“Shit!” I try to catch it with a napkin, but a blob lands on my chest. I dab at it, but it only seems to make matters worse. Sam watches from the corner of his eye with a smirk.
“I can’t believe you still eat cotton candy. How old are you?” he teases.
I motion to his waffle cone with two massive scoops of Moose Tracks, the same flavor he used to order as a kid. “You’re one to talk.”
“Vanilla, caramel, peanut butter cups? Moose Tracks is classic,” he scoffs.
“No way. Cotton candy is the best. You just never learned to appreciate it.”
Sam raises one brow in an expression of absolute trouble, then leans over and runs his tongue flat over my scoop of ice cream, biting off a hunk from the top. I let out an involuntary gasp, my mouth hanging open as I stare at his teeth marks.
I remember the first time Sam did that when we were fifteen. The glimpse of his tongue shocked me speechless then, too.
I don’t look up until he elbows me in the side.
“That always freaked you out,” he chuckles in a soft baritone.
“Menace.” I smile, ignoring the pressure building in my lower belly.
“I’ll give you a taste of mine to be fair.” He tilts his cone to me. This is new. I wipe away the beads of sweat forming above my lip. Sam notices, giving me a crooked grin as though he can read every dirty thought that’s running through my mind. “I promise it’s good,” he says, and his voice is as dark and smooth as coffee. I’m not used to this Sam—one who seems fully aware of his effect on me.
I can tell he doesn’t think I’ll do it, but that just spurs me on. I take a quick taste of his cone.
“You’re right,” I say, shrugging. “It’s pretty good.” His eyes flash to my mouth, and then he clears his throat.
We sit in awkward silence for a minute.
“So how have you been, Percy?” he asks, and I hold my hands up helplessly.
“I’m not sure where to start,” I laugh, nervous. How do you even begin after so much time has passed?
“How about three updates?” He nudges me, his eyes glinting.
It was a game we used to play. We went for long stretches apart, and whenever we’d see each other again, we’d tell each other our three biggest pieces of news in rapid fire. I have a new draft of my story for you to read. I’m training for the four-hundred-meter freestyle. I got a B on my algebra exam. I laugh again, but my throat has gone dry.
“Umm . . .” I squint out at the water. It’s been more than a decade, but has that much really happened?
“I still live in Toronto,” I start, taking a bite of ice cream to delay. “Mom and Dad are well—they’re traveling around Europe. And I’m a journalist, an editor, actually—I work at Shelter, the design magazine.”
“A journalist, huh?” he says with a smile. “That’s great, Percy. I’m happy for you. I’m glad you’re writing.”
I don’t correct him. My work involves little writing, mostly headlines and the odd article. Being an editor is all about telling other people what to write.
“And what about you?” I ask, returning my focus to the water in front of us—the sight of Sam sitting beside me is too jarring. I’d looked him up on social media years earlier, his profile picture was a shot of the lake, but never took the step of adding him as a friend.
“One, I’m a doctor now.”
“Wow. That’s . . . that’s incredible, Sam,” I say. “Not that I’m surprised.”
“Predictable, right? And, two, I specialized in cardiology. Another shocker.” He’s not bragging at all. If anything, he sounds a bit embarrassed.
“Exactly where you wanted to be.”
I’m happy for him—it’s what he was always working toward. But somehow it also hurts that his life continued without me as planned. I made my way through my first year of university in a fog, struggling through my creative writing classes, not able to focus on much of anything, let alone character development. Eventually a professor suggested I give journalism a shot. The rules of reporting and story structure made sense to me, gave me an outlet that didn’t feel so personal, so connected to Sam. I abandoned my dream of being an author, but I eventually set new goals. There’s speculation that when it’s time for a new editor in chief at Shelter, I’ll be at the top of the list. I created a different path for myself, one that I love, but it stings that Sam managed to follow his original one.