I didn’t know enough about food to describe what I was tasting, so I swallowed it and tried not to gag at the final, sudden hit of sweetness on the back of my tongue.
Hayden was looking at me, clearly eager for feedback.
For a split second I thought maybe this was a prank, maybe it was like making me run back home in a post-orgasm haze and throw myself into the shower so his dad wouldn’t realize what we’d been doing when he called me for breakfast.
But it wasn’t. Hayden’s face was so earnest, waiting for me to tell him I loved it.
I would’ve done anything for one of Mr. Lewis’s interruptions right now.
As I struggled to come up with something—anything—to say about it, Hayden’s face fell.
“You hate it,” he said.
I couldn’t lie to him.
“What, umm. What… is it?” I asked, unsure I wanted to know the answer.
“Blue cheese and honey,” Hayden responded.
“Why?”
Whyprobably wasn’t the best thing I could’ve said, but the combinationin ice creamjust wouldn’t register in my brain.
That did explain why it was that weird blue-green color.
“Umm.” Hayden rubbed the back of his neck. “I had this caramelized fish sauce with burnt butter and vanilla ice cream a while back, and it was incredible, and I was thinking, y’know, I could use things along the same lines to get that same… kind of… taste?”
I offered Hayden the spoon. “Maybe I don’t have the palate for it?” I offered, desperate to soothe his wounded ego.
Hayden had been kicked in the guts enough times in his life. Even if I didn’tmeanit, I didn’t want to be yet another person letting him down.
He hesitated, then took the spoon and tried a tiny bit of the ice cream, wrinkling his nose as he tasted it.
“No,” he said, taking the bowl away. “That’s disgusting.”
“It was a good idea,” I said, though I didn’t really believe it.
“Bullshit, but thank you,” Hayden said, peering into the ice cream machine. “Glad this second batch is safer. It doesn’t exactly challenge the palate, but peanut butter and chocolate is Dad’s favorite.”
“I’m not sure ice cream needs to be challenging,” I said.
Hayden looked at me like I’d just said something profound, opened his mouth, then closed it again without saying anything.
He tapped on the ice cream machine, peering in through the window at the top.
I got up for a glass of water, checked to see the coast was clear, and squeezed his ass on the way back around the counter, making him squeak.
“Still think you’re hot,” I laughed. “Just so we’re clear.”
18
Hayden
Right before Wesdragged me to the local ice cream parlor, I should have realized the mistake I was making.
The mistake where I now had to watch him lick drips of vanilla ice cream off his fingers, in public, with children present.
I hadn’t rememberedanythingabout fourth of July celebrations in Otter Bay, but apparently ice cream was a tradition, if the quarter-mile line was anything to go by. I couldn’t remember there evenbeingan ice cream parlor here when I’d been a kid.
