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“I didn’t know you also liked it.”
I chuckle. “No. That should be our costume. Peanut butter and jelly.”
A laugh bubbles out of her throat, and I like it. It’s a light laugh, and her thoughts of dying on my bike are gone. She sounds her age and not so mature. She sounds free. “How are we going to do that?”
“Do you have cardboard, markers, yarn, and a printer?”
“Well, yes.”
“We can color the cardboard, print out peanut butter and jelly jar labels and hang them over us. Done.”
“Why are you so creative and brilliant?”
I pull into the gravel drive of the state park and pull into a parking spot. Savannah raises her head, looking around like she’s been magically transported here. She pulls the helmet off and hands it to me, getting off the bike as fast as she can. Her knees wobble a bit, and I put my hand out to steady her.
“Whoa, sweetheart. Don’t fall over on me.”
“On you?” she asks.
Why do I keep saying suggestive shit to her? “I meant that as a figure of speech, not literally on me,” I chuckle, swinging my legs off the bike and getting the food out of the rucksack.
Not that I wouldn’t mind her falling on me. At least for ten minutes or so.
We walk to the overlook, and I spread out a blanket I keep in the rucksack. I’m surprised there aren’t other people here on the weekend, but I’m thankful we get this view without families with children or long-haul hikers to interrupt us.
“This good?” I ask, and she nods.
We make quick work of unpacking the sandwiches, and I hand her salt and pepper packets and a sandwich bag of pickle slices. “I thought we could get to know each other better and clear the air,” I say, biting into my roast beef sandwich.
She freezes with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “It’s been weird, right? It started out so well.”
“Does the contract make all of this feel fake and wrong?” I ask. It wouldn’t be the first time I heard it.
She chews, swallows, and nods. “A little. I went into this thinking it would be like a normal dating situation. Well, it’s not that I’ve had much experience with that either.” She rifles around for a packet of pickle relish and squirts it on her sandwich. “I guess I was hoping you’d be the dating expert and this would be a normal dating situation.”
“I don’t think normalcy is what people think it is.”
“That’s true,” she mutters. Her face seems lighter out here. Less worried. I can get used to her like this.
I slap my thigh. “Let’s make a pact to get to know each other better now. We can pretend that we just had our first date at the Chinese place and there was no contract. No weirdness. Maybe we can pretend that I’m a sexy roommate that you have a desperate crush on. We can pretend this is our second date.”
She smiles and opens her bag of chips. “Deal. Now what about this Halloween costume?”
October 29 –Savannah
“Where did you learn to do this?” I ask, glancing at Wilder as he sniffs the purple marker from the pack we borrowed from the little girl down the hall.
He looks up from the cardboard box he’s making into a sandwich board advertisement-type costume. “I don’t know what you did in first grade, but you must have attended a more advanced school.”
His eyes meet mine, and my stomach drops. It’s been doing that more since the picnic yesterday, and it’s the little things that make it happen. A look. Him being considerate when he poured me a cup of coffee and handed me the flavored creamer this morning. I’m enjoying the little things about relationships, and I never knew I was missing out. Sure, I thought it would be nice to have someone to go out with and hold hands with me, but the little things at home are surprising to me in how they change my mood throughout the day. The little things give me the urge to hurry home to him when I’m done with work.
Wilder stands the costume up for me to see, caps the marker, and throws it back into the disorganized plastic bin. “What do you think?”
I eye the hodge podge of purple marker coloring and printed jelly jar pictures from the internet that we glued on the front. He pulls the cardboard box over his shoulders, and I marvel that my job of tying the two boxes together with white twine is holding. I must still know how to tie a good knot.
“It looks acceptable. What do you think of mine?” I ask, flipping my cardboard box around to show him the glued peanut butter jars on my costume. He wrinkles his nose. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. It looks fine. I’m jealous because you didn’t have to color yours.”
