“Sure am. So you should know this conversation is pointless.”
I sigh again as I pick up one of the containers. It smells amazing, and I’m starving.
“Phone first.”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and unlock it before I pass it to him. He scans the list I wrote, expression unchanging. I unfold the top of the container, looking down at five crepes. There’s one with goat cheese, but no sign of the other two I wrote down. I’m surprised by how much it bothers me. How much I wanted him to be right.
“That’s mine.”
“Oh.” I set the box down and open the other one.
Three crepes. One with goat cheese and tomato. One with distinctive green stalks. One oozing chocolate and sprinkled with strawberries.
I do a lot of staring around Teddy. When I don’t know what to say. When I want to look at him.
I stare at him for at least another minute before I ask, “How did you know?”
Part of me might have wanted him to be right, but I had no confidence he would be.
“You hate spinach and avoid meat when there are other options. Easy.”
“What about the strawberries and chocolate?”
“Lucky guess.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He picks up his dinner. “Don’t believe me then.”
We eat in comfortable silence as people wander past.
“Is it weird for you being here?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I’d never left the US up until yesterday.”
“I hadn’t either. Up until…”
“Up until you became Sutton Everett?”
“I’ve always been Sutton Everett.”
Teddy smiles. “IlikeSutton Everett.”
Without thinking about it, my lips tug up in response. “She likes you too.”
He chuckles before finishing his food. The crepes are delicious. Warm and fragrant. When we finish, Teddy consolidates our trash and tosses it in the garbage can.
“Wanna walk?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
We wander deeper into the park. The gravel path is winding, dipping between and around the flowers and trees that line it. Eventually, we reach a fountain. It seems to be a central point of sorts. More people are congregated here. Seated on benches. Milling about. Dancing.
There’s an older man perched on the edge of the fountain, playing the fiddle. Six couples are dancing. As I watch, another migrates over and starts swaying, slower than the beat suggests.
When I glance at Teddy, he’s already looking at me.
He holds eye contact as he offers out a hand. “Dance with me?”