Love Among the Pizza Boxes

The ice cream they give us is supposed to tell us something about our destiny, something about ourselves.
I look down through the glass case to look at our options in the flavor department.
Vanilla. Classic. Boring as hell.
Chocolate. Another classic. Also, pretty boring.
Coffee ice cream. That’s great. Very… awakening.
Cookie dough. Gross.
Sea salt ice cream. Over-rated.
Black cherry with chocolate chip stuff. ……. No. Just no.
Mango sorbet. What does that tell you about your destiny? It’s the only sorbet in this case. Interesting.
I get bored looking at the flavors and occupy my time looking at Shayla while they scoop out our destiny.
They hand us our ice cream and I toss a ten dollar bill at the dude behind the counter and we sit down.
“Ummm… So why do we not get to choose our own flavors?” Shayla asks, looking down at her ice cream with a suspicious expression settled on her face.
“The ice cream is our destiny,” I mumble, holding my ice cream close to my face.
I’m studying it. It’s a yellow-orange-ish color.
Some of it drips onto my hand.
That’s just dandy.
I lick it off.
Hmmm. Paopu.
Feel awkward because Shayla hasn’t touched her ice cream yet.
I stare at her quizzically.
“Do these look like walnuts to you?” She thrusts her ice cream cone into my face.
I go cross-eyed trying to look at it. I lean back a bit and nod.
She pales a little. “I’m allergic to walnuts. Like, dead allergic,” she whispers.
I take her cone from her hand. “Be right back.”
I go over to the counter and ring the bell a couple hundred times.
The Asian kid that gave us our ice cream pops up out of nowhere with a plastic grin.
“You made a mistake.” I shove the ice cream into the kid’s chest. “She’s allergic to walnuts.”
The Asian kid smiles wider and shook his head. “No, no! It is destiny!” he says to me in an Asian accent.
I stick the ice cream up the kid’s nose and walk back over to our table.
Shayla’s mouth is hanging wide open, her eyes are bugging out of her skull.
I sit back down and smile at her, then push my ice cream towards her. “You can just have some of mine.”
She clears her throat. “Um… Excuse me while I pick up my jaw. Did you really just stuff an ice cream cone up that kid’s nose?”
I shovel a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth.
How attractive, Riku.
Did I really just do that?
I sneak a peek at the Asian kid. He’s blowing walnuts into a tissue out of his nose. He opens the Kleenex to study his nose drippings and picks a walnut out. He then pops it into his mouth and continues on as though nothing happened.
Yup. I really just did.
Paopu ice cream is pretty good.
I nod in response to Shayla’s question and put the spoon back in the ice cream. “Try it, it’s good.”
Oh, that’s great, Riku. Tell her that with your mouth full.
I will, thank you very much, Constance.
She just shakes her head and dips the spoon into the ice cream. She daintily brings it to her lips…
Go to hell, Gary.
She smiles pleasantly and closes her eyes. ‘Heavenly’ she mouths.
Then her eyes pop open. “Paopu?!”
I blink. “Uh… Yeah?”
What’s wrong about paopu?
Oh shi…..
The legend.
She chuckles a little. “Our destinies are forever intertwined.”
I gulp and pray to the Lord that it wasn’t audible.
That’s a very scary thought.
A very, very scary thought.
………………
“Well uh… Maybe the legend isn’t true, y’know?”
Crap.
What did my expression look like about two seconds ago?
I bet I looked sad. Or disappointed. Or just plain scared.
“It’d be a little scary if it was true… But I wouldn’t really mind if it was. I’m kinda getting used to you, kid.” She flashes me a dopey grin.
I smile my stupid crooked smile at her then look at my feet. My abnormally large feet.
Stupid feet.
Now, Riku. Collect yourself. Eat some ice cream.
No.
Collect yourself. Stop looking at your feet.
So I look up from my abnormally large and stupid feet and look at the ice cream.
Stupid ice cream.
What?
No.
“I’ve grown to enjoy your company as well,” I finally reply.
God.
Took you long enough.
She’s smiling again. And blushing too. It makes her cheeks turn a light pink. It’s well… really sweet.
What?
Now I’m pink in the cheeks, too.
Shayla’s smile turns to something softer and more gentle. She cups my heated cheek with her hand which is really freaky but okay.
You know you like it, Riku.
Shut up, Constance.
Shayla’s shoulders shake a little with silent laughter. “You’re so cute.”
I open my mouth to say something.
And nothing comes out.
So I close it again.
The right corner of my mouth perks up.
She runs her soft little thumb over my cheek bone and hesitantly leans slowly over the table.
I kinda lean forward, too. Very slowly.
Like in movies. Romance movies. Movies about first dates and first kisses and chocolates and roses and sugar and spice and everything nice – and I’m going to shut up now.
Our noses are touching.
Holy crap.
This isn’t actually happening, is it?
Yes. Yes it is, Riku. Now lean forward the rest of the way.
Come on, Riku. You can do it. Almost there…..
“Hey guys!” an obnoxious, annoying little voice says from behind me.
I jump away from Shayla in result of being disturbed by such a pest.
“That’s just great, Sora. It’s great to see you.” I’m glaring at him.
Kairi is clinging desperately to Sora’s arm.
I glance away from Sora and Kairi to Shayla. She’s glowering balefully at the two of them, tapping her fingernails painfully against the tabletop. It’s kinda funny.
“Hi, Riku,” Kairi says to me.
I give her a sarcastic smile.
“Well, nice seeing you.” I pick up our ice cream and look at Sora and Kairi for a second.
Sora smiles with his teeth. Big and wide.
Kairi’s hugging Sora’s arm to her chest so that it’s sitting right in between her boobs.
That’s great Kairi.
Shayla stamps her hand over mine quite aggressively I may say and stands up, delivering a tight smile to Sora and Kairi.
“Is there problem here?” the Asian kid asks.
“No no,” Shayla says through tight lips and looks at the guy. Man, if looks could kill… That guy’s head would look like it had been run over with a steam roller a couple of times.
We leave the little ice cream place, hand-in-hand, while the Asian kid yells after us with some crap about destiny.
Shayla sighs a big sigh. “Thanks for the ice cream, Pizza Hut.”
Oh, yay. My super-sexy nickname returns.
I inhale deeply. “Yeah, no problem. Thanks for inviting me to your house.” I exhale.
“Sure thing.” She tries smiling and fails. She sighs again.
I hate seeing her so sad. It makes me feel really bad.
It makes me feel all gross inside, like I’ve done something terribly wrong.
I gather her into a hug. A really nice hug. I stroke her hair softly with one hand. Kiss the top of her head.
It smells like watermelons.
I feel her smile into my chest, “Thanks for today. I had a nice time.” She looks up at me as she says this and for a split second it looks like she’s gonna kiss me, but she just nestles her head back into my chest.
I feel nice.
Warm and nice.
Like I’m being filled up with the fuzzy little dice that some people hang from their rear view windows. The ones that’ve been sitting in the dashboards of warm cars on a summer’s day. So the fuzzy dice are warm, too.