Page 15 of Screwed

“No,” he says finally and I glance over at him. “I don’t think so. You aren’t clinging to the past. You have friends and you’re living in this century. I think it’s okay to like old things. I used to be obsessed with the Beatles when I was a teenager.”

“Really?” I ask and he nods.

“Oh yeah. I knew all of the words to every song. There was one embarrassing summer where I even tried to talk with a British accent.”

I laugh at that. I can’t picture him doing it at all. Arlo is cool. It’s hard to imagine him doing something dorky like that.

“Did you outgrow it?” I ask him and he shakes his head.

“No way! I still listen to them all of the time. I just have other favorite artists and bands now too.”

I nod, then realize that this is the most that I’ve learned about him since I met him a few months ago.

“Is that why you moved to Destiny Falls? To get away from everyone who remembered you when you were British?” I tease and he laughs.

“No, I just got tired of the rat race. I wanted something simpler, so I started looking at small towns to move to.”

“What did you do before you moved here?”

“I worked on Wall Street,” he says simply but I’m shocked.

“What?” I squeak and he shakes his head.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“You just seem so relaxed,” I try to explain and he laughs.

“Yeah, I am now. I wasn’t back then. Everything was about money and you had to be quick and cutthroat. It got exhausting after a while. You say that you have a problem living in the past? Well, I had one with living in the future. I was always trying to figure out market trends. Predicting what would happen next just got exhausting.”

“So, you decided to become a bartender.”

“No, I decided to move to Destiny Falls. I like the water and the weather. I have enough saved from my former life that I don’t really need to work, but it gets boring not doing anything all day.”

“My parents would love you,” I mumble but he catches it.

“Should I meet them?” He asks with a charming grin and I shake my head. “Too soon? You’re right. Maybe we should start with a date first. How about we grab some lunch? The Fainting Goat actually has some pretty good burgers,” He asks smoothly and I blink at him.

I open my mouth, about to say what I don’t know, but before I can, the front door opens and Madelyn comes back in.

“Sorry about that,” she says with a grin. “What did I miss?”

So much.

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