“Nesting,” Pecan explains.
“Makes sense with her due date coming up.”
I gag at Callan’s logic. “I’m so glad I’m not there.”
Zach hauls an arm around my neck. “Even if we’re only eating fried chicken?”
I kiss him on the cheek. “Definitely. Now, who’s making the waffles?”
THIRTY-THREE
I WANT YOUR CANDY
“Are you for real?!”
I grin as she pops her head into the massive cooler I smuggled into Oakwood’s Cinema Club. Oakwood allows you to purchase snacks from here, but they suck and I have allll the good shit.
For our first real date together, I didn’t want to go to the movies, mostly because the small theater in town is going through a sci-fi phase and that’s not her bag. But a movie seemed like a great idea. I didn’t even know we had a freakin’ cinema club until I snooped around.
When I sawThe Goonieswas headlining Thanksgiving week, I knew I had a winner on my hands.
“I’m deadly serious,” I joke when I realize she’s still waiting on an answer.
“How did you get these?! Did you pop up to Canada when I wasn’t looking?”
“Magic.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m being serious. Magic.”
She snags my ear but in a move that isn’t reminiscent of that time she yanked it outside the Pond, she rubs the upper curve of it. When I shudder, she smirks. “Someone likes that even if theyaren’tan elf.”
“Maybe I’m fae.”
“Maybe you’re just a human overloading on BS. But I love the BS if you get me the good shit.” She snags one of the wrappers. “Butter tarts?! Holy fuck, maybe youaremagical.”
I’m not about to tell her that I bribed one of the kids I went tocommunity college with last year to send me thebeststuff. Bribery isn’t magic and that’s all she needs to equate me with Zach = magic. Zach = magic. Zach = magic.
If I say it enough times, she really will never want to get rid of me. Especially if I become her best Canadian snack dealer.
Snorting at the thought, I watch as she rifles through All-Dressed chips, Crispie Crunches, Aeros, Smarties, as well as various other snacks that I’ve introed her and Pecan to over the years. If I didn’t know this woman had my heart, the face she makes when she unearths the pack of maple sugar candies tells me all I need to know.
When she pops one into her mouth, her eyes close and she hums. “I’m telling you, the stuff from the US just doesn’t compare. It’s good, but this has nuance.”
“Like a fine wine?”
“Precisely.”
I lean in. “Lemme taste?”
Her eyes pop open and pin me in place. I angle my head to the side and flutter my tongue over her lips. When she sighs, her breath’s tinged with maple syrup. Ready for the sugar high of my life, I hum as she lets me slide in deeper so I can savor the taste of maple-tinged Denny.
When the lights suddenly drop in the auditorium, neither of us even notice.
Her head tilts to the side as I loom over her, pressing her into the chair as she toys with my hair, fingers twining in the waves, toiling and twisting in a way that brings every nerve ending in my scalp to life.
But the strange clanking noise from the opening segment in the jailhouse keys me into the fact the movie’s starting andThe Gooniesis one of D’s faves. So, with great suffering, I pull back.
