Second Chance (43 page)

I tell her to walk around it
.
“You can’t
kill bugs in nature
.
It’s a rule
.”

“Gross.”
She quickly dances around it and shrieks at the same time
.
I commend her, once again, on being so
daring
.
We keep walking and
right now I’m more annoyed at Dylan than anyone
.
This
is all her fault
.
I wouldn’t be on this worthless date
if I
wasn’t
trying
to get over her.

I hear
Kari’s
feet stop
dragging behind me
and I
glance at her over my shoulder
.
She’s
fixated on
the
scrubby
bushes
growing
next to the path.

Is she
delusional
?

“Are you okay?” I ask
.

She
swallows and
gasps
.
“Gray!
I think there’s
a snake in the
se bushes
.
It’s making a rattling noise.”
She presses a hand to her
chest
and f
reezes
.
I walk towards her
and
I don’t hear a rattle
, but then
a grasshopper jumps out
of the bushes
and
lands in her hair
.
  

S
he screams and throws her coffee cup
in the air
.
I feel like this is all happening in slow motion
.
Her coffee
flies skyward,
then flips
into a
sky
dive approach
for her head
.
The cup
misses her head, but
hits her chest,
releasing its contents of overpriced
“burnt espresso”
all over her tank top
.
She’s
screaming and flailing her arms and running in place like she’s being attacked by a nest of
wasps
.
I have to bite my lips together to keep a straight face.

I try to calm her down and keep yelling
that
it’s just a grasshopper
.
A
n older
couple
scoots
around us
on the path
and the guy raise
s
his
eyebrow
s
at me
.
I see pity
on
his face.

I rest my hands on Kari’s shoulders
. S
he
finally stops jumping and flailing and her terrified eyes meet mine
.
When
she stops hyperventilating
, I can’t help
it
.
I laugh
.
I laugh so hard I have to lean over
.

“You thought a grass
hopper was a rattlesnake,” I
say in between
breaths
.
 
 

And that’s when she shoves me so hard she pushes me off the trail and I barely catch myself on a tree branch before I fall down the side of the cliff
.
After I find my balance and my minor heart attack s
ubsides
, I glare at her
.

“
Oh, that wasn’t funny to you?
”
she says and her eyes turn from
crybaby
to psycho
bitch in .2 seconds
.
She turns and stomps back down the trail, heading for the parking lot
.
I don’t bother telling her the trail’s a loop and it’s just going to take longer going back
the way we came
.
I’m
still trying to calm down
after my
near
brush with
death
.

I’ve just
discovered that
dating is not only detrimental to
my budget, my patience and my rare free time
.
It’s also threatening
to my health
.
Good to know
.

DYLAN

Cat and
I sit with
Miles on his
front
porch
.
The three of us
drink pink lemonade and eat potato chips and
ham
burgers
.
I have so many pickles it’s giving me a stomach ache
.
Miles invited Cat over for lunch and Cat insisted I join them
.
It’s the perfect spring afternoon
—the temperature is mild and t
he sunlight is hitting the ground at just the right angle to make the trees and flowers shine
like gold
.
Even though hiking with Gray would be my ideal scenario, I’m content to sit back and feel the
breeze
brush
my skin
.

I’m tapping my feet to the rhythm of Cat’s guitar
.
The three of us
are collaborating
on a song
we titled
“
Ode to Bacon
.
”
Miles and I w
rite
the lyrics
while
Cat
improvis
es
the chords
.
It’s a beautiful moment
in music discovery
.

“
It’s still
missing some
thing,”
Cat
say
s
.

I rest my chin on my
hand
and concentrate
.
“I know
.
W
e need a verse dedicated to
all the ways you can use bacon as a topping,” I say
.
 

“Didn’t we
already
do that in
the
‘bacon as a condiment
’
verse?
”
Miles
asks
.

I lean back in my chair, thinking hard
.
“How about a verse dedicated to
the flavor benefits of
combining
cheese
with
bacon?”

Cat crosses her legs and shakes her head
.
“I think that convolutes the
message
.
We need to keep bacon in the spotlight.
Cheese is a whole other
song
.
”

Miles informs Cat this song could
really catapult
her career.

“He’s right,” I say
.
“
Cat,
you should start practicing your
Grammy
acceptance speech.”

The three of us are interrupted by a shout coming
from the street
, followed by someone slamming
a car door
shut
.

“
Kari
, you’re fine
!”

It’s Gray’s voice and we all turn to see what’s causing the commotion
.
A second later, a petite
brunette
in
cut-off
shorts and bright pink tennis shoes
marches
up the steps
.
Her
white
tank top is covered in
brown
stains
.
Her
smooth
hair is falling out of her ponytail
.
She’s scratching at her legs, which
are streaked with red splotches
.

“Fine
?
My legs have poison oak all over them!”

Gray
stumbles
up the steps behind her and she turns to glower at him
.
Gray
’s
face carries a plate of emotions:
pissed off and guilty
with a side of exhaustion
.
They don’t notice the three of us sitting
in the corner of the porch.