Page 29 of Left on Base

The bus starts moving again. He tips his head toward me like we’re old friends. “Hey, man. Ya wanna buy some boat?”

My brain says do not engage. But I want to be polite—just in case he’s the stabbing type. “Oh, uh, no thank you, sir.” I glance at Jaxon.

He gives me that look—the shut the fuck up one. He even mouths, “No.”

I should’ve stopped, but, well, I’m curious. You want to know too, don’t you?

“What even is boat?”

Jaxon elbows me. “Stop talking to him.”

The man turns toward me, and the smell gets worse. I bury my nose in Jaxon’s shoulder and regret asking.

“Oh, ya never heard ‘bout boat?” And then he launches excitedly into a detailed tirade about how it’s made. “It’s wonderful stuff. WONDERFUL.” Yes, he shouts this. “What ya do is ya take all yer cleaning supplies—drano, ajax, 409—and pour all that good shit in yer bathtub. Let it sit for about two weeks.” His hands come up and he shakes his head. “All right, all right, so when it’s dry, ya scrape it up with a spatula into a baking dish. Then ya stick it in the oven. Twelve hours, four hundred degrees. When it’s done, ya smoke it. But ya can only do boat once.”

I’m not sure if I should laugh or be concerned people are out here snorting cleaning supplies. Is that normal? No. But I’m still curious.

“Why only once?” I have no idea why I’m still talking to this guy.

He points in my face, inches from my nose, and locks his wild eyes on mine. I swallow hard. His eyes narrow, and he leans in closer. If that’s possible. “Ya do it twice… yer die.”

I stare at him in silence.

Jaxon does too.

We both blink as the bus stops near Pioneer Square, and that crazy bastard gets off almost immediately.

Jaxon turns to me, arm still around my shoulders, eyes wide. “That’s wild as fuck.”

I lean closer, loving that even though the guy’s gone, Jaxon’s still holding me. “You think he actually smoked that?”

Jaxon watches the street as the guy disappears. “Oh, I’m positive he smoked it.”

As promised,Jaxon sticks to his word and takes me to dinner. We land at Lil Woody’s on Pine, right in the middle of downtown Seattle on Capitol Hill, where it feels like the whole city is buzzing on a Friday night. It sits right on the edge of the chaos, where Pine runs thick with foot traffic, late-night wanderers, and the constant hum of Seattle energy. There’s a line snaking out the door, people laughing under the glow of neon lights, taxis honking in the distance, and that humid, salty breeze drifting in from the Sound.

Inside, you get a classic Seattle burger joint feel: not much space, but every inch used—small tables, and a counter where you order straight from the chalkboard menu. The walls are cluttered with local art and little nods to Seattle pop culture. It’s loud, always, with music bumping in the background and voices echoing off the tile.

We both order the same thing—the Fig and Pig burger, because once you’ve tasted caramelized onions, apple slices, fig jam, and bacon stacked together, you don’t mess with the formula. Jaxon adds a basket of their “crack” fries to the order—fries you dip in soft-serve ice cream, which sounds insane until you try it. If you haven’t yet, you’re missing out. It’s the kind of late-night food that makes your whole week better.

We squeeze upstairs where they have larger picnic tables in a loft, elbows practically touching the strangers next to us. Everyone’s talking over each other—students from Seattle U, techies in Patagonia fleeces, a couple on a first date sharing a milkshake. Jaxon’s uncle lives just a mile away in one of those glassy condos with a view of the water, but he swears the real magic happens down here, in the mess and noise.

“My parents met here,” Jaxon says, gesturing around at the crowd jammed shoulder to shoulder in the little loft, everyone with ketchup on their fingers and stories in their eyes.

“Oh?” I dip a fry into the chocolate ice cream, suck the ice cream off—suggestively, of course—and then eat the fry. “Like actually?”

“Yeah.” Jaxon’s eyes are on my mouth and I can tell he’sdefinitelynot thinking about food. “Well, my dad says they met at a bar on Christmas Eve, but then came here that night and… well, you know.”

My cheeks warm thinking about his parents hooking up. His dad is basically if AI generated the “hottest dad ever,” and his mom looks like she walked out of a magazine. Their daughter Emerson is basically real-life Moana.

“Oh damn,” I finally say, thankful his parents did hook up that night because hello, Jaxon Ryan came soon after. “So that’s how the Ryan family got started.”

Jaxon chuckles. “Yeah.”

I don’t think I’ve said much about my past with Jaxon. I should probably catch you up. Here’s your history lesson, so pay attention.

We started dating at the end of middle school, stayed together until last year, and then everything went sideways. Nowwe're stuck in this weird limbo of what-are-we and why-can't-we-move-on.

My family moved here from Tennessee when my dad transferred to a Seattle fire station, right before Christmas break in seventh grade. Turns out our dads worked together—which we didn’t know at first. His dad comes from a long line of firefighters, which made it kind of surprising when Jaxon chose baseball instead.

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