Page 61 of Every Step She Takes
“I only meant…” Sadie blushes and blusters, but I don’t get to know what she meant by that because Stefano starts shouting my name from the other side of the table.
Well, he’s shouting “Mel,” but still.
“These kind gentlemen have told me about a gay-friendly bar down the road,” he says, leaning back in his chair to talk around Ro and Rebecca. He sweeps his hand over to the table of hot men who are still hanging on his every move. “We should check it out, yes?”
“Hell yes we should,” Ari says, staring right back at the boys.
It’s then that I start to suspect that this sangria might be unusually strong. Because I realize Stefano issitting. In achair.Everyone at the table seems a little loose, a little giddy.
I turn to Sadie. “Maybe take it easy on the—” I start, before realizing our shared pitcher is already down to the dregs of ice and fruit. The server returns to the table and deposits my salted cod in front of me before handing Sadie her octopus. Andshit.
“This is a whole-ass octopus!” Sadie shouts before the server is even out of ear shot.
“It does indeed seem to be.”
She pokes at the small creature on her plate with her fork, and all eight tentacles jiggle. “You didn’t tell me it was going to still be in the shape of an octopus!”
“I didn’t know! Usually, they serve you a few tentacles at most.”
“It has a face! At least, I think that’s the face.” She pokes it again. “What does an octopus face even look like?”
“It looks like that.”
She wipes literal sweat off her brow with her napkin. “I can’t eat this!”
“Maybe just close your eyes?”
“There are suckers!” She presses the tines of her fork to the row of suckers along one large tentacle. “Am I supposed to chew on these things?”
Inez pipes in. “This is why you should consider going vegan.”
“I’m going vegan after seeing that thing,” Ro adds darkly.
The server returns with more sangria, and I dump half the contents into my own glass before Sadie can pour herself anymore.
“I was trying to be brave, and this is what happens? A whole damn octopus.” She stares deeply into the creature’s dead eyes.
At least, I think those are the eyes. It really is hard to tell.
“Why do I get the feeling this octopus is going to be a metaphor for the entire night?”
FOURTEENVILA PRAIA DE ÂNCORA
Sadie
The octopus is definitely a metaphor.
I’m not exactly sure what the metaphor is, exactly, but I know that what seemed like a good idea now feels like chewing on tentacle suckers. I can’tflirtwith astrangerat a bar. I can’t flirt with awoman. I can’t flirt withanother womanin front of the woman I actually want to be flirting with.
My crush on Mal is becoming a sentient being with its own free will, and it’s no longer obeying my attempts to silence it.
When she fell on top of me in bed this morning, my butterflies came rushing back in. And when she sat next to me on a bench watching me watch the sunrise for an hour, my body almost reached for her body. And it can’t do that.Ican’t do that.
I might have a vaguely bisexual haircut, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for any of this.
“I can’t do this,” I blurt out while Mal is in the middle of exchanging oyster recipes with Vera. Mal sets down her sangria glass and turns to me like a parent addressing a child that’s interrupted them in the middle of an adult conversation.
“You don’t have to eat the octopus, Freckles,” she says.
