The Temperature of Me and You, page 2
The door clicks open. My daydreaming is broken at the perfect time before my mind wanders any further into picturing various sex positions involving Oreos.
I look up, expecting to see my manager, but it’s someone else.
“Are you still open?” a boy asks quietly. He pulls down his hood, revealing a head of thick brown hair. My eyes travel from his head to his feet twice. He has dark brown eyes and tan skin.
Correction—a cute boy.
His red hoodie has yellow lettering that says Arizona State University. He’s wearing black jeans and black Vans. He looks my age, but I’m terrible at telling ages.
“Yeah,” I say, swallowing and ignoring the fact we closed ten minutes ago.
He walks to the counter. I gaze into his eyes. He looks back at me, and I snap my head downward to stare at the floor.
“What do you want? Or—I mean…Sorry. That was rude. I meant, like, what can I get you?” I ask.
I suck.
I shift my eyeballs upward. He smiles, revealing big white teeth. My pulse intensifies. A layer of sweat coats my palms. I literally want to jump across the counter and lick this stranger’s face. All my human abilities are failing. Inhibitions are dropping. What is happening? I pull my hands behind my back so I can’t make any awkward hand gestures.
“Um…” he starts. He stares at the menu above my head. I stare at his perfectly messy hair. It’s cut short on the sides but on top is a bird’s nest of curly brown strands. If he wasn’t close to me, I’d think it was black. But when he stands in the light, shades of brown shimmer along the curls.
He mumbles something I don’t understand.
“What?” I ask, leaning toward him. I discreetly sniff but smell nothing. Which is better than an overwhelming cologne.
“Can I get one of those?” He points to the menu.
I follow his finger and there’s no way I can tell what he’s pointing at. If this were any other customer, I’d be super annoyed right now. But him not reading the menu and pointing is kind of adorable.
“One of what?” I ask with a laugh.
“The Blizzard thing.”
“The Blizzard thing?” I raise my eyebrows. “You’ve never heard of a Blizzard before?”
“Not really.”
“Okay?” I massage my eyebrows. “What do you want in it?”
“Vanilla ice cream and…Oreos.” He taps his chin.
Such a simple, ordinary choice. I thought he’d choose something more interesting like chocolate ice cream with M&M’s and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Or maybe I was hoping he would choose something more interesting. Everyone gets vanilla ice cream with Oreos. All the old, boring people from this town just come in and get vanilla ice cream with Oreos. Every time. I’m hoping he’s not like everyone.
I turn around and walk to the ice-cream machine. I grab a medium cup, even though I didn’t ask him what size he wants, and fill it with vanilla soft serve. I’m not going to risk sounding stupid again to ask him what size.
But the three seconds of silence is too much for me to handle.
“Are you from Arizona?” I ask, watching the soft serve swirl into the empty cup.
“Yup,” he says. His voice is deep but breathy. Almost as if he’s afraid of talking too loudly.
“Do they not have Dairy Queens there? I’ve never been.”
“I’m sure they do. But I’m from a small town north of Phoenix. We didn’t have much of anything.”
I nod. I attempt to put extra Oreos into his cup. My shaky hand spills half of them onto the clean counter. I glance over my shoulder, and he’s smiling at me. I quickly look away, then blend the Blizzard. Is he, a good-looking boy my age in my town, actually into me? My body quivers at the thought.
“Anything else?” I ask, placing his order on the counter.
He shakes his head, then pulls some cash from his hoodie’s front pocket.
“It’s three dollars and seventy-five cents. Spoons are right there.” I point to the basket of spoons and wait to see how many he picks up. Is he by himself? Or is someone waiting in the car to split the ice cream with him? A boyfriend? A girlfriend? His parents? His dog? That’d be cute if he was splitting it with his dog. Then again, this has chocolate in it and chocolate is poisonous for dogs and a dog poisoner is not cute. Scratch the boy-next-door-with-his-dog fantasy.
He picks up one spoon. I sharply inhale.
“Do you have, like, a cup holder?” he asks, looking around and making a circle with his fingers.
“Um, we have those cardboard trays that hold four cups.”
“That’ll work. Can you put the cup in there?”
“What? You can’t carry one cup of ice cream? Too heavy for you?” I joke.
His face flushes. He rubs the back of his neck but doesn’t say anything. We stare at each other for a few moments until I realize he’s serious.
“Oh, okay,” I say.
I pull out one of the cardboard trays from a cabinet and place it on the counter.
“Are you here every night?” he asks.
I’m reaching for his ice cream when he asks the question.
“It feels like most.”
My fingertips wrap around the cup. The outside is wet with condensation. My eyes are so distracted by his long, tan fingers spinning the spoon in front of me that the cup slips from my grip. It bounces on the counter, then spins toward the edge.
“Oh no. My bad,” I say, diving over the counter to try and catch the falling cup.
He twitches, bends over, and grabs the cup before it slams into the floor. When his fingers grasp it there’s a loud pop, like a firework. I scream. The cup literally explodes. The ice cream bursts into a cloud of white liquid, then splashes onto the counter.
Thick droplets crash into my eyes.
“Ugh!” I groan.
