And then when the game ends, the place really heats up. Hot ’N Crusty isn’t the usual postgame hangout, but Margaritas across the street is mobbed with a line out the door, and we’ve ended up with the overflow. We’re the “ugh, I don’t want to wait, let’s just go there” restaurant of choice. A few sweaty football players even show up, alight with the glow of gridiron victory. Apparently we won.
It’s not until we’re about to close that I even have a moment to pull out my phone and see the text from Natalie. It’s just a picture, one she took on her phone that’s zoomed in, so it’s a little bit fuzzy. But I can see Julianne in her red dress. She’s wearing a tiara and holding another in her hands. The new nominees are lined up to her right, and to her left and just behind her is Frank.
And she’s beaming.
* * *
“I have news,” Tristan says, sliding into a booth across from me, where I’m wiping down menus. We closed about twenty minutes ago, and Del only just gently shooed out the last of the customers.
“You’re selling Cecilia to finance your dream of being a pizza sous chef,” I guess.
“Blasphemy,” he declares, a twinkle in his eye. “This is better.”
“Are you going to make me keep guessing, or are you going to cough it up?”
He gives me a wicked grin, then reaches into his lap and produces a paper plate, the same type of paper plate I remember from my first night at Hot ’N Crusty, topped with the very same kind of pizza that was definitely not made at Hot ’N Crusty, as evidenced by the congealing cheese leaking out of the edge of the crust. Unless Del added stuffed crust to the menu this morning, this pizza definitely came from somewhere else.
“Again?” I cry, dropping the wet rag onto the menu so I can examine the pizza. Suddenly I feel like a detective on Law & Order, ready to interrogate the slice until it gives up its secrets.
“It gets better. Because I know where it came from.”
“Shut up,” I whisper. “Who?”
“You know the old couple that comes in and shares a single slice?” he asks, and I nod. Bert and Birdie (I swear to god those are their names; I asked twice just to be sure) have been coming in to Hot ’N Crusty since it opened all the way back in the late eighties. And according to them, they’ve always ordered the same thing (as Birdie told me with a sweet-old-lady smile and a wink that made her blue eye shadow sprinkle down onto her cheek). I always assumed they were just old and ate like, well, birds. Both of them look like a stiff breeze would send them into the next county. I swear, the heaviest thing about Bert is the dark brown toupee that hangs off his head at a jaunty angle.
I guess they were hungrier than I thought.
“I caught the old lady pulling a to-go box out of her purse,” Tristan says, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Birdie!” I cry, as if she can hear my chastisement. “What did you do?”
“I told Birdie that her secret was safe with me,” he says. “You get that old, you can eat what you want, where you want. Did you know Bert served in Korea? He’s got a huge-ass tattoo of his army unit on his bicep.”
“Wow, I never would’ve pegged them for the ones.”
“Everyone has the potential to surprise you,” he says, his voice dropping slightly, getting husky in a way that makes my stomach fizzle like it’s full of Pop Rocks. “So, when you’re done with the menus, you wanna go somewhere?”
“Where?” I ask, as if it matters at all. Because the answer is obviously yes yes yes oh yes.
“I dunno, just out for a drive, maybe? We could listen to that CD if you haven’t found a player yet,” he says.
“Are you telling me Cecilia has a CD player?”
“Cecilia is full of secrets,” he says, and then he slides out of the booth and heads for the swinging door to the kitchen. “Meet me in the back when you’re done.”
It takes me about point two seconds to wipe down the rest of the menus. I practically hurl them back into the milk crate beneath the counter where they’ll wait for tomorrow’s lunch shift. Then I bolt through the door so hard and so fast that Joey has to leap out of the way for fear of being flattened.
“Watch it!” he calls as I skid on my heel to turn into Del’s office to clock out.
“Sorry!” I yell back over my shoulder, punching the time clock. I get it wrong three times before I finally succeed in ending my shift.
“Big plans?” Del asks from his spot at his computer, where he’s peering over his reading glasses.
“The biggest,” I say with a wide grin. And then I haul ass to the back door.
