Page 16 of The Idiot

“But youlikebacon,” he counters, motioning to the green-tinted egg pastry.

“Whoever did that to bacon should be taken out back and given a beatdown. Why don’t we just go to the Grease Pit?”

Shoulders hitching back, his chest puffs up on a wounded inhale. “I thought it’d be nice if we tried something new. Look. They have muffins.” Glancing at the barista, he asks, “What are those? Blueberry?”

“Oh, no. Those are acai berry and chai. They’re gluten-free. We do have a blueberry and hazelnut granola parfait, though, if you’re interested.”

Another flash of Jesse’s big blue puppy dog eyes comes my way. Is he for real? I’m going to slap him. I swear. Someone needs to knock some sense into him. What in the hell is going on? For all his excitability and the wild schemes he comes up with, his eating habits are predictable. Why are we here? Did he meet some chick who’s into health food?

“No,” I finally let out when he doesn’t read the fuck-no signal in my eyes.

Damn it. Now he’s doing the lower lip pout thing.

Sighing, I surrender and turn back to the barista. “I’ll just have a coffee. Black.”

“We don’t have coffee, actually,” he informs me. “We have espresso. You can choose from fifteen different blends. They’re on the right side of the board.”

“Wow. Fifteen,” Jesse lets out and gives a little swat to my arm. “Cool, huh?”

My stomach growls. It feels like it’s eating itself at this point, but there’s a hint of nausea too from breathing in all the potent, overwhelming aromas. Fixing my death glare on him right now is apparently not effective.

“I don’t care. You order.” Eyeballing the low-lying coffee tables, I add, “Are we having it here?”

“Yeah. Find a table and relax. I’ll bring it all over.”

Another survey of the place still turns up not a single chair. Flashbacks of kindergarten flood my brain as I stare at the black beanbags plopped around a table in the corner. Shaking my head, I drop onto one of them, sinking in as it molds around my ass. I am never going to get out of this thing.

Jesse makes his way over, two pastry bags tucked under his elbow. There’s a drink in each of his hands. The one that looks like a green smoothie better not be for me.

Smiling, he sets the bounty down on the table. “Well, this is…different,” he comments as though he were searching for a positive descriptor but came up short.

Leaning forward to grab food off the table shouldn’t require this much strain on your ab muscles. When my fingers finally snag the hot paper cup and one of the pastry bags, I suck in a breath and settle back on my bag chair.

Holy crap, that’s bitter. The hot liquid is so acidic that my mouth feels parched after just one swig. That kid was right. This isn’t coffee, but guaranteed it’s enough caffeine to keep me up past midnight.

“Are we pulling an all-nighter or something? What’s on the agenda after this?” I ask, rifling open the white paper bag I claimed.

“No. I thought we could just visit.”

My hand freezes mid-rustle. “Visit?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs, too focused on trying to figure out how to sit on his bean bag to look at me. He puts his knees underneath himself, but then sways to his right.

“Visiting is what you do to people in retirement homes. What’s the deal?”

An errant thought flitters through my mind. He only acts evasively collected like this when he’s afraid to ask for adviceor he’s done something wrong. Watching the sour expression he makes when he takes a sip of his smoothie is a bit of humorous redemption, but then he gasps. “Ah, crap.”

A minty green droplet landed on his polo. Stupefied, I watch him try to blot it out with a napkin. All he accomplishes is spreading it, so the stain now looks like he has a green nipple patch. Since when does Jesse Carver care so much about his appearance?

No way.

Maybe he did meet a woman. The possibility has my heart sinking. The odds of retaining my friend-time with him will significantly drop if he’s met someone he’s serious enough about that he feels the need to show off for them with polo shirts and fancy coffees.

His knee slips off the bean bag, and he nearly tumbles onto his side, too preoccupied with his wheatgrass stain to realize he’s getting his ass kicked by this daycare furniture. Standing up, he huffs at his shirt and then the not-a-chair before dropping his ass back down on one side of it. Leaning into the bulge it produces under his arm, he gives up on his stain and throws the wadded napkin on the table.

“Is it before or after Labor Day that you’re not supposed to wear white?” he asks in all seriousness, swiping up his pastry bag.

“Are you trying to impress someone?”

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