“No,” he says, his expression and tone serious.
“Sorry, that was—”
He lifts my chin up gently. “No, Hazel, I’m glad you did. Seriously. I want to know you.”
“I want to know you, too.” And I do. I really, really do.
“And we’ve been through something big—something impossible—together. We know what each other’s futures hold,” Logan says with a little humor in his voice. He’s trying to cheer me up. “That’s got to count for something, right?”
I grab a handful of gummy numbers from the bag on the table. “Yeah, maybe like fifteen,” I say, holding up a seven and an eight.
He playfully bites the eight out of my hand. “Now we’re here. If that hadn’t happened, and if I wasn’tsucha nice guy,” he says with a playful roll of his eyes, “then we wouldn’t be on this rooftop. Together.” Logan gently holds my face between his hands. “Believe me when I say we all do things we wish we could take back. I sure as hell have. You’re not the only one who’s made a mistake.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. This man really doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.
Logan pulls me into him, holding me until I’m ready to let go. He smells like sawdust and pine. There’s an entire forest in his skin.
He reaches for the bag the takeout came in and removes two fortune cookies. “Here. These are always a nice little boost.” He jumbles the two plastic-wrapped cookies together like a magician performing a sleight-of-hand trick.
I choose the cookie from his left hand. “After the tea leaf reading, I thought you’d be done with fortunes.”
“No restaurant is going to give you a bad fortune,” Logan says, tearing his open and snapping the cookie in half. “That wouldn’t be smart for business.”
His smile fades when he sees that his slip of paper is torn into three squares.
“It must’ve been baked into the folds?” I guess.
“Does this cancel out whatever’s written here?”
“Maybe? Here, let me see.” I puzzle the pieces together against my thigh, which I quickly learn is useless. There are only words printed on one of the squares.
—give up.
“The first part is cut off,” I say, turning that piece over. “I’m sure it was supposed to say something encouraging that ends with ‘never give up.’ ”
“Or it says, ‘You should give up.’ ”
“No.No.Let’s go back to that restaurant and report this. They can’t be giving out cut-off fortunes! Or maybe there was a printer error. I’m sure they’re all like that.” I crack my cookie in half, pull out my fortune, and start reading. “Time teaches us everything we need to know. When to start, when to stop. When enough is enough. In twenty-four hours or a lifetime, many lessons can be learned.” I take a breath. “There’s no need to rush. Time is your friend.”
Logan laughs as he shakes his head in disbelief. “All of that was on your fortune?”
“Probably a verbose intern wrote this. It was their first day, and they didn’t know they had to keep their predictions to one line. That’s Fortune Cookie Writing 101,” I say, turning my slip over. “Either way, fortune cookie fortunes don’t count.”
He looks slightly relieved. “You don’t think so?”
“No,” I try to say confidently. “But just in case, maybe we should confirm it.” Down below, the sounds of the city’s noisy night scene echo off the buildings. I stand and help pull Logan up. “Come on. We’re going back to that restaurant and getting you a new fortune cookie.”
His eyes sparkle in the lights from the neighboring buildings. “If you insist.” He sweeps our plates and empty takeout boxes into the bag, tossing his fortune in after it.
I follow him across the rooftop. My steps slow as we reach the door.
I hesitate. For some reason, this is the moment my mind decides to recall Logan’s third tea leaf reading.
He pulls the door open. A gust from the stairwell blows my hair back.
The tea leaves indicated a ladder.
I’m sure Logan is around ladders at work, but he hasn’t mentioned anything.
