Page 72 of What We Brave
Reid's already handing over cash. The teenager running the booth looks thrilled.
Blake positions himself beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. Not quite. Never quite.
"He's going to be at this all night," Blake murmurs.
"I know."
"I made it worse."
"I know that too."
But I'm still holding the penguin. And the terrible truth is that I loved watching him win it for me. Just like I love watching Reid light up a room. Just like I love the way they orbit each other without even realizing it.
Stop it. You don't get to have it all.
Reid's first basketball shot bounces off the rim. His second one doesn't even hit the backboard.
Blake exhales through his nose. I hug my penguin tighter.
This is fine. Everything is fine.
Reid gives up after the seventh try. He doesn't say anything, just turns away from the hoop with this tight, forced smile that I have to look away from. Forty dollars. Zero prizes.
I'm still holding the penguin. I should have picked something small. Or handed this off to one of the little kids we passed earlier.
"Okay." He rolls his shoulders, shakes out his hands like he's resetting himself. "Maybe basketball isn't my game tonight. Let's... let's walk."
We drift away from the noise of the midway, toward the edge of the market where the river runs black and quiet against the retaining wall. The silence between us isn't the comfortable kind we had over tacos. It's the kind that has weight. The kind where everyone can feel it and no one wants to be the first to name it.
We stop near a railing. The music is just a low thrum from here, barely there.
Reid leans against the concrete, his gaze moving between me and Blake. He's trying to find the rhythm again. I can see him reaching for it. But it's gone. That easy warmth from the taco truck, the Tony story, the bickering—all of it evaporated. And what's left is something sharp and uncomfortable that none of us know what to do with.
God, we're a mess. All three of us.
"Look," Reid starts, his voice rough. "I know tonight's been... weird. I'm trying, okay? I thought maybe if we got out, did something normal..." He trails off, frustration bleeding into his tone. "But something's off. And I can't figure out what the hell it is."
Blake shifts beside me. I can feel the tension radiating off him, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched like he's bracing for impact.
Which, honestly? He probably should be. And that's not fair. I'm just as much to blame for this.
"Is this about what happened before?" Reid continues, his voice getting sharper. "Because if you're still giving Laine shit about?—"
"I'm not," Blake cuts him off.
"Then what is it?" Reid straightens up from the railing, and there it is—that mode. The one where he reads a room like a set of vitals, assessing damage, looking for the source of the bleed. "Because something's been off all night, and I'm getting real tired of pretending I don't notice."
He thinks Blake is still being awful to me. He's standing there trying to protect me from something that isn't happening, and next to me Blake looks like he's about to crawl out of his own skin.
I am a terrible, terrible person.
"Reid—" I start.
"No, I want to know." Reid's watching Blake's face now, really watching, with that focused intensity he gets when something doesn't add up. "I brought you both here tonight because I thought we could move past the bullshit. I was hoping we could be normal. But if Blake's still?—"
"It's not what you think," Blake says quietly.
"Then what is it?"
