“What? What do you mean?”
“Labor-intensive.” He looked like he had me entirely figured out, like he’d solved the puzzle. “A girl who requires a lot of work. You want a drink, but you want two different kinds mixed together. And no ice.”
“That’s just how I like it,” I said, trying to sound breezy and not defensive as he went into full-on know-it-all mode.
“Sure.” He crossed his arms over his chest and said, “But labor-intensive is your way.”
“No, it’s not,” I said, a little too loudly as I lost the battle with my patience.
“Sure it is. You have to stand in the front of the boarding line an hour before takeoff because you need a window seat. You excel at hall monitoring. I bet when they pass out dinner later, yours will be just a little bit different than everyone else’s, right?”
I blinked and didn’t want to respond.
He grinned. “I’m right—I see it on your face. Vegetarian?”
I sighed and wished for a time machine so I could go back and not engage with Mr. Nothing in the security line. “I requested a vegetarian meal, yes.”
He looked genuinely happy for the first time since we’d met, and said, “Of course you’re a vegetarian.”
“I’m not a vegetarian,” I said, absolutely thrilled by his wrongness.
He lowered his dark brows. “Then why did you order the vegetarian meal?”
I tucked my hair behind my ears, raised my chin, and said, “Because I find airline meat to be questionable.”
That earned me another arrogant half smile. He said, “See? Labor-intensive.”
“Shh.”
I lifted my book and tried reading, but I took in only two sentences before Mr. Nothing said, “Want to know how it ends?”
“What?”
“Your book.”
I glanced at him over my glasses. “You’ve read this?”
He shrugged. “Basically.”
I wanted to call bullshit, but instead I just said, “How is that an answer?”
He swirled the soda around in his glass. “I read the summary and then I read the last three chapters.”
Of course you did. Annoyance slid through me as I said, “Why would you do that?”
He lifted the cup to his mouth. “I wanted to know if the alcoholic guy dies at the end, and once I knew the answer, I didn’t want to read any more.”
“Oh my God.” I seriously didn’t know where Mr. Nothing got all that nerve, but it was irritating as hell. He was like the polar opposite of the “manic pixie dream girl” in a movie. Instead of being used by writers to bring a character out of their comfort zone, Mr. Nothing was being used by the universe to piss me off and make me grumpier than I already was. “Why would you ruin it for me? Who does that?”
“What? I didn’t tell you anything.”
“Yes, you did.” I took another sip of my soda, annoyed by his spoiler, and said, “If he didn’t die, you would’ve kept reading.”
“How do you know? Maybe I like death and didn’t want to read a book with a happy ending.”
“That actually wouldn’t surprise me,” I said, absolutely meaning it. If anyone were to find enjoyment in a death book with an unhappy ending, it’d be Mr. Nothing. He seemed to get off on going against the grain.
“So read on,” he said, giving a chin nod to my book.
I bristled. “I will.”
I pretended to read for a few minutes while my brain had a tiny freak-out over Mr. Nothing. He was like the cherry on top of my dumpster-life sundae, and it was absurdly on-brand that I would be subjected to him on the very flight that was taking me to my unwanted new life.
I was thrilled when he got up to go to the restroom. I put on headphones so that when he came back, I couldn’t hear his ridiculous observations anymore.
It was brilliant.
He seemed to be immersed in his phone once he got back, and I managed a few hours of silent reading before the attendants brought out dinner and the words “Your vegetable lasagna is here” punched me in the earholes.
I yanked my headphones off and away from him, looked up, and grabbed the tray from the attendant. “Thank you.”
I waited for a snarky comment from the seat to my left, and when it didn’t come, I took a bite of the lasagna and looked at him. He was texting, his attention hyperfocused on his phone, and I could see from the contact picture that it was his girlfriend.
I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to date him. Even though he was relatively attractive, he dripped with cynical sarcasm. Which made me curious about her. What was the girl like who loved Mr. Nothing? She was pretty—what I’d seen of her—but her taste was obviously questionable.
Before I could stop myself, I asked him, “Does she live in Alaska?”
He looked up from his phone, and a wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. “Who?”
I pointed my fork at the screen. “Your girlfriend.”
He gave me side-eye and set his phone next to the food on his tray. “If you must know, Miss Nosy, she does. She’s a Fairbanks girl.”
“Oh.” I felt bad for him—a little—because leaving someone you love behind felt like utter shit.
“But she’s not my girlfriend.” He cut into his chicken, took a bite, and moaned—while staring directly into my eyes like a sociopath—“Oh my God, this questionable meat is so delicious!”
I just sighed.
He grinned, pleased with himself, and said, “I live in Nebraska and spent the summer in Alaska with my cousins. I hung out with her a lot, but I’m not really into the long-distance thing.”
I swallowed and pictured him kissing the face off Fairbanks Girl. “Does she know that?”
He shrugged and said, “She will.”
What a jerk. The poor girl had probably cried all the way home, devastated to see him go, while he shrugged and said, She will. I took another bite and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Are you at least going to tell her?”
That made one of his dark eyebrows go up. “What are you—worried about her or something?”
It was my turn to shrug, even though I kind of wanted to rage in Fairbank Girl’s stead. “I just think leaving her hanging is a garbage thing to do.”
“Really.” He picked up his soda and took a long drink before asking, “What would you do?”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “Well, um, I’d be forthright, for starters. I’d tell her—”
“Did you just say ‘forthright’？” He grinned like I was hilarious as he set his plastic cup on the tray. “Who says that? I mean, my grandma probably does, but no one under the age of—”
“Forget it,” I interrupted, amazed that the annoyance I felt for this boy kept cranking up to newer and more intense levels.
“Oh, come on. Please continue.” He reined in his smile, but his eyes were still twinkling. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am, I swear. Please—tell me what you’d do. I really want to know.”
“Nope.”
“Pleeeease?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Fine. I would tell her what you said about not wanting to do the long-distance thing, but I’d say it nicely enough where we could still be friends. After all, you’ll probably go back to your cousins’ house again someday, right?”