Page 44 of Achievement Unlocked

After taking the pen from Landon, Megan hovered it over the paper, then let it drop again. “I’m drawing a blank.”

“You’ve talked about visiting the Sydney Opera house.” I had a head full of things Megan wanted to do, but that was the first that came to mind.

She frowned. “That’s not something we can do this weekend.”

Landon put the pen back in her hand. “A lot of these will be things you can’t do this weekend. If you wrap the whole list up in the next few days, you’ll need another list.”

“Write it down,” I prompted.

“Fine.” The huff Megan let out was exaggerated and cute. “Wait, in that case… Can I take things off the list if I don’t want to do them anymore? For instance, spending the day at The Mall of America doesn’t hold the same appeal it used to.”

I didn’t see why not. It was supposed to be a list of things she wanted to do.

“Are there Bucket List rules?” Landon asked. “It seems to me you can do what you want. That’s the point.”

Exactly. Though it seemed like thereshouldbe rules. The world ran more smoothly that way.

Megan scribbled out one of the line items, then frowned. “Now I need to rewrite the list.”

“Why?” I didn’t understand. “Part of the beauty ofThe Listis that it’s a living document. If you rewrote it every time it changed, you’d lose its history. But I do think you should replace any item that you remove because you don’t plan on doing it.”

“That seems fair.” She moved to the bottom of the page and wrote inVisit Sydney Opera house. “This feels weird, just sitting here filling it out, rather than adding to it along the way. Like it’s not organic.”

“There are a lot of things you want to do. You’re just remembering some of them now, not reinventing desire,” I said.

This time Megan’s huff sounded more genuine and frustrated. “But none of them are coming to mind.”

Pulling out his phone, Landon typed something in. “The internet saysdrink wine directly from the barrel.”

“As in, pick the barrel up and guzzle? Sounds awkward, even with a small barrel.” I had a hard time picturing it. Maybe if we held the barrel for Megan…

But still probably not.

Landon shook his head. “I think they meanbe serveddirectly from the barrel it was aged in, as opposed to from a bottle.”

“Then they should’ve said that.”

He stared at me, and I looked back, not blinking.

Megan waved a hand between us, breaking the match.

Landon went back to his phone. “Have a cocktail named after you at a bar.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun.” Megan started to write, then paused. “What kind of cocktail would it be?”

“Depends on what you like.” Landon set down his phone to pick up his beer bottle. “Though typically craft beers are named by the people who create them. And aren’t technically cocktails.”

“I don’t drink a lot of anything else. I’m super unrefined like that.” The sparkle in Megan’s eye was playful.

This was easy and fun. Even with the underlying current of sexual tension, I was caught up in the banter. I wasn’t used to that with strangers. Sure, I’d learned how to talk people up as a kid, but this was different. Landon was different. Despite the conversation being simple, it flowed, like he’d been part of our group for much longer than a few days.

I knew Megan better than he did, though. For instance her favorite fruit. “What about something with blueberries?”

“I make a wicked blueberry martini.”

Megan’s expression dropped at Landon’s words. “I used to think those sounded good, but only in theory. In practice they always taste fake.”

“I can make you one that tastes real. We’d call itThe Megan.” Landon flashed his hands through the air with a flourish.

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