“Wait. Am I supposed to?” Since when? I rack my brain trying to figure out how I might know him. A drunken one-night stand years ago? A swipe-right date gone wrong? A neighbor in one of my old apartment buildings? No, no, and no. “We met before?”
“Yes.” He pauses dramatically. “You always carried a Polly Pocket every day of kindergarten and I think first grade, too. You’d bust it out when the teacher wasn’t looking.”
“I did do that!” Heknowsme. He reallyknowsme.Jack.I realize there is something familiar about his brown eyes. Wait. Yes… I imagine Jack much younger, kid-sized, same eyes,notthe same muscles. “Jack… Mann? From Dewey Elementary?” I’m so unsure my voice sounds like a wobbly whisper, like I’m afraid I’m going to accidentally set off a landmine.
Instead, a big smile spreads across Jack’s face. “Bingo,” he says.
Four
JACK
Flying solo just means you’ll have stronger wings.
—SOLO FEBRUARY CHALLENGE
I can’t believe I’m talking to Sora freakin’ Reid. We were in the same classroom almost every year in elementary school from kindergarten to fifth grade. I might have had a serious crush on her some, or, okay, okay—most of those years. And anytime Sora was around me then, I usually had an anxious swarm of bees in my stomach. For most of my childhood, I actually thought pretty girls caused stomachaches.
Of course, I know most kids weren’t even interested in romance then. But I couldn’t help but notice Sora—half Japanese, half Scottish, all gorgeous. I felt like we were meant to be together. I’m a quarter Chinese, a quarter Portuguese, a quarter Irish, and a quarter your guess is as good as mine.
She’s seriously prettier than she was in elementary school. I didn’t think it possible, but it’s true: pink, perfect lips, doe-brown eyes, dark, luscious, jet-black hair. And she’s just as sweet and caring as I remember. I can tell she wanted to tell her ex to go to hell, but she took the high road. She always did that, even in kindergarten.
“I can’t believe this!” she squeals. “Like, how have you been?” She’sgladto see me. I am stupidly elated about this. “I mean… you’re like… so tall. When did this even happen?”
“Puberty?” I joke, and she laughs.
We spend a few more seconds grinning goofily at each other. She eyes me up and down.
“You’ve just…” She seems dumbfounded. “Changed so much.”
“Yeah, I know, I used to be different back then.” Short. Pudgy. On the heavy side of stocky. I grew about three feet in high school. Learned to work out more and eat healthier, but still never really lost my taste for sweets. Thus… baking. “But look at you…” I wave my arms like a maniac. That perfect dimpled and gorgeous smile. “You look amazing.”
“I basically just rolled out of bed.”
“You still look great.” She makes that faded sweatshirt she’s wearing with the loose neck hole showing off quite a bit of shoulder look sexy AF, like it should be on the cover of a lingerie catalog.
A blush rises on her cheeks. “Whatever happened to you? You like, disappeared after fifth grade?”
“Family moved,” I said. “We ended up a few suburbs over.”
“So that’s what happened! I wondered.”
She did? Sora Reid thought about me for even a millisecond? The thought makes my heart thump a bit harder.
A few people wander by behind her at the samples table,hoping to get some tortes, but I’m in a happy nostalgia bubble and I don’t want to leave. I refuse to make eye contact with the man in a trucker’s hat who’s back for a third time for tortes.
“Excuse me?” Trucker Hat says, trying to reach a big paw in and grab another sample torte. “Can I get one of those?”
“You’ve already had one,” I say, shooing him away like a fly. Get out of here, man. I’m trying to talk to my grade-school crush.
“But she had more…”
I glare at him, and he backs off, wheeling his cart away.
“Wait!” she exclaims. “You had a nickname back then. I remember… what was it?”
No. Please no.
She snaps her fingers. “Piggy Jack!”