I blink while wiping some of the milky water from my face. When I’m able to see again, the paper cup is melted around his fingers.
I back away from the counter. “What was that?” I ask. I spit Oreo chunks from my lips.
“I…I’m…” he mutters. He inspects his hands like he’s never seen them before. Drops of ice cream run down the center of his forehead between his eyebrows. His brown hair has white tips. A creamy liquid covers the floor around his feet, as if someone dumped a milk carton everywhere.
The front door swings open as my manager walks inside with his longboard in hand. He stops after taking a few steps. “Whoa. What happened here?” he asks. His eyes are bloodshot.
Arizona boy turns and bolts out of the store before I can say anything.
“Hey!” I yell. “Where are you going?”
“Did that dude just make this mess?” my manager asks.
“I think so…. Kind of…. But so did I.” I scratch the side of my head.
“What?”
“I dropped the cup and it was ice cream before and then he grabbed it and then it all melted instantaneously and blew up in our faces.”
“Are you high?”
“No.”
“Okay, well, just clean this up, then.”
“No, I have to go.” I run to my manager’s office, grab my parka and backpack, and race back to the front of the store.
“Are you serious, Dyl? You’re not leaving this here.” His feet slip and slide on the puddle of melted ice cream as he tries to grab my arm.
“I’m usually out of here at eight and it’s eight twenty. You’ve been gone all night smoking. I have to go get this person. I’ll explain later!”
I burst through the front door and scan the strip mall parking lot. There’s only my manager’s parked Jeep and a few cars in the Burger King drive-thru. I try to wipe the ice cream off my arms, but it clumps into my arm hair, becoming stickier and grosser.
To the left, there’s no one in sight. Just the closed UPS Store. To the right, I see the boy’s bright red hoodie in front of the Thai restaurant a few stores down.
“Hey!” I call out again.
He spins around, then breaks into a run when he sees me.
I dart after him. The textbooks in my backpack slam into my body with each stride. I pull on the straps to tighten the bag around my shoulders.
The boy turns the corner of the strip mall. I pick up my pace. Why is he running like this? How is it that serious?
I finally reach the corner of the mall where he disappeared and slide on some gravel as I make the sharp right turn. I place my hand on the tan cinder-block wall to stabilize myself against the momentum. There’s a row of four green dumpsters along the side of the building. A six-foot-high fence cuts off the path behind the building and there are thick woods to the left. The boy’s head swivels in front of the metal fence, searching for an escape route. Clouds of breath puff from his mouth into the freezing air.
I stop sprinting and slowly jog to the last dumpster, where he’s standing. He takes a few steps toward the woods.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” I say, resting my hands on my knees. “I mean, unless you want to die. There’s a steep drop-off over a cliff. You won’t get far.”
That’s a lie. Well, not totally a lie. There’s no cliff, but I wouldn’t go in there. Kirsten’s house is on the other side of those woods, and I’ve been among those trees many times. It’s where I had my first kiss, with Kirsten, in sixth grade. But it’s also where a guy beat me up in eighth grade after I decided I didn’t like kissing girls. So I would say there’s a steep drop—but not a physical one. A metaphorical drop-off into a weird time in my life that I’m not trying to relive right now.
“Why are you following me?” he asks. He puts his hands on his hips.
“Why are you running from me?” I ask. “I should be running from you. You just made ice cream blow up.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, that’s what it looked like.”
“You dropped it and it spilled everywhere.”
I laugh. “Are you kidding? I’ve dropped Blizzards before. They don’t spontaneously combust. Nice try.”
“I don’t get what you’re trying to say.” He runs his hand through his hair.
I shrug. “I’m not trying to say anything. Just looking for an explanation. It’s not every day that happens. How did you do it? It was kind of cool, slash, also kind of scary. Do you have a firework up your sleeve?”
He shakes his head.
“Is that why you needed a cup holder? You couldn’t touch the ice cream?”
He paces in silence. His face is tense.
“Okay, well, guess I’m seeing things, then.”
A lightbulb buzzes on the wall behind him, casting a shadow over one side of his face. I slip off my backpack, put on my parka, and zip it to my neck.
“Well, I should say the real reason I came after you is because you forgot to pay. I’m going to need those four dollars from you to cover damages.”
He thrusts his hands into his pockets, then fumbles around.
I sigh. “I’m joking. You really want to get rid of me, don’t you?”
He takes a deep breath and clutches his hands. “Kind of. What’s your name?” he asks.
I cross my arms. “That’s not the smoothest subject change, but okay. It’s Dylan. You?”
“Jordan.”
“Nice to meet you, I guess.”
He nods.
I bite my chapped lip. “If we’re going to talk normally as if nothing weird happened back there, can we at least go somewhere else away from these dumpsters?” I say. “It smells like poop and sour milk.”
“Are you done working?”
“Yeah, some random person came in and blew up a Blizzard, so I got to leave. Are you free to leave the premises?”
He smirks.
Finally. His smile melts me again.
“Yeah.” He lifts his hoodie to wipe some of the ice cream off his hair, revealing his stomach. I gaze at the perfect lines diving into his underwear.
