She half expected him to ask why but, to his credit, he didn’t. “I get it,” he said, his tone understanding. “I wouldn’t want to know the future, either.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Nah. Too much pressure. I mean… what if you had a premonition about the end of the world or something? That’s a lot of responsibility.”
“That’s whatIsaid! Try telling that to Finn, though. She loves being the hero.”
“Heroes are overrated.”
“Totally.”
They smiled then, reminded of the friendship they’d once had.
“Wanna watch TV?” Joel asked.
“Sure.”
Joel and Zadie made their way to the couch and took their seats on opposite ends, leaving a sizable gap between them. An awkwardsilence followed as each of them waited for the other to turn the TV on.
“Do you have the remote?” Zadie asked finally.
“I thought you had it.”
“Nope.”
“It must be around here somewhere.” Joel twisted around in his seat, looking for the controller. Not spotting it on either the coffee table or TV stand, he stood up and overturned the couch cushion he was sitting on, then the cushion next to it, then turned to Zadie expectantly.
“Oh. We’re doing this now. Okay,” she said, standing up.
He flipped her cushion over and, sure enough, hiding underneath it was a remote control. Joel whooped as if he’d been panning for gold and just found his first nugget. “Got it!”
“Yeah. You sure did,” Zadie said dryly, surveying the deconstructed sofa.I lived with this person once,she thought in mild disbelief.
Joel reassembled the cushions in the most haphazard way possible and plopped down on his end, remote in hand. “What do you wanna watch?” he said, pressing the power button.
“Whatever you want to watch.”
Joel gave her side-eye. “So we’re gonna playthisgame again, huh?”
“What?”
“You pretend not to care what I put on, but then when I put on something you don’t like, you suddenly have an opinion.”
“That’s not true,” Zadie said, indignant.
“Fine.” Joel skimmed through the channels until he landed on one airing professional wrestling. “Still don’t care?” he said, eyeing his ex.
Zadie put on the most congenial smile she could muster. “Nope. I love wrestling.”
“Oh, yeah? Who’s your favorite wrestler?”
“Umm. The… Zam… boni… Man.”
“The Zamboni Man?”
“Yup.”
“Never heard of him.”