“What?” he asked frantically as he searched the road for a small child or animal or something. “What is it?”
“Hot nuts,” I said with a moan. “They’re selling hot nuts. Ineedhot nuts.”
The car behind us honked and he rolled forward with a frown that was on the verge of being a smile. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Have you ever even had hot nuts?” I asked him.
“I think you can answer that one for yourself.”
I rolled my eyes as I swallowed back the incredibly erotic memory of Jack (ugh, I know) with his thighs spread wide and Isaac’s eager tongue licking between them. “Can you just park, please?”
“I can Instacart you as many hot nuts as you want,” he told me.
“But they won’t still be hot,” I said sweetly. “We just passed like three spots.”
He sighed and stopped at the next open parallel spot. “Hot nuts it is.”
I watched as he rolled his window down and waved on the cars behind us to go around.
He adjusted the rearview mirror and bit down on his bottom lip as he drove forward and wedged the front of the car into the spot, the back half still sticking out into the street.
I sat there quietly with my hands in my lap as he reversed out and pulled back in again, his frustration growing.
Despite his continuing to wave on the cars behind him, a line of vehicles piled up.
“Isaac,” I whispered, “do you know how to parallel park?”
He pulled forward again and this time, the tire hit the curb. “I understand the theory of parallel parking,” he said.
I nodded. “But you’ve never actually done it?”
“Most places have valet,” he explained. “Or I’m being driven... and yeah, I guess it wasn’t on the top of Carina Kelly’s priority list. Go! Around! Me!” he shouted.
The person behind us laid on their horn, and Isaac threw the car into park, blocking half the road, and crossed his arms in protest.
“Okay. Okay,” I said. “Let me see what I can do about these cars.”
I got out of the car and marched over to a shiny white truck, the man behind it with a handlebar mustache so large it could very well slither off his face and drive itself away.
“Hi,” I said cheerily. “Could you please go around us? My Italian boyfriend is learning how to drive for the first time here in the US and he’s having a really hard time concentrating. He’s never driven such a large vehicle.”
The man nodded with a grumble and gunned it around Isaac as he yelled something that sounded like “Get off the road, pretty boy!”
I skipped back up to the car as Isaac pulled into the space again, his aim a little better, but not by much.
“Sunny,” he said with exasperation, “can you please just park this fucking car so we can get your hot nuts and go home?”
I leaned in through my open window. “Um, would it surprise you if I told you that I too do not know how to parallel park?” It was Bee’s greatest pet peeve about me. She always had to drive us anywhere without a parking lot, which turned out to be a lot of places in LA. We all have our flaws, okay? My drivinginstructor was an anticapitalist out-of-work actor who always talked about microdosing. I barely even recall learning how to use a blinker.
He threw his head back against the headrest for a moment and then aggressively shifted into park before getting out of the car.
I stood back and examined his triumph as cars carefully edged around the bumper protruding into the street. “You know what? That’s one fine parking job. You’re not even on the sidewalk.”
He looked back over his shoulder as he held his arm out to escort me. “I hope it doesn’t get hit by a snowplow. Did you get the additional coverage on the car when you rented it?”
“Isaac, I know you’re a son of Hollywood, but you need to know that additional coverage is a racket.” I let myself cozy into him and his warmth. “Now to the hot nuts!”
Iwound through the market with Isaac on my heels. I’d unbuttoned the finger covers of my mittens so I could feel the warm nuts through their paper cone holder. Behind me, I could sense Isaac hovering uncomfortably as we delved farther into the crowd. He stayed close to me and I couldn’t tell if it was because he was worried about losing me for his sake or my own.