We walk to the front of the strip mall in silence. Red banners with the words Happy Holidays hang on the lampposts in the parking lot.
“Did you walk here?” I ask, searching for another car besides my manager’s Jeep.
“Ran.”
“Oh? It’s fifteen degrees. Who runs to get ice cream in the winter?”
“Do you want to walk home with me?” He ignores my comment. “It’s not far.”
I look around, mulling over the decision and wondering why this mysterious person refuses to answer any of my questions. Maybe Jimmy wasn’t the creeper Perry was talking about after all; maybe it’s Jordan. And I’m about to walk through the streets with this stranger just because he’s cute.
Why do I do this to myself? It’s pitch-black outside and freezing, making perfect conditions for a murder. This is out of an episode of a true crime docuseries. Hopefully, the detectives will use my second-most-recent picture from Instagram as my missing-person photo. It had good lighting from the snow. Kirsten is in it, but it’s an easy crop job.
“I can. Yeah,” I answer, accepting my fate.
We walk past the Burger King to the sidewalk along the main road. There are no streetlights, so soon we’re engulfed in the night’s darkness.
“Aren’t you freezing?” I ask. My ears sting. I pull my furry hood up over my head.
“Not really. I have a high tolerance for the cold.”
“For real? That’s weird since you’re from Arizona. I thought people from the Southwest died when it got below fifty degrees or something. I’m from here, and I can barely function in this.”
Leftover salt from the previous snowstorm crunches beneath our shoes as we walk.
He shrugs. “Yeah, maybe some people do.”
“So, what are you doing in the Philly ’burbs?” I ask. He’s not the greatest at conversation, but this is the most I’ve talked to a cute boy really ever. I lean closer to him. I notice a lone, long brown hair that has fallen from the top of his head and curls around his ear.
“I just moved here.”
“How recent is ‘just’?”
“Like, two weeks ago. For the new semester.”
“That’s very recent. Wait, do you go to Falcon Crest? Why haven’t I seen you?”
“No, I go to St. Helena’s.”
“Yikes. I hear that place is a freaking prison.”
“It’s not too bad.”
“Meet any of Helena’s Hos yet?”
“Meet who?”
“Helena’s Hos? It’s, like, a joke that the girls that go to the Catholic school are wild because they hang with the nuns all day.”
“Oh, no. I guess I haven’t.”
“Never mind. It’s stupid local humor and you’re not a local, so, duh.” I tap my forehead.
He runs his hand through his hair again and clears his throat. I look back toward the shopping center and can no longer see it. Endless darkness stretches in both directions.
A semi drives toward us on the road. We both take a step to the side, away from the bright headlights, and continue to walk in long stretches of silence. Our shoulders brush against each other’s. There’s a shock every time, causing me to flinch.
I’m waiting for him to ask me any sort of question about my life—literally anything at all. But he seems pretty disinterested, and it’s safe to say this is going nowhere fast.
“What neighborhood do you live in?” I ask. “I’m going to text my mom to pick me up.”
Ask me to hang out more. Ask me to hang out more. Ask me to hang out more.
“I live in Smithson Hills. She can pick you up by the entrance. It’s up here to the right.”
FAILURE.
My shoulders slump.
He points in the direction of his house and his hand is lit up by a passing car. Dried pieces of blue-and-red paper from his melted Blizzard cup stick to his fingers.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get your ice cream,” I say. I’m not going to let this go.
“I didn’t even really want it. Just had to get out of the house. It was the first place I saw. Kind of getting stir-crazy.”
“Why?”
“Just…you know.”
I shrug and raise my eyebrows.
He exhales. “New place, new home, new school. All that stuff. It sounds lame.”
“I bet that sucks.”
He laughs. “Thanks for your sympathy. Yeah, it does. I’ve basically just been alone in my room painting for three weeks.”
I stop walking. “You paint?”
He smiles. “I try to paint. I’m not very good. My goal is to do a scene from each of the national parks out west. But I cheated and ordered a few of the kits that have you paint by the numbers on the canvas. Don’t tell.” He puts his finger to his lips.
My heart flutters. I assess his face, trying to comprehend how he’s a piece of art in his own right.
“I do those too with my friends!”
“Stop.”
“Yeah. I have a bunch in my room. I can show you sometime.” My breath catches in my throat. “Erm,” I grunt, awkwardly, realizing how forward that invitation was. I dig my fingernails into my palm.
“Yeah, could be cool.”
“I’m curious, did you have braces? You have perfect teeth.”
“No,” he says.
“That’s unusual. I had braces and my teeth aren’t half as good as yours.”
“I’m pretty unusual.”
Yes. Yes, you are.
“Well, I will put my jealousy of your annoying teeth behind us and be your friend if—”
“If what?”
“If you tell me how you exploded—”
“I said nothing happened.” He raises his voice and cuts the air with his hand. The smile disappears from his face. “You know what? I don’t know why I asked you to walk with me. I’ll go the rest of the way myself.” He thrusts his hands into his pockets, then trudges ahead.
I laugh softly. “Are you serious? Relax, man. I was kidding.”
He keeps his back to me.
I step into a light jog to catch up to him. “Hey, Jordan. It’s fine. I’ll let it go.”
