Page 21 of Meet Me at the Metro

“Mhm, music,” I tell him and myself for confirmation.

“Okay, then.” He takes another puff against his cigarette. “What kind?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“And why not?”

“Cause you’ll laugh at me and make a joke about it.”

“No, I won’t. Now, tell me.”

“I swear if you make fun of me.”

“Tell me, dammit,” he chuckles, and I hate how much my ears enjoy the sound of it.

“Show tunes,” I blurt out, immediately feeling embarrassed of the confession.

“No, you do not!” he snorts, his eyes lighting up with pleasure. “You’re telling me that you listen toshow tunesto relax? Youreallyare a fucking theatre major, aren’t you?”

“See!” I shove him, though I can’t help but laugh. “I knew you’d react like this, you asshole! I’m sorry we can’t all have my exquisite taste in music.”

“You mean your shit taste in music. You really should try a cigarette sometime. I promise you it’d be a whole lot more enjoyable than listening to that Broadway crap.”

“The day you quit talking shit about my taste in musicis the day I’ll try a cigarette.”

“So never, then?”

It isn’t until I look back up at the road ahead that I notice we’re near the end of the street we’re traveling down.

“You hungry?” he asks.

“I could eat,” I shrug. I don’t even remember how long it’s been since my last meal today.

We turn the corner onto a much busier road, and Theo motions to a Thai restaurant ahead. “Sound okay to you?”

Hell, Thai food is my absolute favorite, but I’ll be damned if I gave him the satisfaction of knowing he picked it right. “Sure, that’s fine.”

As Theo holds the restaurant door open for me and motions me inside, I start to believe that coming with him tonight may not have been such a bad idea after all.

“Are you ever going to tell me where you’re taking me?” I ask for the third time since we’ve left the Thai restaurant.

He gives me an apathetic look. “Are you ever going to quit asking me the same questions over and over again?”

“Yeah, when you answer them.” He ignores my last statement as we turn onto a cobblestone walkway, so I just use his silence as an opportunity to fire another question his way. “Can you at least tell me if we’re almost there yet?”

“Can you give me more walk and less talk?”

“Depends on how much more walk you’re talking, Teddy.”

His eyes glaze over with a look of amusement. “You are so damn impatient, you know that? It’s right up there,” he finally confesses, motioning past a thicket of trees ahead of us. I deliberately study the bright lights that peek through the tree branches, and as we walk further down the pavement, I’m able to make out the massive Ferris wheel structure lying behind them.

The London Eye.

The sight has me momentarily stopped dead in my tracks, so he pushes me forward. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

“Nuh-uh. I’m not going on that. I don’t do Ferris wheels.”

“That’s fine,” he smiles devilishly. “Because we’re not goingon that...”

---