Page 36 of Unforgettable

I sober up a little. “Seriously, you think we need rules? Should we have them?”

He doesn’t get time to answer, because we arrive at the festival grounds and the conversation halts while we both keep our eyes open for a parking spot. After finally finding one, we head out into the crowd and the mood is a little bit stilted, but I’m glad to have Reeve here to show off the part of me I usually keep hidden from almost everyone else.

Since the night at the vegetarian restaurant, I feel like I’ve not only opened myself up to Reeve, but I’ve come face-to-face with a side of myself I didn’t even know existed.

I love sharing things with Reeve. I love telling him about my day and asking him questions about his. I love talking about nothing and absolutely everything with him, but most of all, I love being able to tell him about my love for food and music and bask in my achievements without coming off conceited or having to play them down because I’m worried he might just not understand.

None of that is needed with Reeve. In fact, he understands me more than anyone ever has. And the most confusing part is, I didn’t even know I wanted that from another person. I didn’t know that having someone, besides Maddy, who just simply listened, was something I was missing from my life.

“So, how do you do this?” Reeve asks as we come up to the first row of stalls. “Are you looking for anything in particular? How did you start this anyway? I don’t think I’ve asked you that yet.”

“Well, you can’t tell now because I deleted a lot of the original photos, but I originally started the account thinking I was going to post about my gym and healthy, clean eating routine.”

“But,” he interrupts. “You realized it was boring?”

Laughing, I shake my head. “It was a little bit boring, but I just felt like it was preacher-ish. Is that even a word? Anyway, when people started sliding into my direct messages asking about eating plans or what I thought about different dieting fads and sending me pictures of their bodies, I was a little taken aback.”

“People sent you that stuff?”

“Yes. It was wild and it was uncomfortable. I was posting aboutmyexperience, and all of a sudden, my experience became gospel, so I stopped. I didn’t want to be responsible for other people that way.”

“And then you moved on to food and music,” he states.

“It actually was a fluke. I went to a lobster festival over in Maine about eighteen months ago with some friends.”

“You have that many followers in eighteen months?” Reeve asks, his tone both incredulous and proud. “That is freaking amazing.”

“I guess,” I say casually. “I already had about two thousand from the gym stuff and, apart from a little lull in the changeover period, it just kept growing and growing, but I wasn’t really focused on that in the beginning.”

“Yes, the beginning,” Reeve exclaims. “Sorry, I get sidetracked. A lot. But tell me about the lobster festival.”

“Are you sure you want to hear about this?” I ask self-consciously. “It’s not that exciting.”

“Besides the fact that it is,” he insists. “Relationship rule number two. Find out everything you can about your fake boyfriend.”

“Are we making up rules now?”

“If it gets me what I want.”

“And what is it you want?”

“I want to know about the lobster festival,” he says softly. “I really just like hearing you talk.”

His words resonate because I feel the same around him. I’m like a glutton for information about Reeve, wanting any slice or sliver he’s willing to share.

“I usually make a plan of the stalls I want to see and then I go and eat in front of the live band. Is it okay if we do that first and then you can ask me anything when we sit down?”

“That works for me.”

* * *

Having an extra two hands at my disposal turns my food haul into more of a feast than the usual one-handed taste testing I typically do on my own. Reeve and I strategically hold three plates and two plastic cups between us. Each plate has one small serving of everything we were interested in, but there’s no doubles, which means we’re sharing everything.

Items range from savory to sweet, and our meal is topped off with a side of local beer. It was a mission, but eventually we found a small available seating area close enough to the unknown band playing cover songs, but far enough away to still manage to hear one another.

“Okay, lay it on me, how do you do this?” Reeve queries.

“There’s this trick,” I tell him. “Where you only let yourself take one bite of each, and you only go for seconds on the ones you absolutely adore. That way you’re not unnecessarily filling yourself up.”

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