Cecilia is waiting by the dumpster, her engine chugging to warm up in the chilly evening. Tristan is in the front seat, and as soon as I climb into the passenger seat, I pass him the CD, which I’ve been carrying around in my purse since he gave it to me. I haven’t been alone in Dad’s car since that day, and I haven’t wanted to explain to him why we’re listening to … well, whatever Tristan put on it.
Tristan slips the CD from the sleeve and pops it into one of those old-school portable CD players that’s attached to the car stereo with a cassette tape, and oh my god this is going to be a very old-fashioned car ride.
The music starts, Tristan adjusting the volume so it’ll be heard over the roaring engine, and then we pull out of the parking lot. He doesn’t say anything, so I think the plan here is to really listen to the music. And I do.
I recognize the first song. The Beatles version of “Twist and Shout.” I bop along, mostly picturing the scene in Ferris Bueller during the parade, a movie I love. The second song is slower, and definitely still the Beatles, but I don’t know it.
Here I stand, head in hand, the singer growls in this nasally tone.
“It’s John Lennon. ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.’ Iconic,” Tristan calls over the engine, and I nod. By the third song, we’re turning out onto one of the rural roads that’ll lead us out to the hills of Monroe County. And that’s when I realize the whole album is made up of Beatles songs. The fourth one has an old-fashioned big band sound. I assume it’s called “Got to Get You Into My Life,” since that’s what the singer keeps belting. It’s good.
We drive along with Tristan calling out song titles and glancing over at me sideways. I make sure to nod my head to the beat. Some of the songs I like (“Getting Better” and “Here, There, and Everywhere”) and some I don’t (“Revolution 9” sounds like punishment, I don’t care how groundbreaking Tristan claims it was). But I don’t offer up any opinions; I just listen.
Cecilia finally slows to a stop at the top of a windy road, Tristan pulling the van into one of the overlooks at the top of the hill. I’ve been to Look Rock before, a big rock formation that rises over the county. But only during the daylight. Some people call it a mountain, but it’s for sure not. I’ve heard it’s where people come to drink or get it on, but I don’t see any other cars. Just the twinkling lights of the entire town laid out before me.
“The stadium’s over there, but it’s harder to spot since the game ended and the bright lights are off,” he says, pointing in the distance. Then he moves a few inches to the left. “And Hot ’N Crusty is over there.”
Then Tristan hops out and trots around the front of the bus. He pulls open my door like a chauffeur, and I climb out. Then he hauls the sliding back door open and climbs in, inviting me after him.
“I know this is, like, the town make-out spot or whatever, but I promise I didn’t invite you up here to paw you,” Tristan says, his gaze out on the middle distance, beyond the lights of the town. “I just like to come up here and listen to music. It’s quiet, and the smell of nature mitigates the smell of Cecilia.”
I gasp. “You’re saying Cecilia smells?”
“Only like nostalgia!” he replies. “Okay, and a little bit of gasoline.”
I won’t lie, my heart sinks for a moment as we stare back out at the view. It’s beautiful. And not that I want to be pawed, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t th
inking about our kiss behind the dumpster. And how much less smelly a repeat performance would be. The smell of nature would certainly help here, too.
“I would like to kiss you, though,” Tristan says. And then he turns to look at me, a crooked smile crinkling his nose, his eyes twinkling in the full moon. And my god my stomach does one of those Olympic tumbling passes that involve six flips and a split at the end.
I want to be cool. I so want to be cool. But I am not cool. All I can do is open my mouth and squeak, “You do?”
He nods slowly, one arm up over his bent knees. “I do. But I don’t want to surprise you. You know, like I did last time.”
“You don’t?”
He shakes his head, then turns back to me. “When I kiss you again, I want you to kiss me back.”
I swallow hard, willing my body not to shiver, even though there’s a cool breeze floating through the bus.
“I’d like that,” I say.
