Along for the Ride(56)

‘A bad singing group,’ Leah added.

‘It’s better than Pump Cycles.’

‘What’s wrong with Pump Cycles?’ Wallace asked. ‘That’s a great name.’

‘It sounds menstrual,’ Adam told him. Esther swatted at his arm. ‘What? It does.’

‘I think,’ Jake said, surprising everyone, as we’d assumed he was fast asleep, ‘that we need a name with edge. Something dark, kind of dangerous.’

‘Like?’ Eli said.

‘Like,’ Jake went on, eyes still closed, ‘Barbed Wire Bikes. Or Flatline Bikes.’

Adam rolled his eyes. ‘You can’t call a tourist bike shop Flatline Bikes.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because people on vacation want to think about happy, relaxing things. When they rent a bike, they don’t want to think about dying in some accident.’

I could tell, by Adam’s face as he said this – relaxed, opinionated – followed by just after – shocked, then ashamed – that he’d had absolutely no idea what was going to come out of his mouth until it was too late. And now it was.

Another silence fell. Adam’s face was flushed, and I watched Maggie and Esther exchange a desperate kind of look. Beside me, Eli just stood there, the awkwardness tangible, something solid you could feel. All I could think was that it was my fault he was there, that any and all of this was happening. But I had no idea what to do about it until I saw the pot of baked beans on the table next to me.

It was a split-second decision, the kind you hear about people making in the most dangerous or serious of situations. This was really neither, but I still was not thinking, just doing, as I reached my hand into the beans, scooping out a big gob with my fingers. Then, before I could reconsider, I turned and launched it right at Eli.

The beans hit him square in the forehead, then splattered back into his hair, a few falling to hit the deck at his feet. I could hear the inhaled breath of everyone else on the deck, indicating their absolute shock, watching this. But I kept my eyes on Eli, who blinked, then reached up, wiping some beans from the tip of his nose.

‘Oh, man,’ he said to me. ‘It’s so on.’

And just like that, he was reaching across me, lightning quick, and grabbing the pot of beans. One smooth movement – too fast to even think, much less stop him – and he’d overturned it on my head. I felt heat on my hair, something slimy trickling down into my eyes, even as I grabbed for a discarded plate nearby, launching the half-eaten hot dog back at him.

‘What the hell…’ I heard Leah say, but the rest of the sentence was lost as Eli pelted me with buns from the bag he’d grabbed off the kitchen counter. I ducked my head – still covered with beans – and ran across the deck, picking up along the way a bag of Cheetos for ammo.

‘Wait!’ Adam yelled. ‘That’s my breakfast for the week!’

‘Oh, lighten up,’ Maggie said, picking up a handful of coleslaw from her plate and tossing it at him. When Leah gasped, she threw another fistful at her.

Leah’s jaw dropped. She looked down at her shirt, then up at Maggie. ‘Oh, boy,’ she said, picking up a beer can and shaking it, hard, before popping the top, ‘you better run.’

Maggie squealed, taking off down the stairs with Leah behind her, the beer already fizzing over. Meanwhile Adam and Wallace were now exchanging rapid fire with the leftover nuts while Esther, arms over her head, ducked behind Jake, who was asleep with a sprinkling of coleslaw over his face. All of this I noticed before running back into the house while trying to simultaneously dodge the Popsicle pieces Eli was tossing at me and chucking potato chips back at him behind me. I was so busy defending myself and keeping up my offensive that I didn’t realize he had me trapped in the kitchen until it was too late.

‘Wait,’ I said, gasping for breath as I leaned against the fridge. I held up my hands. ‘Time-out.’

‘There’s no time-outs in food fights,’ Eli informed me, throwing another slushy piece at me. It hit my shoulder, knocking off some beans.

‘Then how do they end?’

‘Whoever runs out of food first has to formally surrender,’ he said.

I looked at my hands, covered with bean residue and pieces of chips, but basically empty. ‘I’m not good at surrendering.’

‘No one is,’ he said. ‘But sometimes, you lose. Nothing you can do but admit it.’

We were both so filthy, standing there, beans in our hair, food all over our clothes. It was the last moment you’d think would mean anything, and yet somehow, it did. Like only in all this chaos could it finally feel right to say the one thing I’d wanted to, all along.

‘I’m really sorry about your friend,’ I told him.

Eli nodded slowly. He kept his eyes right on me, not wavering a bit, as he said, ‘Thanks.’

Outside, I could hear someone still shrieking, other battles going on. But in the bright light of the kitchen, it was just us. The way it had been those other nights, yet suddenly something felt different. Not like we’d changed so much as that we could. And might.

I was looking right at Eli, thinking this, and he was staring right back at me, and it was suddenly so easy to imagine myself reaching my hand forward to brush his hair from his face. It was all there: how his skin would feel against my fingertips, the strands against my palm, his hands rising up to my waist. Like it was already happening, and then, suddenly, I heard the door bang behind me.