What If It's Us(20)

Oh shit. One free table left. “I’m grabbing that table,” I say.

Dylan wrenches me back. “You have to order. Also, I’m nervous I’ll say something stupid.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I almost walked in here with coffee from the enemy.”

I stay put.

I have my Happy Best Friend Face on, even when some hopeful novelist-looking type our age takes the last available table, opening his laptop to write the Next Harry Potter before I can. He’s cool to look at, at least. Bright eyes, dark brown skin, Caesar cut, a shirt with the Human Torch on it. If I were ballsier, sort of like that Arthur dude or Dylan with Samantha, I would make the first move. I’d sit across from him, say what’s up, chat about writing, find out if he’s into guys, call him pretty, pray he calls me pretty back, get his phone number, fall in love. But I’m not ballsy, so I don’t.

We reach the front of the line and Samantha reaches over the counter, almost knocking over a spinner of impulse-buy cookies. “I’m a hugger,” she says. She’s undersold herself because she’s not simply a hugger, she’s a damn good hugger. “So nice to meet you, Ben.”

“You too, Samantha. Samantha, right? Not Sam? Not Sammy?”

“Only my mom calls me Sammy. Weirds me out whenever anyone else does. Thanks for asking,” Samantha says. She turns to Dylan. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says. “How you doing?”

“Good. Busy.” She smiles at the roses. “You’re sweet. Unless those aren’t for me, then I’m spitting in your coffee.”

“All yours,” Dylan says.

Samantha picks up a cup, writes Dylan’s name inside a heart, and gets his spit-free large coffee started. “What can I get you, Ben?”

“I don’t know. A strawberry lemonade, I guess.” Sugar FTW.

“Small, medium, large?”

I look at the prices on the menu. “Small. Definitely small.” Holy shit, $3.50 for a small cup of half ice, half juice? I could go on an adventure with a $2.75 single ride MetroCard with change to spare. Buy a gallon of orange juice. Three packs of Skittles and five Swedish Fish at the corner store.

“You got it,” Samantha says. She draws a smiley face under my name. “I’ll be free in a couple minutes. Let me just close out this line.”

We wait at the end of the bar. I take another peek at the dude in the Human Torch shirt. He’s wearing headphones now and I wonder what he’s listening to. Hudson liked a lot of classics. I’m more into whatever is trending that month. I don’t seek out new songs, but if it’s catchy, I’m set. It’d be cool to date someone who liked the same stuff I did. We wouldn’t clash during road trips to see life outside the city. We could share earphones and vibe to the same song while relaxing somewhere quiet.

A girl gets up from her corner table, wiping it down with napkins, and before I can charge to see if she’s leaving, two vultures—excuse me, dudes in suits on their lunch break—swarm in and take the table.

“You should’ve let me get the table,” I say.

“Isn’t she awesome?” Dylan asks.

“Yup,” I say automatically.

Samantha comes out from behind the counter, singing our names. “Here you go.” She walks to the standing bar. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Dylan wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say. “Me either, obviously.”

“Beats going home and doing homework, right?” Dylan says.

I just nod.

I don’t really want anyone knowing I’m in summer school. It was embarrassing enough sitting in homeroom toward the end of the school year when I wasn’t handed my report card and had to go meet with the guidance counselor. Everyone in homeroom knew it meant I was getting the go-to-summer-school-or-repeat-eleventh-grade-in-a-different-school chat. I should’ve gone that second route. I would have my summer and be Hudson-free in September and beyond too.

Samantha takes a sip from her iced quad nonfat one-pump mocha with whip. I think she can tell talking about summer school is awkward and touchy for me. I wish my best friend was as quick on this front. “I love working here, but I sort of miss my freedom too. But I want to work in business one day, and my mom said it’s best to work at every stage possible before climbing the ranks so I never turn into some monster expecting masterful work from employees making just enough to get by.”

“What kind of business?” I ask.

“I would love to start my own app games. I have this one idea. It’s like Frogger, but instead of heavy-traffic streets, it takes place on the sidewalks of New York. You die if you get hit with someone’s shopping cart and you lose points if you cross a tourist’s path while they’re taking photos. Stuff like that.”

“I would play the hell out of that and dominate the leaderboards,” I say. “Dylan was practically playing a real-life version of it on our way over here.”

“What? I didn’t want to miss the start of her break,” Dylan says. He’s sheepish about it, which is not a word I would usually tag on Dylan. It’s kind of adorable how every minute counts for him. The classic honeymoon stage where everyone feels like they’re riding a unicorn on floating rainbows while drinking Skittle smoothies. But eventually you realize the unicorn was just a horse in costume and now you have cavities.