Page 37 of Blocked Score

“We’re not jaywalking drunk.” He tilts his head up the street to the crosswalk. “Come on.”

He lets go of my hand. The loss of his contact makes the brisk air feel colder.

I follow him as he walks the half block to the intersection stoplight.

“Even when you’re wasted, you’re a buzzkill,” I joke.

He snorts. “I’m not wasted. I’m not even buzzed.You’rewasted. And illegally crossing in the middle of the street after two beers is asking for trouble.”

“There aren’t even any cars!” I exclaim, verifying my statement by looking up and down the empty road.

“Better safe than sorry.”

Despite there being no cars to be seen or heard in our vicinity, he makes us wait until the crosswalk signal changes before we cross the street.

Bells jingle on the wooden door to the psychic shop when we pull it open. The inside is lit dimly and packed with trinkets and potted plants. Various tables display tarot card decks, crystals, oils, spirituality books, and assorted jewelry for sale.

“Welcome,” a voice sounds from behind a doorway covered with dense strands of hanging beads.

Lane rolls his eyes again like a middle school kid being forced to go on an outing he thinks is too lame for him. I tug him through the beads into a smaller backroom.

A tiny woman sits on the other side of a circular table, her makeup so heavy it’s impossible to tell how old she is.

“Hi,” I smile at the woman, feeling giggly at the unusual occasion. “You do, uh, psychic readings?”

She nods, spreading her hand out to indicate the chairs on the other side of the table.

“I sense … a history between you two,” she says in a wise voice as we take our seats.

“Really going out on a limb with that one,” Lane grumbles out of the side of his mouth, earning a sharp elbow to his arm from yours truly.

The fortune teller holds out her open hands to us. Lane gives me a perplexed sidelong look, so I nudge him again and then slide my hand into the woman’s. With a sarcastic arch of his brow, Lane does the same.

The woman on the other side of the table closes her eyes and makes a humming, thoughtful noise. “Yes, history. Something … unfinished. Something that ended in a way it shouldn’t have.”

My stomach flips, her words hitting a little too close to home. I slide my gaze to the side to check Lane’s reaction, but it doesn’t seem like her words had the same effect on him.

I guess because, in his mind, what ended between us eighteen months agowassupposed to end exactly how it did.

“One of you has … tension. Conflict. Uncertainty about the future.”

I guess it wouldn’t be hard for an unbiased observer to look at the two of us and clock in an instant that I’m …

“You,” she opens her eyes, her gaze boring into—not me, but Lane.

I look to Lane, and I’m surprised to see the lines of his face sharpening. He suddenly doesn’t look like this is all a joke to him anymore.

“You’re … unsure. Unsure about something you always were sure about. About something you always took for granted.”

The fortune teller’s cryptic words are flying over my head, but from the way his brow crawls lower over his eyes, it looks like they’re hitting a mark somewhere with Lane.

“The future you used to see clearly for yourself now appears clouded, the flat road now bumpy,” she continues.

But she doesn’t elaborate, instead turning her attention to me and uttering some platitudes that don’t strike me nearly as much as what she just said still seems to strike Lane.

I mostly tune her out, honestly, because I’m paying too much attention to Lane’s residual reaction and wondering what it could be that struck a chord with him.

After we pay her thirty bucks—which Lane insists on covering himself, though he still seems a little dazed—and head outside, I question him.

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