“What’s good?” he asked Blake.
“I don’t know. I’m not really an ice cream fan.”
“What?” Hayden asked, his voice incredulous. “How does a guy who doesn’t like ice cream end up working in an ice cream shop?”
“My parents own it.”
“That makes sense. How long have they owned it?”
“Twenty years.”
“So you grew up here?”
Blake pointed to the floor. “I basically grew up right here.”
“Raised by ice cream. I can understand why you might not like it.”
Blake laughed. “I loathe it.”
And that’s how you find out someone’s story, I thought. How did he do that so naturally?
Hayden smiled over at me. “What are you getting?”
“Um . . . I was looking at the Rocky Road but I’m not a huge fan of nuts.”
“Blake, Gia here likes the flavor of nuts but not the texture. Can you pick them all out for her?”
I elbowed him in the side. “Actually I don’t like the flavor either.”
“Then why would you even consider Rocky Road?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I like the other things in it so much that they almost outweigh the nuts.”
“Gia, you are weird.”
“Thank you. So what are you getting?”
“I was thinking about vanilla but then I thought, ‘That is so boring. Gia will think I’m the most boring person ever.’”
“It’s true.”
“So then I thought, ‘I bet Blake here will tell me what to order,’ but he was no help whatsoever. Thanks a lot, Blake.”
“No problem.”
“So now I’m thinking strawberry is my only option.” He nodded his head once to Blake. “This size.” He pointed to the middle cup then turned to me. “You’re still looking at the Rocky Road. Why are you still looking at the Rocky Road?”
“I don’t know. It looks so good and then I talk myself into thinking I’m going to like it this time and I never do.”
“I will save you from yourself, then. You cannot get the Rocky Road. Anything else . . . except vanilla because that’s so boring. Who would even think of getting that? I don’t even know why they stock it.”
I smiled.
“It’s actually the most popular ice cream flavor,” Blake said while adding a scoop of strawberry to a cup.
“Well, I feel validated now. I should’ve gotten the vanilla.”
My shoulders tightened with his word choice. Validation. The thing I was apparently unhealthily addicted to. Maybe I should ask Twitter what ice cream flavor I should eat. “I’ll have the Caramelo crunch,” I said before I started feeling too sorry for myself. “Same size.”
We each paid for our own ice cream and I led him out of the cold to a black metal table outside. He sat down then immediately stood back up, pulling something from his back pocket and dropping it to the table—a booklet that had been folded in half and was now slowly unfurling.
“You said you’d practice lines with me. I wasn’t kidding about needing to. I perform this tomorrow.”
“Oh, of course.” I grabbed the play, but my eyes lingered on him.
“What?” he said. “You’re looking at my hair like you want to whip out your little bottle of gel and fix it for the third time.”
I smiled. I hadn’t been thinking that at all. His hair was him and it was growing on me. “No, I like your hair and your glasses too, by the way. You look cute.”
He pushed them up on his nose. “My eyes were tired after all that driving yesterday.”
“Sorry.”
“No, please. I wanted to.”
I nodded and read the title of the play. “The Odd Couple. Is this that one where the one guy is a mess and the other is a neat freak?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And you are?”
“A mess.” Then he looked at the book in my hands. “Oh, you mean in the play? I’m the neat freak. Felix.”
“So wait, you’re a mess in real life?”
“Yes, can’t you tell?”
“You seem put together.”
“Oh, I’m tidy enough. I’m just a mess.”
“How so?”
“In more ways than we have time to discuss.” He pointed to the book. “Act two, scene one.”
“Well, if you’re a mess then I’m a natural disaster.”
“The cutest natural disaster I’ve ever seen.”
My cheeks went warm. “Okay, act two, scene one.”
CHAPTER 26
We’d run through the scene twice and I’d only had to prompt him once. “You make a really good slightly crazy guy.”
He bowed his head. “Thank you.”
“So who plays Oscar?”
“Just another guy in my class.”
“Is he as good as you?”
He met my eyes with a smile. “How am I supposed to answer that? If I say no, I sound conceited. If I say yes, you’ll think I’m nothing special.”
I stirred my spoon around my empty cup. “I wish I could go watch the scene.”
“You’d be bored.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Do you like to watch live theater?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Hayden put his hand over his heart. “I’m shocked, Gia. I don’t know if we can be friends.”
Just as I was about to laugh, I heard a voice from behind me that stopped me cold.
“Gia?”
I closed my eyes for a beat then turned around to see Jules. “Hi.”
Jules smiled at Hayden. “Bradley, right?”
I cringed, took a deep breath, then said, “N—”
Hayden stood, and cut me off with, “Yes. And you are?”
Hayden knew who Jules was. It wasn’t apparent from the look of innocence on his face, though. I wanted to laugh but I managed to keep it in.
“Jules. We met at prom. . . . You probably don’t remember because you were busy with . . . things.” She looked between the two of us. “I didn’t realize you two were back together. Gia was just telling us about this other guy she was dating.”
“No, I’m not dating that other guy,” I said quickly, worried Hayden would think I was telling people we were dating. I pointed to Hayden. “And we’re not dating either. We’re just talking.” Was she trying to get me in trouble with “Bradley” by telling him I was dating someone else?