Sidney
The same way our parents never commented on our feuding, they don’t say anything about us running together, or spending the day on the dock, or going places together. When we leave the house we get a little wave from my mom, and a disinterested nod from Asher’s dad.
“Where are we going?” I ask from the passenger side of Greg’s car.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Wow, and no blindfold or anything? Taking a pretty big risk that I won’t figure it out.”
“Do youwantto be blindfolded?” He looks over at me and smiles. “Or is it just instinctual to antagonize me?”
“The second one.” I smile back, watching the scorched wheat fields roll by in the window behind him. “Sorry.” I shrug. “Antagonizing you is just my natural state. It’s woven into the very fiber of my being.” I’m tempted to say,I don’t even know why I do it.But I don’t, because then I’d have to think about how much of a lie it is. And I don’t want to think about where my distrust of Asher really started. Not when I’m sitting next to him, looking forward to our date. Ourfirstdate. The goose bumps areback; the ones I get every time I think about him touching me. There is sure to be touching on our date—and after. It’s the after that covers my whole body in tiny bumps.
I sort of expect him to scowl, or tell me that I need to stop being horrible, but he just looks back at the road and smiles. Asher is really chill. I guess I always knew that, but I never let myself experience it or really appreciate it. Before, he was always scheming and planning. Always on the defensive or the offensive. But now, he justis.He’s the bringer of coffee, and the early morning boat talker. He tells me stories while I swim. I know so much more about him than he does about me. I wonder if he notices the imbalance like I do.
In the afternoons, he slumps down next to me on the deck in the sun, or sits at the table while I paint rocks. When Sylvie or Greg asks him to run out to get something, he doesn’t groan and complain about how they interrupted his book (which is with him at almost all times). Nothing seems to faze him. Except for me.
I wonder if I seem different to him, too, or if I’m just the same old neurotic Sidney I’ve always been. But then why would he even like me, if I was? I try to push that question away but it always seems to be there, right on the edge of my thoughts. Because I don’t feel any different. I still feel like me, just with one less enemy. And I suppose I’m not on the defensive or offensive, either. I’m not trying to think five steps ahead, unless you count right now, on this date.
Date.Oh god, the word makes me feel like I’m living in someone else’s skin. It’s not that I don’t want to be with Asher right now; I totally do. It’s just that when I think about dates, I think about what comes next, and then my mindisfive steps ahead, and before I can stop myself, I’m thinking way too far down the line.No.I mentally slap myself. We aren’t even a couple yet. We’re dating. Barely dating. On our first date. It’s hardlytime to start panicking about all of the repercussions of this little experiment not working out. I push the thoughts down as quickly as they surfaced.
I realize I’ve been panicking in silence for long enough that when my eyes refocus on the world outside this car, I don’t recognize where we are. Apparently there’s no blindfold needed when Asher has my brain to do all of the work for him.
I love mini-golf way more than any person should. Which is why I basically squeal when we pull into The Grove. It’s the strangest mini-golf course I’ve ever seen, and I’ve basically lusted after it since my parents took me here once the first summer we came up here. Dad was totally irritated by all of the weird traps in the holes, and Mom just hates miniature golf on principle, so we never came back. Plus, once Sylvie, Greg, and Asher joined us the next year, we didn’t need to find so many ways to entertain ourselves. Everyone had someone to keep them occupied.
“Do you have a notebook?”
Asher looks confused as we walk across the parking lot. My eyes are fixed on the giant windmill that’s fashioned out of twisted branches. Moss and vines twine over it. “You know, where you keep track of these things… my corn-eating habits, necklaces I’m lusting after. The fact that I’m basically obsessed with this place.”
“No notebook.” Asher puts his hands in the air as if I’m going to search for it on him. “I just remember things.”
“It’s freaky.”
He shrugs. “Not sure what to say, it’s just how my brain works.”
“Then I guess I like your brain.”
“Um. Thanks?” He reaches his hand out as he walks. It’s subtle. Casual enough that I could pretend I didn’t notice. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I take two quick steps to catch up to whereAsher is about to step inside the whitewashed building, and I slip my hand inside of his.
The Grove doesn’t have the usual waterfalls and pirate ships. It’s agriculturally themed. At one hole, your ball shoots out of a fake cherry tree. That was when my dad had decided he’d never return—when he was almost pelted by his own golf ball. He just doesn’t appreciate the challenge of mini-golf like I do. When we take our clubs off of the old wooden counter, I don’t need a mirror to know I am basically beaming with excitement. Asher grabs a little clipboard with a score sheet attached, and two stubby yellow pencils.
I reach for a red ball just as Asher does. “Oh, no.” I grab a ball and point to the row of others. “I’m calling first-date dibs on this.”
Asher picks up a yellow ball and smiles. “First-date dibs, huh?”
We leave the amused desk clerk behind and step through the rickety wooden door and onto the sidewalk. “You asked me on a date. I get to call dibs on things like golf ball colors. And veto things. I also get to claim a bite of your dessert. I don’t make the rules.”
Asher snorts like I just told a joke. “Technically, youaskedme to ask you on a date.”
“Technicalities are no good on first dates—you have a lot of rules to learn. You’ve been on a first date, right?”
“Several.”
We step onto the faux green grass of the first hole. “First dates are the worst.” I drop my ball onto the grass. “But you’re starting strong, Marin.”
At the little podium next to the sidewalk, Asher has one arm on the miniature clipboard.
“Trevor tried to convince me that I should take you somewhere fancy for our first date. Your comment about his basement really sunk in, apparently.” He sounds like he’s looking for confirmation that I wouldn’t rather be in a dress at a restaurant with cloth napkins. That’s what Caleb had thought I wanted. “But clearly this was a great choice. I feel like I brought you back to your homeland or something.” He taps his club against the strip of green running under our feet and smiles. “Seeing how excited you are to come here is almost as rewarding as that time I put coins on you while you were tanning and made the little solar system on your back.”
