Page 33 of Pitch Perfect (Boys of Summer 1)

“It is just dinner.”

“Can you be

my friend, Tucker?” Now she looked up from her shirt and met his gaze directly. He didn’t know how to interpret what he saw there.

“I don’t know.”

On the TVs the Cubs were playing poorly, and the crowd got noisier, alternating between cussing out the umpires for questionable calls and then damning their own team for losing. Baseball fans were like older siblings: it was totally fine for them to insult their kid brothers, but if you did anything to hurt them, you were in for a beating.

Only a Cubs fan could badmouth the Cubs. It was true of every team, but Tucker was seeing it in its truest form here.

He and Emmy sat in silence, a new awkwardness between them, and watched the game while they waited for their pizza. She seemed lost to her own thoughts, and he didn’t know if he was welcome to intrude, so he stayed quiet and waited for her to speak first.

Between the third and fourth inning their food arrived, and Emmy spoke to him at last.

“You’re going to be a problem for me, aren’t you, Thirteen?” She wasn’t looking at him, too busy cutting their pizza and divvying it up onto small white plates. The insides were steaming hot and full of gooey cheese, and Tucker didn’t think he could remember a pizza ever smelling as delicious as this one.

“That depends on you.”

“Oh?” She shoved his plate towards him and sat sideways on her barstool, staring at him.

“Problem has a negative connotation, don’t you think?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t want to be something you view negatively.” He pinched a thread of melted cheese and pulled it free of his pizza slice, popping it in his mouth while she watched him. “I don’t have to be a problem.”

Emmy rested her chin on her hand and sighed. “I like you.”

“You know I like you too.”

“So you see where my problem is.”

“No.” He gave his head a shake. “Your problem isn’t me. Your problem is somewhere else.”

She chewed on her lip, prodding her hot pizza with a fork. “You asked me where to go if we only had a few hours.”

His heart hammered, and blood began to circulate rapidly below his waist. She could have said she wanted to fuck him right then and there, and her choice of words wouldn’t have sounded any more erotic.

“Yes.”

“I think I know the place.”

Emmy needed to escape her own head, where thoughts were colliding and buzzing around like fat confused bees on a hot summer day. She needed to understand better what it was she wanted from Tucker before she went and did something stupid like calling it quits on a perfectly amiable four-year relationship.

Who wants to call their relationship amiable?

They left the restaurant and wandered into the cool night. Overhead, a train rattled along its rusty track, filling the evening with the loud squeal of metal on metal. The scent of fresh pizza followed them as they crossed the street.

“Where are we going?” Tucker asked, trailing a half step behind her.

“You’ll see, we don’t have far.” She went a few blocks in silence before they arrived at an intersection where she stopped and looked straight up. The bright blue neon sign for Willis Tower Skydeck was visible from their place across the street.

“Seriously?”

“Have you ever been?”

“Once. It was still the Sears Tower then. I wanted to relive that moment in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where they lean their heads against the glass.”

---