Page 2 of Again with Feeling

I’ve never had any romantical feelings toward Fox. Ever. But right then, I wanted to kiss them.

“That’s just a gig,” Bobby said, “until he gets into art school.”

“God, don’t let him go to art school,” Fox said. “He’ll have a mountain of debt and end up becoming a deep-fryer jockey.”

“What is a deep-fryer jockey?” Indira asked.

“It’s like a regular jockey,” Millie said, “but the deep fryer is the HORSE! Wait, does Kiefer have a horse?”

Bobby checked his watch. “I’ve got to run.”

“Oh my God, are you going on a date RIGHT NOW?”

The hint of color that rose under the olive-gold of his complexion was answer enough, but he managed to say, “Uh, yeah, Millie. I am.”

“What kind of tattoos?” I asked. “Where? Are we talking flowers and mermaids? Or skulls and chains and barbed wire?”

Bobby stared at me as though I were speaking a foreign language. For that matter, so did everybody else.

“Joking,” I said. “That was a joke.”

Then, to seal the deal, I made myself laugh.

Everyone’s eyes got huge.

A seagull screamed, did a startled take-off, and swerved at the last moment to avoid one of the piles.

At the next table, a baby started to cry.

“Okay,” Bobby said slowly. “I’ll see you all later.” He reached out like he might squeeze my shoulder or scruff my hair, but he let his hand drop to his side again, and he left. He didn’t look back.

“What is wrong with you?” Fox whispered furiously at me.

“What is wrong withme—” I tried.

“We’re so sorry,” Millie said to the tourist family at the next table, who were glaring at us. Well, at me. They were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, and the gentleman wore a sun visor that said CORNHUSKERS. “He’s not usually like this,” Millie continued, “but he has this friend, well, they’re more than friends—”

“He actuallyisusually like this,” Keme said over her, “because he’s a donkey.”

“Keme,” Indira said.

The boy subsided back into his seat, but only to settle a glare on me. “Fix this,” he said. “Now.”

“Fix what?” I said. “Did you hear him? He’s going to enter the sandcastle contest with—with whatever his name is, even though they just met, even though he and I have been planning our design for weeks. I mean, we’re definitely going to win—it’s Hogwarts after the Death Star crashes into it. How can that lose?”

“Because no one has any idea what it means,” Fox snapped. “And Keme is right: you need to fix this. I think we’ve all been very patient, and yes, at the beginning, it was cute to see you two pussyfooting around—”

“I really don’t think you can say that,” I whispered. “There are children here.”

“—but we’re all sick and tired of it.”

“Sick and tired of what?”

Indira gave me a disappointed look. Keme’s glare got, somehow, even darker.

Millie, though, just burbled, “You know, you and Bobby.”

“What—”

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