He nods again, his gaze down at his sneakers. “Okay, then,” he says, and right at that moment, I swear, the thudding drums and twangy guitar of “Something” kicks up—this one I know. The singer starts to croon, and just as George Harrison sings something in the way she woos me, Tristan turns and lifts his palm to my cheek and leans in. His lips brush mine, softly at first, then harder. Knowing it’s coming is not the same as being ready for it, of course. And for a moment I’m sort of frozen, but as his tongue swipes at my bottom lip, I sink into it. I lift my hand to the back of his neck, letting my fingers weave into his hair. His skin is warm and smooth, and I sigh into his lips.
We kiss until the song is over. And then we kiss until the CD stops. And then we kiss into the silence of the night. We kiss until I lose feeling in my lips, and then we kiss some more.
I don’t even know when we stop, or how, but eventually we climb back into the front seats of Cecilia and drive back down the winding road from Look Rock. Tristan holds my hand, except for when he has to let go to shift gears. And when he pulls up to the curb in front of my house, he turns and smiles at me.
“Thanks for, um…” I pause, because I almost thank him for all the making out. “Thank you for helping Julianne.”
“Thank you for helping Julianne,” he says. He shrugs. “I was just helping Frank.”
“Well, either way, it worked out,” I say. “I had fun tonight.”
He doesn’t say anything else, and I’m not totally sure how to play this. We just spent the better part of an hour making out in the moonlight, and it was honest to god the best hour of my entire life. And I want to know if there’s going to be more. Please god let there be more. But I’m scared to say the wrong thing. To break the spell. To ruin it all.
And then Tristan saves me with a wink and smile. He leans over and plants a final kiss on my lips. “See you tomorrow, I hope?”
“Absolutely,” I reply. I reach up and touch my bottom lip, feeling that last kiss like a promise. “I can’t wait.”
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
We spend one glorious week just the two of us, stealing kisses in Del’s office/closet or by the dumpster between deliveries. We go back to Look Rock twice, listening to more of Tristan’s vintage rock and making out. I spend some time in his garage, parked on a stool a safe distance from all the spinning blades, while he works on a hanging shelf and explains all the steps. He even comes over to watch a few episodes of Apex Galaxy and tolerates my dad’s inquisition about the safety of Cecilia. It takes a demonstration of the seat belts, followed by letting Dad take her for a spin around the block, before that awkward interaction ends. But by the time Cecilia chugs back into our driveway, Dad in the driver’s seat next to Tristan, I think all is well. Dad is grinning like a kid riding Dumbo for the first time.
But by the end of that new, fizzy, crackly first week, I know I can’t live in the cocoon forever. Natalie’s face before homecoming keeps flashing in my vision. So when I text Natalie to see what’s up and she asks if I want to come hang out at Tamsin and Colin’s house for a cookout, I call her instead.
“Did somebody die?” she asks by way of a hello.
“No, why?”
“Because you’re calling me, which is, like, super dramatic.”
“Can I bring Tristan?”
“The pizza delivery guy?”
“Yeah. We’re sort of, um, dating? Maybe?” Saying it out loud feels weird, because we haven’t named anything, not officially. And Tristan seems like the kind of guy who would roll his eyes at any kind of label. Still, I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re doing, even if I’m too chicken to officially ask.
On the other end of the line I hear a sharp intake of breath, and I brace myself. For her to say no. Or to finally spill all the hidden words behind that look the night of homecoming. For this to be the start of our breakup. The beginning of the end. My entire body tenses, and I realize I’m holding my breath.
“Oh my god, tell me everything. Have you kissed him?”
The breath whooshes out of me, and I laugh, the warm, protective, familiar feeling of our friendship rushing through me. “Oh my god, so much,” I say. And then I proceed to narrate the last week of kissing and laughing and hanging out with him in Cecilia, and when I’m done, I can practically hear her smile through the phone.
“Bring his ass to Tamsin’s so I can get to know him, would you, please?”
“Done.”
* * *
I show up at Tamsin’s with Tristan by my side. He seems remarkably calm, even though I know this wasn’t his first choice of activity. I know that because he told me.
“Hanging out with Mac and those guys isn’t my first choice,” he’d said when I issued Natalie’s invitation. “But I like you, so I guess it’s time to get to know your friends for real.”
