is worth five points, everybody!”
“Let me buzz in. We need to get it right if we want to win. Don’t ruin this for me, Danny,” she warns.
I hold my hands up in mock surrender. “Harsh, but I’ll allow it.”
“Question ten: what animal holds hands while sleeping so they don’t drift away in the water?”
Gracie and I whip our heads to face each other so fast we almost collide. Her breath warms my face, and I wordlessly reach out and place my hand on top of hers.
Serenity seeps into my skin as I feel an overwhelming sense of contentment. Sitting with Gracie like this, my hand covering hers, feels like finding my favorite sweater I thought I’d lost.
I’m warm. I’m comfortable.
And everything is as it should be.
We’re so busy looking into each other’s eyes that a different table buzzes in and wins the whole shebang.
Gracie doesn’t care.
We hold hands in the backseat the whole way home.
“One strawberry milkshake for the girl with the strawberry hair,” I tease, adding a striped straw from the kitchen drawer before handing the tall glass to Gracie.
She takes it, throwing me a huge smile. “Who needs a robot refrigerator when you can make me the best dessert ever invented?”
I laugh as I rinse the blender and start making myself a chocolate one.
Gracie sips her milkshake. “Mmm, this is actually so good.”
She plays with the straw, picking it up and licking some of the frothy liquid off the bottom. I remember her at eighteen, doing exactly this, her curls nearly spilling into the rim of the cup. It takes my breath away, the intersection of then and now; who we were before, and who we are today.
