“Fine.” He shrugs. “I came in to give your friend a piece of my mind but stayed for the entertainment. Sue me.”
“Sorry about that.” I chuckle. “Pippa’s cool, you know. In a sometimes-I-want-to-duct-tape-your-mouth-but-I’ll-always-love-you kind of way.”
“If you say.”
“I do say. Of course I say. I’ll say it again and again. She is my best friend.”
Somewhere in the back of my head I recognize that I’m displaying extremely odd behavior here. But I want to keep the conversation going.
“You two are different.”
“Why? Because she’s Miss Popular and I’m goth?”
“Yeah,” he says flatly.
This guy is a real rebel. An OG. Not like me and my aesthetically cute septum piercing.
Then he says, “Mainstream people aren’t revolutionary. Nothing good ever comes out of them. Average equals comfort.”
“Is there a compliment hidden somewhere in this sentence?” I squint.
His lips hitch up slightly. I feel light all of a sudden. As if I could drift like a balloon if he continues giving me his drugging attention. “Do you want there to be?”
I think, despite his blank tone, that he is not as nonchalant as he wants me to believe he is. My heart roundhouse kicks my rib cage. But since hope is a great recipe for crashing and burning, I try to examine it from all angles. Maybe he is here for my glamorous, eccentric friend, and I’ll soon be left with one of his wingmen while he woos her. I’ve spent countless nights in awkward conversation with random guys while Pippa was flirting up a storm. It doesn’t normally faze me, but this time, I know it’s going to sting if he wants her.
“What are you listening to?” He changes the subject, jerking his chin toward the earphones slung over my shoulders, just when I ask, “So, are you here on vacation, or . . . ?”
We both laugh. I answer first. “The best song to ever be recorded in the entire world.”
“‘Never Gonna Give You Up,’ by Rick Astley?” His eyes widen comically.
More laughter. “No, but you’re in the right decade.”
“Challenge accepted.” He rubs his palms together. I can tell his interest is piqued. “Let’s see.” He gives me a slow once-over, taking me in, like the answer is written across my shirt. “I’m going with ‘Where Is My Mind?’ by the Pixies.”
“You would be wrong, my friend.” I turn my phone around to show him the iTunes app still dancing on my screen. “‘Save a Prayer,’ by Duran Duran.”
“Shit. That’s a really good song.”
“My mom’s favorite.” My smile feels like it’s about to split my face.
“Your turn.” He raises his phone in the air, then scrolls and picks a song. “What’s on my iTunes right now?”
“Give me a decade.”
“Nineties.”
“That barely narrows it down.” I lean against a row of lubricants. “I want to give you the credit for listening to something that’s not ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’”
“Why, thank you for indulging me. Think British.” He grins.
I frown, thinking. “‘Don’t Look Back in Anger,’ by Oasis.”
“Final answer?”
Hesitantly, I nod. “Yes.”
He turns his phone around, and I see that I was right. Whoa. Holy crap. Have I just met the male version of myself?
“How’d you do that?” he says, looking at me differently. Like I’ve passed some sort of test.
“By the power of deduction. In the war between Blur and Oasis, you are definitely for the working-class band. And also that guitar solo.”
“I just think it’s funny to find a fellow American Anglophile . . . in Spain.”
“My mom’s English. What’s your excuse?”
“Don’t have one.” He shrugs. “Sometimes you’re just born in the wrong place. And decade. And era.”
“Too true,” I hear myself say. “Now your turn to answer my question.”
His face fascinates me. It’s like I’ve never seen a human before. This is not normal Everlynne behavior. Typically, when I meet another person, I count back the minutes until I can say goodbye to them. It’s not that I hate people. I even like some of them. But I prefer to spend my time with my carefully curated books, music, and pets. Those three have rarely let me down.
“I—” Smoker Dude starts, but Pippa barges into our conversation, waving two plastic bags in her hands.