Which is how I knew that this was more than just making out. We still hadn’t named it. But this was important.
And things were pretty good. Mac and Tristan sort of hovered around each other at first, but it didn’t take long before the old baseball bro code seemed to shine through. Soon Mac, Eli, Colin, and Tristan were reminiscing about Little League and talking about the World Series while Tamsin and Cora stole me away to the pool house to get all the details about our make-out-palooza, as Natalie called it.
“He’s seriously cute,” Tamsin says. “Well done, Beck.”
I can feel my cheeks burning under Tamsin’s compliment. It shouldn’t matter what she thinks, but knowing she approves feels like maybe my worlds aren’t going to split in two after all.
Back in the main area of the backyard, the boys are lighting up the firepit and stoking the grill. There’s a tray of burgers and dogs ready to cook, and a tray of sides and snacks courtesy of the Roy family housekeeper.
“I’m going to grab a fizzy water,” I say, heading toward the French doors that lead to the kitchen. “Anyone want anything?”
“Will you grab the other mustard? The gritty one?” Colin asks, and I nod, heading up to the kitchen. I’ve got my head deep in the Roy family’s enormous stainless-steel fridge searching for the mustard in question (I’ve come across three different mustards, none of them gritty) when I hear steps behind me.
“So, you and Tristan, huh?”
I spin around and see Mac standing there, leaning against the kitchen island.
“Yeah,” I reply. This is the first time we’ve been alone since before the whole Tamsin hookup. At first I avoided him because I was hurt. Then because I was mad. Then because I couldn’t seem to come up with a reason why I wanted to hang out with him. It’s weird to feel totally indifferent to him, after all that time I spent silently pining.
“For a while?” he asks.
“Not that long, actually,” I say. He raises his eyebrows, and I know he’s thinking about the dumpster kiss all those weeks ago. “What you saw was … confusing.”
He shrugs. “It doesn’t seem confusing now.”
“Nope.” I pause. “You never said anything. To Tamsin. About what yo
u saw.”
He shakes his head, his shaggy hair falling directly into his eyes.
My newfound indifference to the powers of Mac gives me confidence to ask what I’ve been wondering since that kiss he walked up on.
“Why not?”
He sighs. He screws up his face and ruffles his hair, a move I remember from back when I used to study him. It’s the one he uses when he’s unsure of himself, which isn’t very often. I remember him doing it before he started his oral report in Spanish last year—which was never his best subject. “Look, I was a total dick to you. I knew you liked me, and I flirted with you because it was fun, but also because I was trying to get Tamsin’s attention. It was so shitty. It felt shitty while I was doing it, but I just liked her a lot and I didn’t know what to do and I was an idiot. Anyway, I figured if you wanted anyone to know about you and Tristan, you’d say something. I mean, I love Tamsin, but she’s got a big mouth.”
I laugh, despite myself. He knows her well.
“Anyway, I’m really sorry about the way I acted. That wasn’t cool.”
I blink at him, stunned at his confession.
“Thank you,” I say. “For apologizing. And for the other thing.”
He shrugs. “No problem.” He reaches into the fridge, his hand going directly for the mustard Colin wanted. It was right in front of my face the whole time. He hands it to me, and we smile, then head back out to the patio. And as I close the door behind me, it feels like closing a chapter on a book that was fun to read, but that I have no desire to ever revisit. It’s time for a new story, a story where Mac and I are just friends.
Tristan joins Mac at the grill, the rust succeeding in shaking off their old friendship a bit. Tristan remembers that Mac likes his dog badly burnt, just like when they were kids. Natalie shows me more photos of Julianne from homecoming. Cora and Tamsin look over our shoulders, oohing and aahing at the dress and the hair and the makeup. I’m a little sad that Julianne isn’t here to be fawned over in person, and that sticks in me like a splinter in my foot. I’m not sure what to do about it. But I know I’m still a little too chicken to actually bring it up, and that feels even worse.
It's Kind of a Cheesy Love Story Page 18
