Page 67 of Main Event

“With your family?”

“Mostly with my dad.” I keep my eyes on the road. “Sometimes Brandon came. Sometimes all of us. But Dad and I came up here the most.”

She doesn’t rush into the space that opens. That’s one of the things I love about her. She knows the difference between an invitation and a wound.

“What did you do?” she asks.

“Fished. Swam. Climbed things I shouldn’t have climbed. Got sunburned. Ate too much. Skipped rocks badly.”

“Badly?”

“I’ve improved.”

“I’m excited to judge that for myself.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone who hasn’t seen my technique.”

“Luke, you just admitted you were bad at it. I’m not ignoring useful intelligence.”

I look over. She’s smiling. The day is already worth whatever Mack thinks he accomplished.

The ice cream shop sits near the lake, small and white with a green metal roof and a line of hanging ferns along the porch. It smells like waffle cones before we even reach the door. Inside, the air conditioning is heroic in the heat of the day. Andi stops just inside and closes her eyes.

“I may live here now.”

“You haven’t tasted the ice cream yet.”

“That’s not necessary. The air conditioning has proposed, and I’m considering it.”

I order peach for both of us because there are moments when choice is an illusion. She gives me a look when I do it.

“What if I wanted chocolate?”

“You didn’t.”

“But what if I did?”

“You can have mine too.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I know.”

The girl behind the counter recognizes neither of us, which is a small mercy I feel deeper than I expect. She hands over two cups of peach ice cream with plastic spoons and tells us to have a good day, like we are simply people buying ice cream near a lake.

Outside, we sit at a picnic table under the porch fan. Andi takes one bite and goes still. I wait. She looks down at the cup.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s offensive.”

“Little bit.”

“No, I mean it. This is rude. Ice cream shouldn’t be allowed to be this good without warning people first.”

“I tried to prepare you.”