He laughed. “Well, I also really like grape soda, and everyone is always giving me shit about it.”
“Fair enough.”
A jazzy song started, one that sounded familiar. I realized why when Cary pulled out his phone—it was the same ringtone I’d heard in the lobby. He frowned at the screen, then pressed a button to silence his phone.
“Paradise Cruises?” I guessed.
“Calling from South Dakota this time,” he said. “But I am much too intelligent to be fooled by them changing location. Wait, what are you doing here?” he asked, falling into step behind me as I put back the M&Ms. “Where’s Brad? And where’s your friend? Stevie, right?”
I busied myself for a moment, straightening the bags of candy. I wasn’t quite ready, I realized, to tell him what had happened, say the words out loud—that would make it more true than I felt prepared to handle. “We, um, decided to go our separate ways tonight.” My voice threatened to break and I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, to bring me back to the moment. It was a trick I learned during Winter’s Tale, whenever I would get so caught up watching Stevie’s monologue that I would start to get teary too. “But anyway,” I said, making my voice bright as I turned around again. “That’s why I’m not with Stevie. Or Brad, because she took the dog.”
“Got it,” Cary said, his forehead furrowed, like he could somehow tell there was more to this story. It was disconcerting, looking almost directly into his eyes like this. I was always choosing to date people taller than me, people I had to look up at, and this was new. Not necessarily bad—just new. I wasn’t used to having someone right on my level like this. “That’s a lot to deal with tonight. On top of getting locked out.”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug that I didn’t feel at all as I put my Diet Dr Pepper back in the refrigerated section, pushing my hand through the plastic strips. “Wait,” I said, thinking of something and turning to face him more fully. “Did you hear from your uncle? Is he back with the keys?”
Cary shook his head, looking abashed. “He’s still stuck on the side of a highway in Pennsylvania. Apparently the tow truck they called missed them, so another one’s being sent.… I’m really sorry.”
I nodded as I walked over to where the chips were and set down my bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. With everything else that had gone wrong tonight, this probably shouldn’t have been surprising. “It’s not your fault,” I said, turning back to him. I remembered that the last time I’d seen him, he’d told me he was going to work—but I realized now I didn’t know what that was. “I thought you were going to work.”
“I did go to work,” he said. “I water plants at three buildings in the neighborhood, so I took care of it. Excuse me.” He reached around me for a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos—as he did this, his arm brushed against my back. This gave me an excited shiver—which was ridiculous, since we were both wearing layers of clothing. “And now I actually have to go to another job.” He headed to the cooler and reached in, took out a Diet Dr Pepper.
“How many jobs do you have?” I followed behind him as he walked to the candy aisle and picked up a bag of Skittles and a bag of M&Ms—peanut butter.
He paused and tilted his head to the side, like he was thinking. “Right now? Six. Six if you count helping my uncle out, even though it doesn’t pay in money.”
He made his way up toward the counter, and I glanced at the crooked clock on the wall. I was relieved to see that there was still just over two hours before I had to be at the Echo Theater—I was still good on time. “What does it pay in, then?” I asked, turning to him. “Gold bars? Experience?”
“Ha,” Cary said with a smile, but without actually laughing. “No, I just meant—I live with my aunt and uncle, so it pays in room and board.”
“Oh, right,” I said. My cheeks get hot, and wished I’d never tried to make a stupid joke. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said cheerfully. “And—fun fact—do you know where the expression ‘room and board’ comes from?”
“I don’t,” I said, hoping that my tone conveyed that I was actually okay with keeping it this way. “But wait—what are the other jobs?”
“I water plants,” Cary said, setting his things down on the counter, “help my uncle—”
“Elwes!” the counter guy said, smiling wide at Cary. He and Cary did a multistep handshake that ended with bumping shoulders—Cary jumped up slightly to reach him over the counter. “How’s it going? How’s the scrivening?”
“Hey, Pete,” Cary said, rolling his eyes. “You know, I’ve been in here for, like, ten minutes. I’m kind of worried that someone could be robbing you and you wouldn’t notice because you’d be focused on your Kant.”
“Wittgenstein,” the guy—Pete—said, sounding disdainful. “We covered Kant practically the first week. And these classes are no joke. If I’m not studying, I’m falling behind. You’ll find out next year.”
“No way I’m taking moral philosophy,” Cary said as he set a pack of gum down on the counter too. “Or any kind of philosophy, for that matter.”
“You don’t want to learn how to be a better person and understand your place in the universe?”
“I’m covered with horoscopes, fortune cookies, and Lord and Miller,” Cary said with a smile. “Thanks, though.” He nodded toward me. “Oh, this is Kat,” he said, and I gave Pete a wave, even though we’d very much met already.
“No hundreds,” Pete said immediately.
“I know!” I said, slightly offended, since I wasn’t even trying to use my apparently radioactive bill. Maybe that was why Mallory had been so eager to give it away. Maybe she was—literally—trying to pass the buck.
“Since when do you eat peanut butter?” Pete asked as he rang up Cary’s items. “I thought you were allergic.”
“I am,” Cary said. “They’re not for me.” I looked down at the items on the counter and realized—probably much too late—that in addition to Cary’s grape soda and Skittles, all the items he was buying were the ones I’d put back. The Doritos, the Diet Dr Pepper, the M&Ms, the gum. It was such a small, sweet gesture that it took me fully by surprise. And I realized, with a pit in my stomach, that it was the kind of thing that Stevie would have done. She was always buying me snacks and not letting me pay her back. This had culminated in the Great Venmo War of last year. It had led to us both being banned for a month; I’d worn it like a badge of honor.
“Thank you,” I said, as Pete scanned the rest. “But you didn’t have to—”
“It’s my pleasure,” Cary said simply. “Consider it repayment for my uncle going missing.”
“Uncle Georgios is missing?” Pete asked, his jaw falling open. “Since when?”
“Not like missing missing,” Cary said quickly. “Just having car trouble in the Keystone State. Not the best day for it, since Kat got locked out and needed to be let into an apartment.”