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EIGHT

MICKEY

Amos: Oh, god. It keeps getting worse. Check this out: you spread mustard on ham. Not a bad start, but here’s where it gets disgusting. Wait. Let me grab the picture. You have to see it to believe it.

I laughed at Amos’s text as my Dungeons and Dragons group moved over to the bar area of Alex’s finished basement to descend upon the remaining snacks before we packed up and went home.

For most of the evening as we’d played, I’d done my best to ignore my phone, but when my friends picked up their phones to text their partners, I seized the opportunity to check for Amos’s texts.

Each time one came through, a fluttering sensation raced through my belly.

Now we’d moved onto the hardest part of each game: scheduling the next one.

I joined the crew and snagged one of the last brownies Sam had brought and tuned into the conversation about scheduling our December session, which was going to take a while. Comparing calendars always did.

“I can’t do the twelfth,” Finn said. “Drake and I already have plans.”

“What about the fifteenth?” Alex asked. “Thanksgiving is really messing up our scheduling.”

Sam laughed. “Our scheduling is always messed up.”

“Aren’t Andre and Ethan coming back for Christmas? Why don’t we schedule around them?” Jason suggested.

“I’d rather play darts and get some beers with them and hear about how things are going in Seattle,” Finn said.

“Hmm. Good point.” Alex consulted his calendar app again. “What do you think, Mickey?”

While he checked his phone, I checked mine after feeling it buzz.

Amos: [photo of a recipe from an old magazine. There are five bananas wrapped with ham lined in a glass dish with cheese poured on top.] Ham. Cheese. And bananas.

Amos: AND MUSTARD. You BAKE IT.

Amos: If you tell me we should add this to the menu, I’m telling Bo I’m out.

A laugh burst from me. God, Amos was hilarious.

We’d texted off and on the past week as we’d started a deep dive into his family’s recipes, which led to googling and swapping horrible recipes from the 1940s and '50s. While we’d been in an epic D&D battle tonight, Amos had gone down a Reddit research black hole.

My skin prickled at the sudden silence. When I glanced up, everyone was staring.

“What? Oh shit. Did you say my name?” I asked Alex. “About Andre?” My brain worked to piece together the snippets of conversation I’d caught.

“Who are you texting?” Sam leaned into my space and tried to glance at my phone screen.

“It’s for the festival.” Sort of.

“How’s Amos doing?” Jason asked while sporting a knowing smirk.

“How’d you know it was him?” I slid my phone into my pocket as my cheeks burned.

Jason shrugged. “I didn’t, but you just confirmed it. Someone at the farm heard you two were planning something together for the Christmas festival.”

“Wait. Amos Flynn ?” Sam gaped at me.

“Yeah. We’re planning a community Christmas Eve dinner together.”

“ Together? ”

I shifted in my seat. “It’s not a big deal.”

“ Not a big deal?” Sam’s voice kept inching higher.

“Are you going to keep parroting me?” I asked, laughing.

“Polly want a cracker,” Alex said in a terrible parrot impression. Finn threw popcorn at him.

I hadn’t told any of them that Amos was who I’d been talking to on Halloween and never made a peep about almost hooking up with someone. As far as they knew, I’d been chatting with a guy who left when he had a wardrobe malfunction. Which wasn’t a total lie.

My friends wanted the best for me and were well-meaning, but that was what kept my lips zipped.

Ever since Alex and Cody had gotten together a couple of months ago, everyone had turned their attention to me as the last single person in the group.

If they knew what had happened on Halloween, they’d form a tactical plan to get us together that would make the Marines proud.

Since we saw Brandon with the “I swear, he’s just a work friend” guy, their comments about me dating had doubled.

At our last hangout, they’d debated which dating app to sign me up for.

They’d created an entire scheme of vetting my matches and setting me up on a series of dates like a Bravo reality show.

“Has anyone seen Amos since he got back in town?” Sam asked.

“No, but should we make a scouting mission to Sparky’s? I’ve got some good costumes,” Alex said.

I loved my friends, but they didn’t understand.

I was the common denominator between my failed relationships.

More specifically, my job was. When people called out, I had to fill in for them, and that happened more often than not with a bunch of part-time college students.

Not to mention serving food at festival events, at least one or two weekends a month.

On top of that, I used most of my spare time for my side hustle.

It was hard to find someone who understood those constraints.

If it didn’t work for my mom and dad, how would it work for me? Mom was the most understanding and caring person on the planet, and Dad had loved her more than anything. Well, next to Red’s, anyway.

“Is Amos still as cute as he was in high school?” Sam asked.

“He looks the same, but older.”

“Deftly side-stepping any editorial comments on his appearance. Smooth, Brewer.” Jason chuckled.

After my friends exchanged some looks, they resumed their discussion about dates for games.

Amos: Have you died from disgust? I don’t blame you.

Mickey: Nearly. Ham and baked bananas? That’s vile. Worse than that gelatin concoction you sent me yesterday. [barf emoji]

Mickey: I’ve got Thursday off. Want to come over and hash out this menu?

Amos: Sounds great! Text me your address. I promise not to bring any bananas and ham.

Mickey: I’ve got a house rule. You’ve got to be the first to eat any food you bring.

Amos: No savory gelatin dish either then. Got it.

I chuckled, then once again noticed the fresh silence. I sighed. “ What? ”

“Are you going to see him soon?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. We need to get together and plan out the menu so we can start sourcing food.

” I’d been putting off making those plans.

The texting was kind of nice. It was easy to forget he was Amos Flynn of Sparky’s Diner.

Instead, he was Garth, the charming guy I’d met with hilarious commentary about culinary disasters and weird Bigfoot memes.

At my friends’ probing looks, I set down my phone and held out my hands in a pleading gesture.

“Okay, fine. I told him I’d invite him over to my place to plan the menu because people wouldn’t stop staring at us when we met at the coffee shop with Bo last week.

It’s unnerving. We both want to do a good job with this because it means a lot to Bo. ”

“You should share your cheese with him,” Sam suggested as they picked up a leftover speck of the cheddar I’d brought.

“That’s a great idea,” Jason said.

“No way.” The only people who knew about my hobby were my closest friends and family.

“You don’t have to tell him it’s yours. Find out what he thinks and get an honest reaction. You don’t believe us when we tell you it’s delicious. Maybe you’ll believe someone who doesn’t know you made it,” Finn suggested.

I couldn’t argue with his logic.

“A dairy litmus test. Not a bad idea.” Alex gave me the same look he used when we were in the thick of a battle and one of us did something unexpected that created a fun challenge for him as our dungeon master.

But what if Amos didn’t like it? Then again, I did have some pretty good chèvre in my fridge. “We’ll see.”

“I like this for you. You’ve been a hermit, outside of D&D, since you broke up with Brandon,” Finn said.

“You mean when I got dumped? Again.”

My friends shot looks at each other that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“Okay! Let’s get back to scheduling, or else we won’t play again until March.” Alex leveled a stare at each of us before returning to his calendar.

I snuck a glance at my phone and smiled at the dancing bananas GIF Amos had sent.