I scrolled through my podcast app to find the next episode, and pressed play. The opening theme started playing, and I smiled as I turned up the volume.
The last mattress commercial faded out, and I pulled the earphones from my ears. I’d done it—I’d listened to all ofCereal. I now understood all the references that Bryony had been making since I’d known her. I felt a pang as I thought about all the time that we could have been sharing these jokes and talking about our favorite episodes…but I couldn’t go back and change that. And at least now I knew what I’d been missing out on.
Someone jostled me as they passed, shaking me out of this reverie. I looked around and realized where I was. Almost to Pixar Pier, but not quite. I looked down at my watch, wondering if this had just timed out right.
And sure enough—a second later, I saw him. Freddie, walking fast, and carrying a bright orange bottle of soda.
I moved without thinking, just stepped into Freddie’s path. We crashed into each other, ?the bottle fell to the ground?, and the contents exploded, splashing up and hitting my dress.
“Oh no!” Freddie gasped, staring in horror at the orange stain on the hem of my dress. “I’m so sorry—are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him. I looked at Freddie, letting myself take it all in—the lock of hair over his forehead. His dimple. How much I’d missed him.
“But…” Freddie looked up at me, his brow furrowing. “Your dress…”
“I promise it’s okay.” I looked down at the orange puddle, the one that all the seniors around us were giving a wide berth to. “What about your soda?”
“No, I think it’s a lost cause,” Freddie said with a rueful laugh. “It was probably a kind of stupid idea anyway. I was getting it for my friend, as kind of a…peace offering, I guess.”
“Or maybe,” I suggested, “that friend is a mean jerk and he doesn’t deserve a peace offering. Or orange soda.”
Freddie just blinked at me. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, realizing I wasn’t supposed to know any of this, but finding it very hard to keep my mouth shut when Niall was involved. “Never mind.”
“Well, is there anything I can do?” Freddie asked, gesturing toward my dress. “I can pay for the dry cleaning?”
“Or.” I tipped my head toward San Fransokyo, where I knew Ghirardelli’s was. “Maybe you could get me an ice cream?”
Freddie nodded, his face relaxing into a smile. “Yeah. I could do that.”
He threw out the Irn-Bru bottle, and we walked up the pier, our feet falling into step together. I wasn’t sure why I was doing this, exactly—I knew that it couldn’t lead to anything. But the truth was, I’d missed him. And even though I hadn’t been able to stop the disaster that the Eton Mess performance became, the time when I’d been trying to had been some of the most fun I’d had—because of him. Because of theuswe’d been able to become for just a few hours, when he was the one person who understood what I was going through.
But none of itlasted, I reminded myself even as I snuck looks over at him. Which was why he was looking at me with a small, polite smile—the way that you look at a stranger. Which was, of course, all that I was to him.
“I’m Freddie,” he said, in that wonderful accent, giving me a nod.
I know, was on the tip of my tongue, but instead I just smiled at him. “I’m Cass. Cass Issac.”
“You’re here for Grad Nite?”
“I am. Um, are you?” I asked, hoping it didn’t seem too obvious that I knew the answer to this.
“No, I’m in the band that’s going to be performing later. Eton Mess?”
“Oh yeah, I saw some posters for that.”
“You’ll have to come see us,” he said as we reached the ice-cream parlor. “It should be good….” For just a second, I saw a flicker of worry on his face, and I knew in that moment he was thinking about the manager who ?was coming tonight, and his nervousness about pulling it off. Knowing all too well how this would turn out, I had to look away for a second as Freddie pulled the door to the ice-cream parlor open? and we stepped inside.
Freddie got the rocky road, like I knew he would. And having already sampled the mint chip, I chose the strawberry this time. As we collected our ice cream, I glanced over at him. I knew I could do what I’d done so many times now—explain aboutExcalibur!Go through the mental list I’d made of all the things about him. Convince him that this was happening. But as I took my first bite of ice cream—cold and sweet and good—I realized I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be a girl at Grad Nite, one who’d had a meet-cute with a British musician and was having ice cream with him.
We stepped out of the parlor? into the cool California night, and I felt myself shiver.
“You okay?” Freddie asked.
“Just cold,” I said, starting to reach for my jean jacket, then realizing I was hampered by my ice cream. I held my cup out him. “Would you mind…”
“Not at all,” he said quickly, taking it from me. “And you don’t have to worry about me eating any,” he added with a laugh.
