Whatever they say slumps Miller’s shoulders, all of him turning inward, and he doesn’t talk to anyone else while he waits for our drinks.
“Everything okay?” I ask, smiling, when he sets the too-full pint glasses down, cider sloshing over the rims and spilling on the already-sticky table.
“Yeah.” He nods through a grin that doesn’t meet his eyes. They’re dark again.
The Mariana Trench of Miller, where he goes when he’s sad.
He takes a long sip of his cider, and I watch, waiting for his nose to wrinkle, his eyes to scrunch at the taste. But his throat works in a swallow and then he looks up at me, another grin that doesn’t really go anywhere, asking, “You ready for the first question?”
Pressing my palms into the table, I lean forward. “Obviously.”
And I am ready. It’s so simple it’s almost laughable.
What dinosaur killed Dennis Nedry in the first film?
“Pfft. Easy.” I tip my chin up, making a show of marking down our answer on our sheet. “Dilophosaurus.”
Miller smiles again, and this one does go somewhere—stretching like the first rays of sun towards the churning surface of the ocean. He raises his glass to meet mine. “Trophy’s ours.”
Miller
“Smile! Put your arm around her!” The bartender waves an impatient hand at me, barely glancing away from the screen of Ren’s phone as she puts way too much effort into framing the photo properly.
Ren throws me a sideways glance, teeth finding her bottom lip when she hides a laugh. Her eyes widen, cutting to her shoulder, and she smiles at me expectantly. “Come on, they want a good picture of their champions. Not everyone gets a perfect score atJurassic Parktrivia night, you know.”
“Not everyone has a knower of fossils and all things dinosaur on their team.” I grin, tossing my arm over her shoulder, looking back at the camera.
“Say champions!” the bartender demands.
I think Ren’s nose wrinkles, and she gives a half-hearted echo of the word, but she’s still smiling, holding up the raptor trophy proudly.
I do the same, and I lift a finger off her shoulder like the number one, which the bartender seems to love, judging by herloud shriek when she starts clicking rapidly to capture as many photos as she can.
“All done!” She throws a thumbs-up before handing Ren her phone back. “Whenever you post, we’d love it if you tagged the bar. Great publicity.”
The bartender gives me a hopeful—and knowing—look before she disappears back into the crowd.
Ren leans towards me, like she’s about to rest against my chest. The low lights of the bar suddenly feel like spotlights beating down on me. My grip tenses against her shoulder where my palm engulfs the whole thing, but she holds out the phone in front of me, laughing lightly. “Oh, these are actually kind of funny!”
“Yeah?” Swallowing, I look down at the phone.
They aren’t bad pictures. Not at all.
Ren, hair tumbling around her shoulders, curling inward at the ends. Eyes the brightest word for blue you’d find in a dictionary somewhere. And her mouth—full lips split in a smile so wide it rounds her cheeks, flushed from the warmth of the bar, and her slim, fossil-dusting hands wrapped around the tiny raptor like it’s the Commissioner’s Trophy.
Me, hair curling around my ears, waves flopping down on my forehead carelessly. Grinning more than I have in months, one hand splayed against my knee, the tattooed one hidden and protected by its spot on her shoulder.
My throat dries out when, glancing sideways, I see she looks the same. Hair spilling across her shoulders, cheeks pink, but her teeth come down on her bottom lip and I—
“Do you like this one?” She turns to me, blinking expectantly.
“Uh,” I mumble, eyes snapping back up to hers, and I try to grin through whatever feeling that’s currently clawing its way through my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, send it to me.”
Ren’s fingers move across her screen, and when the text vibrates my phone in my pocket, I finally let go of her shoulder. I give my head a shake, clearing my throat. “Here, I’ll knock something off my list.” Bringing up Instagram, I hold the phone out to her. “I’ll tag you?”
“Look at you! Two things in one night? A public appearance and a social media post? Who is he?” she laughs before spelling out her handle.
I make a big show of hitting the follow button. She rolls her eyes, unamused, but her cheeks pink.
