Page 63 of Maid of Dishonor

“There,” she says, relieved, leaning away again. “Go wash your hands. I know it’s a pretty mild allergy, but just to be safe.”

“Yeah,” I croak, clearing my throat quickly as embarrassment heats my cheeks at how flustered I sound. “Yeah,” I repeat. “Right. Good.” But I don’t move; I just sit there and stare at her, at the lips that I’m dying to kiss—

“Carter?” She waves her hand in front of my face, and I snap out of it.

“Yeah. Right. Wash my hands,” I say, jumping up out of my chair.

I do wash my hands when I get to the bathroom, but then I also splash cold water on my face, staring at myself in the mirror. What’s happening to me? I’m sitting here thinking about Sam’shands. I’m thinking about kissing her. This is nuts (pun not intended). I don’t do this. I don’t sit and daydream about women.

I want to blame this change on Winifred, but I know there’s more to it than that. Yeah, if she hadn’t forced us to kiss, maybe these feelings would have stayed buried, but it doesn’t change the fact that there are still feelings there in the first place.

I shake my head, splashing cold water on my face one more time. Then I take a few deep breaths, steeling myself, and return to the table, where I most definitely do not think about kissing Sam.

Seventeen

Sam

In the end,we decide on a chocolate cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting. Because cream cheese frosting takes the cake (see what I did there?) and I’d be very happy to eat it every day of my existence. As long as I could also eat some chocolate. And maybe some cheese? And probably some carbs too—mashed potatoes, pasta, french fries. That kind of thing.

It has just occurred to me that I’m not a very healthy eater.

Regardless, we agree on the chocolate with strawberry cream cheese frosting, and then we’re off, my heart still tripping along following the peanut butter frosting scare.

Realistically, I know if Carter ate peanut butter, he wouldn’t die. It’s not a severe allergy. Not currently, anyway. His lips and tongue would get tingly maybe an hour after eating. His eyes would probably go red and itchy. He might get hives. But that’s about it.

Still, I always worry the allergy will morph to the point where he merelylooksat peanut butter and somehow drops dead on the spot. Peanut allergies can worsen over time—I know this because, obviously, as soon as he told me about his allergy years and years ago I spent days reading about it on the internet. This is the burden of being in love: you know more about their health conditions than they do, because you always worry about them. Carter carries an EpiPen and keeps an antihistamine in his car, though, which makes me feel better.

“I should have said something about the peanut butter as soon as you sat down,” I say, staring out the window. For the last few minutes I’ve been focusing on deep breathing as a way to help me feel less anxious about Carter driving me, but now I can’t stop the words from tumbling out. “I should have just asked him to take it back.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Carter says, looking over at me. “You pushed it all the way across the table. I didn’t bother to ask why. It’s fine, Sam. Nothing happened, and it wouldn’t have been your fault if it did.”

His words are nice, but they don’t make me feel any better. I decide to change the subject rather than dwell on it.

“So,” I say. “Maya got the horoscope?”

“Yes,” he says with a nod. “And it worked exactly the way we hoped it would.”

“But…?” I say, because he seems like there’s more he wants to say.

“Butshe’s not quite convinced yet,” he says with a sigh. “She told me that if she gets the feeling the universe is warning her one more time, she’ll call it off.”

“One more time?” I say, letting my hand drop into my lap. I turn in my seat to face Carter. “We have to doanotheromen?”

Carter grimaces but keeps his eyes on the road. “I mean, we don’thaveto. We could just leave it be and try to talk her out of it again. But…”

“But another sign would be best,” I sigh.

“Right.” Carter inhales, then exhales loudly. “Personally, I’d like to just run Chet out of town. I think he’d go if I bribed him with fifty bucks.”

Sadly, I do too. However, it’s not a great idea. “Let’s pass on that one,” I say. “I draw a hard line at interfering with Chad.”

“Meh,” Carter says. “Fine. Well, let’s dig out the list we made.Orwe could have some fun. We could…” He drums his fingers on the wheel as he thinks. “We could teepee her house?”

I raise a brow at him. “And make the sick pregnant woman clean it up?”

His face falls. “Right, yeah. That’s no good. Okay. How about…hmm. Oh!” He sits up straighter. “How about we call in a song to the radio station and have them play it?” He turns to me. “Do you know any songs off the top of your head about not marrying losers?”

I shake my head, smiling. He’s just joking around now, but I answer him anyway. “There are many, many problems with that idea, but I do applaud your creativity.”

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