Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 285(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Two days later, I drummed up the courage to ask if he, you know, maybe, like, wanted to come to book club again? His yes was swift and I was humming tunes I didn’t know the lyrics to. Until I overheard him and his mates at the Four Square. I hovered in the bread aisle, clutching a box of condoms and peeking through the gaps between the shelves like the manly man I am.
“Damon, spill. Are you and that guy . . .?”
“Leon?”
“Are there other book club guys you’ve slept with?”
“He’s pretty cute. Those curls are, damn—”
Score! I pumped my fist, the one with the condoms, and they burst out of the box. It was raining latex over me and a bewildered teenage shop assistant.
“—but it’s a summer thing at most.”
“Distance too tough?”
“Discussions too tough. I said I love Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, and he said he once wanted to be an astronaut.”
They laughed.
I did a quick Google search.
They were still laughing.
I collected the condoms, put the box back on the shelf, and cancelled book club.
I was twenty-three the last time I saw him, about five short days before I bought a winning lotto ticket and drove away. I’d successfully avoided him most of the summer. And then there he was, in the beach showers, water cascading down corded muscle and the dick that had briefly sent me to the stars. He glanced over and had the audacity to beckon me with a devilish grin.
I grabbed his wet togs, his dry clothes, and his towel from the bench, and with a heel-clapping salute, marched out of there.
It’s good to know I’m capable of decent passive aggression.
A car honks and honks and honks at me to go faster. I pull onto the side of the road and wave apologetically as they roar past.
Kōpuha Bay off-season is different. Quiet, for one. Especially windy for another. Gusts tunnel through semi-deserted streets, and a bank of clumpy tussock looks like a thousand bad hairpieces about to go flying. It’s not quite nine, and the sky is an oppressive weight of black, but it’s not as dark as the ocean. At least it has some sparkles in it.
The Four Square is the only shop with the lights still on. I zip into a parking spot—bread, muesli, oat milk. Something to keep me going until I manage a proper food run. Six aisles of overpriced food are waiting for me inside. Fortunately, thanks to holidayers, there are plenty of dietary requirement alternatives. Unfortunately, no oat milk where it’s usually shelved.
No problem, they’ll have some out back.
I head to the counter. The cashier is a blond-haired dude bobbing his head to the beat coming out of his mega-blue headphones. He’s decorated his apron with price tags, and when I see him, I’m reminded of a rainstorm of condoms in the bread aisle.
Hopefully he doesn’t have such a keen recollection of me.
He glances my way and . . . nothing.
Wait—not memorable in the slightest?
To my dismay, he just keeps bobbing his head, ‘yessing’ my fretful internalised questions. Never mind. He was young, and my hair was curlier then. That probably, hopefully, explained it. I wave the awkward universal “hey there, can I please have your attention?” like I got taught in school.
Dazed blue eyes blink again.
“There’s no oat milk on the shelf.”
“What?”
I say it again.
He still doesn’t get it.
Instead of taking his headphones off, he cups his ear for me to speak louder. I raise my voice, aware I’m not the only person in the store.
“There’s no oat milk on the shelf.”
“Milk?”
“Oat milk.”
“What?”
“Oat. Milk made from oats. Oaty milk.”
He nods his head and raises a hand. Just a sec.
He opens the small door behind the counter and strides out back, where they store extras and dated stock.
Someone lines up behind me, and I start to sweat. I’m that guy. The one with a complicated issue that holds everyone up. I hate being stuck behind that guy; I hate being that guy more. I smile at the poor old granny piling vitamins onto the counter. She probably ran out and zipped to the store to get some just in time to take with her other pills.
Headphone Boy is calling to someone in the storage room. I just want him to hurry back with an oat milk or two.
“Hey, Parker! There’s a guy who wants eighty milks. Do we have eighty milks?”
Eighty what?
I raise my hand stupidly again, but Headphone Boy isn’t paying attention.
Someone—Parker presumably—calls back, “Why don’t we just give him a cow?”
“He doesn’t look the type who’d know how to milk it?”
I know I should be interjecting, somehow, but I’m too far away to do that without shouting, and everything in my soul is objecting to shouting. Also, the line is growing, and the sweat prickling down my nape might officially be called a waterfall.