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Christ, this needs to stop. Miles being the only person I talk to on a regular basis is really fucking with my brain. In no timeline would Miles and I be a logical couple. It doesn’t matter if certain elements of him are appealing in a certain way during certain hours of September 21. It doesn’t matter how kind he’s become, underneath all that seriousness.
It’s not real, and once our timelines right themselves, I’m sure we’ll go our separate ways.
A thought that shouldn’t feel as lonely as it does.
“What can I get you?” I ask what must be our two hundredth customer of the day. We’re already out of chocolate and running low on strawberry.
“This all free?”
I hear his voice before I see him, certain at first that my memory is wrong. That it can’t be him. But then he steps forward, tapping our open window, and every nerve ending in my body short-circuits at once.
No.
I have to grip the counter with one hand, my other wrapped tight around a scoop, my fingers going numb.
Cole Walker is here.
Cole Walker is here, on the University of Washington campus, asking for ice cream.
“Oh,” he says when his eyes land on me. “Hi.”
His gaze pins me in place, and I have no choice but to look directly at him. He’s classically handsome, if predictably so. Blond hair curling at the nape of his neck, skin summer-tanned. Skin I kissed in ways he seemed to enjoy, given how he patted my head and told me he liked how enthusiastic I was.
Now the memory makes me want to throw up.
“I—didn’t know you were going here.” I hate that I stammer. I hate that I’m wondering if he still finds me attractive.
If he ever did, or if that was part of the joke too.
“Decided to transfer last-minute.” He twists a lanyard hanging from his neck. “They have a better prelaw program than SPU.”
My stomach clenches. Of course they do. Of course he goes here now, and I’ll have to spend the rest of these four years avoiding him, assuming I ever make it to Thursday.
I’m still holding an ice-cream scoop, lemon gelato dripping onto the floor.
Miles must be able to tell that I’m not in a great space, because he comes up behind me and addresses Cole. “We have to keep the line moving,” he says, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a touch of sternness in his voice. “Do you want ice cream or not?”
And when Cole asks for a cone of cookie dough, Miles serves it quicker than he’s served anything all day.
I turn my back on the window, retreating to the edge of the truck where no one can see me. It’s supposed to be freezing in here—it’s the name of the goddamn truck. But I’m sweaty and dizzy and even with Cole gone, my breathing won’t return to normal. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. I squeeze my eyes shut and press a hand to my heart, willing it to slow down. My throat is too tight and the truck is too hot and too small and—
“Barrett?” Miles says softly. An anchor.
“Fine,” I rasp out. He places his hand on my shoulder, and I wish that didn’t feel so nice. “Just someone from my high school. We didn’t really get along, so…”
“Ah.” If Miles senses there’s more to the story, he doesn’t push.
With everything I have, I fight for a deep breath until I finally get one. And then another. Slow and shaky, but there I am. I’m okay. I straighten my posture, shove damp curls off my forehead. I’m okay.
“Then again,” I say, eager to brush this off, putting my armor back on, “who did I get along with in high school?” But Miles doesn’t laugh. After the line of students slims down, I try again. “I didn’t know Miles Kasher-Okamoto living his best life meant serving ice cream to strangers.”
He shrugs. “Not everything has to be skydiving,” he says. “I bet if you asked a hundred people what’s on their bucket lists, you’d be surprised by how tame the answers are.”
“Okay, then.” I lean my elbows back against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other in the small space between us. Normal. I can make this normal again. “Things you want to do before you die… go.”
“Geneva, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
