“And Stella?” I ask, sitting on my breakfast stool and watching her pick up takeout boxes to smell the contents.
She peeks out of the fridge. “She wants me to keep it a secret that I saw her.” She clenches her jaw in an ‘eek’ expression. Juno and secrets don’t always mix. “She’s not ready to see him.”
She shuts the fridge and opens an orange chicken container from Wok For U, moving over to my silverware drawer to grab a fork.
“Want me to heat it up for you?”
She waves me off. “I just need to eat something fast. My stomach is crazy right now and I think if I eat, I might not throw up.” A piece of chicken rests in front of her lips. “How was your ride? Truck okay?” Then she puts the piece of chicken in her mouth and chews.
“Thankfully, yes.” I steal the fork from her container, pierce my own piece of cold chicken, and eat it. “My truck is now parked in the garage, but Ethel demanded they drop me off first and take my truck with them. I ended up calling Duke Thompson to drive them back home.”
“She’s just being cautious,” she says.
“I took one for the team. What do I get in return?”
She laughs, but it’s her nervous laugh. Something’s up with her. She only eats for fear of throwing up when she has to tell someone something she doesn’t want to. Like the time she had to tell Savannah she scratched her car when she borrowed it. Or when she told me that she did go home with Trey. She ate an entire container of fried rice before finally admitting that to me.
“What’s up, Juno?”
She looks up with those doe eyes as though I’m a hunter with an arrow pointed at her. “Why do you think something’s up?” she mumbles around her food.
I say nothing but give her the look.
She takes the fork from me and places it in the sink, packages up the orange chicken, and puts it away. Hopefully, whatever it is isn’t a big deal. Because when she tells me whatever it is she has to, I want to tell her that I understand this whole situation is weird and uncomfortable, but we’ll eventually get back on track. Even if it’s three years from now when I divorce Brigette.
Grabbing a water, she unscrews the top then gulps down half the bottle like she just finished working out. She puts the water down and her gaze falls to the counter. “Can we not talk about big things, your wedding included, tonight? I kind of miss us and want to just chill.”
My shoulders fall. She’s right. We haven’t hung out in a long time. Like since before I announced the engagement. Maybe all this craziness with us is because we miss one another. “Definitely. Want to binge something?”
She smiles and rounds the counter toward my family room. “Yeah. I’d love that.” She grabs the remote and turns on my television, scrolling through Netflix. “What has Colton been watching lately?” She presses on my name instead of hers because yes, we share a Netflix account. “Documentary city. You need some comedy in your life.”
I join her on the couch, stretching my legs on the ottoman between us. She does the same but on the opposite side of the couch. We’ve done this millions of times. Sometimes she’s even fallen asleep with her head in my lap. One time when I fell during a soccer game, she made me stay up all night to make sure I didn’t have a concussion. I woke up the next morning and we were somehow entangled together. Her head on my stomach and my arm around her back, my boner straining my track pants. She didn’t let me live that one down for years.
“How about this?” The yellow box on the screen is around a chick flick. “It’s supposed to be funny.”
“Fine.” I don’t have the heart to argue with her because I’m just happy she’s here. “Just so we’re clear, that’s two you owe me now.” I hold up two fingers.
She laughs, clicking on the button. “Okay, after this movie, I’ll watch two of your boring documentaries.”
She leans back, and I stand and turn off the lights so we can watch in darkness.
Fifteen minutes into the classic rom-com movie where two people hate one another but are secretly in love, Juno pauses the movie. “Did you see that popcorn? Let’s make some.”
“I need to find a movie where they don’t eat,” I say.
She stands from the couch. “You love recreating the food from movies.”
“Eh.”
“What about that time we made the sandwich from Spanglish? I didn’t hear any complaints then.” She’s got me, but I never would’ve made the sandwich if she wasn’t rewinding the movie and watching it fifty times over.
“The tiramisu from No Reservations was a pain in the ass.”
She grabs the microwave popcorn from my cabinet and takes it out of the plastic bag. I love how comfortable we are in each other’s space. “Yeah, we’ll leave that to Rome now.”
We both laugh.
She punches the buttons on my microwave and slides up on the counter. “It’s not going to be the same. We should buy a popcorn maker if we want it to look like that.”
“That’s stretching it kind of far.” I pull out chocolate chips and drop them on the counter. Her eyes light up. “What about the Pulp Fiction cheeseburger?”
That might’ve been the best thing ever.
Her head falls back. “Ah, don’t remind me because I’m going to drag you to the grocery store right now to buy the ingredients.”
“I wouldn’t be opposed.”
“Tell me, Mr. I Don’t Like to Recreate Foods from Movies, which would you choose, the cheeseburger from Pulp Fiction or the huevos rancheros from Wolf of Wall Street?”
I grab a bowl and put it in Juno’s lap before taking the popcorn out of the microwave and shaking it into the bowl. “That’s a hard one. I guess as long as the food doesn’t talk, I’ll take any of the meals.”
She kicks me in the thigh and I back away, laughing. When we were nine, we watched Shrek and Juno refused to eat gingerbread men or women. She even put a tray of them that her mom made on the back porch to be set free.
“It’s not funny.” She hops down from the counter and stares at the bowl of popcorn. “This isn’t going to cut it.”
I shake my head, already knowing Juno well enough to know she won’t be satisfied until she gets her fix. Grabbing my keys off the counter, I jiggle them in my hand. “What are we going for?”
She bites her lip and her classic smirk emerges.
“The Chef’s pasta?” I ask.
She nods.
“At least you chose something fairly easy.”
We file into my truck and I back out, past her car, onto the street. She fiddles with the radio.
“Hold up, turn that back,” I say, and she does.
“Oh, I like this one too.” She relaxes back in the seat.
As “Get to You” by Michael Ray plays on the radio, we drive through the dark streets of Lake Starlight to the town’s outskirts, where there’s one grocery store open until midnight. I’m surprised Juno likes this song because the lyrics sound a lot like her. Although she’s lived her life in Lake Starlight, she runs away from any sort of commitment or emotions. Sometimes I wish it were as easy as taking a pin to pop her bubble to make her realize what she’s missing out on.