Say You'll Remember Me(29)

She broke away from me, smiling. “I put the top down for you,” she said.

“This is your car?” I asked, looking past her at it.

“Yeah.” She nodded over her shoulder. “It’s magic. Apparently if you lift the hood, men appear from nowhere and ask you if you need a jump.”

I scoffed.

“I brought you something.” I handed her the bag I’d carried.

She peeked in while I put my things in the trunk. “You brought me cupcakes?” She beamed.

“Nadia Cakes,” I said.

“I was obsessed with them when I lived in Minnesota—thank you! There’s one here too but it’s like an hour away.”

“I got you a Spumoni. Maraschino cherries.”

“And to thank you, I will take you to eat the best burger you’ve ever had in your life.” She set the bag on the seat and then came back around to hug me again.

Content.





14





SAMANTHA


XAVIER WAS SITTING across from me at a tiny table at In-N-Out, giving me one of his contemplative gazes.

I couldn’t believe he came.

It felt obvious that he wasn’t from here. I couldn’t really tell you what it was? But there was something extremely Minnesota about him.

His hair was windblown. I didn’t think through the freeway–full sun thing when I put the top down at the airport. I just thought it would be cool at the time. But he looked great anyway, even disheveled.

“How’d you like your burger?” I asked.

“It needed mustard,” he said.

“Ha!”

I got one of his sideways smiles.

God, I missed his face.

I picked up my vanilla milkshake while we looked at each other.

“Why don’t you follow anyone on Instagram?” he asked.

I lowered my drink. “From the Murkle’s account?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re following it?”

“Of course.”

“I’m waiting for the perfect collab,” I said.

“You don’t have any takers yet?”

“Oh, I have lots of takers. But I’m letting them fight over us, gladiator style. When I first got started, I reached out to all the brands to see if they wanted to do cross-promotion, but we weren’t big enough for them yet. Now we are and they’re all sliding into my DMs like heeeeey.”

“Aren’t they based in Minnesota?” he asked. “Is that how you ended up there?”

“Yup. I got recruited while I was working on the Wendy’s marketing team. Hey, I thought you did volunteer stuff on the weekends,” I said.

“I do. I canceled it. To be here.”

I gave him a soft smile. Then I sat back in my seat and studied him. The ice-blue eyes, strong jaw, thick eyebrows. “Why are you here, Xavier?”

Contemplative gaze. “I don’t know,” he said. “Why did you let me come?”

“I don’t know either.”

“I like you,” he said.

“I know. I like you too. But I live really far away now.”

“I am aware.”

“So neither of us has any idea what we’re doing. We’re just… doing it,” I said.

“It appears that way.”

“You know this probably isn’t a good idea, right?” I said.

“I’m trying not to think too much about it,” he said.

I picked up my shake again and sucked on the straw while he watched me. “Do you want to go to the beach?” I asked.

“I want to go wherever you want to go.”

Forty-five minutes later we were in Santa Monica.

“There are some things we’re going to do here,” I said as we walked down Ocean Avenue toward the pier. “They’re tourist things and I’m doing them for you.”

He glanced at me. “You don’t like them?”

I shrugged. “I mean, I do? But I’d never do them unless I was doing them with someone from out of town. Like, if you live here you don’t actually come here.”

“Where do you go?”

“I don’t know. Restaurants, shows, farmers markets—that kind of stuff.”

I watched him looking around as we navigated the flood of people. He did it like he was assessing the danger. He probably was. The pier was kind of wild these days.

“Have you ever been to California before?” I asked, while we crossed the street to the ramp.

“Never,” he shouted over a guy dressed in a Ronald Regan costume yelling into a microphone. “This is the first time I’m seeing the ocean.”

“Wooooow. Really?”

He pulled me to his other side to put his body between me and a bedraggled man heading toward us, muttering to himself. Then he took my hand, giving everyone the flat, sort of scary expression that was his signature look.

The hand thing made my heart do somersaults, but the protective thing—this was my currency.

I didn’t get to shut my brain off very often. Most women don’t. The constant situational awareness that we have to practice is exhausting. But Xavier made me feel like I could mentally check out. I could just be here bopping around, enjoying being outside and surrounded by these eccentric weirdos and not have to worry about how safe I was because he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.