“Okay,” he said. He looked down at the Freddie list I’d handed him during my explanation and then back at me, his eyes wider than usual. “I’m just trying to get my head around this.”
“I know,” I said, “and it’s okay if it takes you longer. But right now—right this moment—you have to call Alfie and tell him not to eat the shrimp. Er, prawns.”
“Right,” Freddie said. He pulled out his phone and pressed a button to make a call. “But this is amazing! I always wanted to believe something like this was possible.”
I smiled at him. “I know.”
He laughed. “Right, of course. It’s ringing,” he said, then frowned. “Voicemail…Alfie, mate! I need you to stop eating your prawn…” He glanced at me.
“Stir-fry,” I supplied.
“Stir-fry,” Freddie continued.
“Tell him it’s not a carb thing,” I whispered.
“It’s, uh, not a carb thing,” Freddie said, looking a little taken aback. “It’s just for health and safety. So just bin it and get something else to eat, okay? And maybe avoid seafood altogether? Cheers.” He hung up and looked at me. “Think we did it?”
“I don’t know.” I honestly wasn’t sure I could take seeing Alfie throw up again, and I wanted to do everything I could to try and prevent it, for my own sake as much as Freddie’s. “Maybe we should go check?”
Freddie nodded. “That’s a good idea. I am going to need to eat something, though.”
As though on cue, my stomach grumbled. “Me too. But maybe, let’s get it to go?”
We ended up getting hot dogs at Angry Dogs. Freddie got the full Angry Dog, whereas I decided I might not be up for that level of spice at the moment and chose the Slightly Annoyed Dog. We ate them as we walked toward the stage where Eton Mess would be performing, trying to work out what, exactly, happened to give Freddie his allergic reaction.
“It happens onstage?” he asked, taking a bite of his Angry Dog.
I nodded. “You start out fine, and then, like a minute later, you’re having this reaction. And youknewabout it last time—you promised me you weren’t going to eat anything, just to be on the safe side.” He took another bite of his hot dog, and I nodded at it. “How is that?”
“Really good,” he enthused. “You should have gone for spicy.”
“I think I’m okay,” I assured him.
“Now, while these are good, the hot dogs at Award Wieners are slightly superior.”
I laughed. “Atwhere?”
“The name might be silly, but the hot dogs are not,” Freddie assured me. “Honestly, I think at this point, I’ve tried all the food at the park, so you should really trust my opinion.”
“I mean, I’m getting there,” I said, realizing with some surprise that this was the third dinner we’d had together. “A few more loops and I’ll catch up to you. But maybe beextracareful this time, okay? I just don’t understand where this allergic reaction is coming from—”
I stopped short when I realized that Reagan, Zach, and McKenna were walking toward us. They hadn’t seen me yet, but unless I wanted to have a very awkward conversation with all of them—mostly revolving around why I was a terrible person who hadn’t brought churros—I had to get out of sight, and fast.
“You okay?” Freddie asked, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah, we just need to hide.”
“Hide?”
I looked around in a panic, knowing I was about to be spotted unless I moved quickly. But where could we even go?
“Here,” Freddie said, jumping into action. He grabbed my free hand with his, and the moment we touched, I felt thatzingtravel all the way through me. He pulled me behind the nearby cookie stand so that we were out of sight. “Okay?” he asked.
“Maybe.” I glanced around to try and see Reagan, but attempted to do it surreptitiously. Seeing where I was looking, and still holding my hand, Freddie steered me so that he was facing the direction the trio was coming, with my back to them. Then he dropped my hand and leaned his arm against one of the posts holding up the cookie stand.
I looked up at him. And I hadn’t realized, until this moment, just how close together we were. I could have risen up on my toes and been near enough to kiss him. I wasn’t going to—we were both still holding hot dogs, and we had to stop Alfie from eating the shrimp. But it was more than that. It was the fact that this wasn’t the Freddie who’d stood close to me in the moonlight and tucked my hair behind my ear. It wasn’t the Freddie who’d turned my hair around his fingers in the hallway, asking if he could see me after the show. This Freddie had just met me, and while I hadn’t just met him, I still wanted to be respectful of that. Even though, standing this close and breathing him in, seeing his strong arm resting on the post above me, I could feel my resolve start to weaken.
He looked down at me and raised an eyebrow. “Think we’re okay?”
