Page 2 of Pick One
“Just contain yourself, Teagan,” they’d say. “Don’t laugh so loud. Don’t speak so passionately. Don’t be soextra. Moderation is the key.”
But it wasn’t that easy. I felt things deeply, and it was hard to hold back. I hated approaching life that way. Plus… even knowing that Fern meant well, it hurt to be told that I was always too much or too little of something to please the people in my life.
I liked myself the way I was. I wanted other people to like me, too.
“Fern,” I said softly. “When in the entire eight years, fiveStar Warsreleases, and two Adele albums of our friendship have you known me to chill?”
She made a noise that was half grumble, half sigh. “Never.”
“Exactly. I am a man who has been blessed with a few specific talents,” I reminded her. Then I counted them off on my fingers. “I make a mean sourdough.”
“The best,” she admitted.
“I can analyze Prufrock like nobody’s business.”
She snorted. “Whatever that means.”
“I can suck a man’s brains out through his dick in under twelve minutes.”
“Did not need to know that.”
“I come up with the most amusing philosophical conundrums—”
“Once again, I argue that your ‘Pick One’ games are not conundrums, they’re logical fallacies that contribute to your very black-and-white view of—”
“But they’re the mostamusinglogical fallacies.”
Fern laughed helplessly. “Okay, yes. Granted.”
“And I haven’t missed a Trivia Night question in three years, except for that weirdly worded one about the marmosets, which you agreed was robbery.”
“It was,” she confirmed loyally.
“Butchillingisnota talent of mine,” I informed her seriously. “Indeed, legend says that when the tiny fairies went flying through the hospital nursery, flinging out talents to the newborn babies like Mardi Gras beads, the Chill Fairy passed directly over my crib and shook her head. She said, ‘Oh, no, sisters, I cannot bless this one.’ And do you know why, Fern?”
“I’m going to regret asking this,” she muttered, but I could hear the smile in her voice. “No, Teagan, please tell me why legend says you were not blessed by the Chill Fairy.”
“Because the fairies must pick and choose the gifts they bestow to providebalance.So the Chill Fairy said, ‘Sisters, this child has already been given a fondness for crop tops that makes a mockery of his love of sourdough. This child shall have an eidetic memory for Broadway show tunes and the vocal abilities of a cat in heat so that his friends will refuse to karaoke with him. This child—” I threw my head back, squeezed my eyes shut, and lifted both hands toward the ceiling, lost in my own vision. “—will be given an unquenchable thirst for love and be doomed to one day have his heart shredded and mangled, sacked and pillaged, burned and salted, by a man he’s devoted the best six months of his life to, until nothing remains but a desiccated husk barely useful for sustaining life and utterly incapable of nurturing romantic affection ever again. There is no room in this child for chill! Indeed, it is his veryun-chill-ness that will save him!” I lowered my hands, cleared my throat, and concluded in a normal tone. “So, like, who am I to argue with the Chill Fairy?”
“Amen,” a deep voice said from way too close to me.
My eyes flew open, and I found a tall guy in a snap-back hat watching me with an awestruck look that quickly faded into embarrassment when I met his gaze.
“Holy mother of fuck!” I exclaimed, scrambling back further against the mailboxes. “Where’d you come from?”
From my daydreams, apparently. The man was tall and solid, deliciously thick in all the right places, with shoulders that stretched his Hannabury College sweatshirt and thighs that strained the seams of his otherwise baggy khaki pants. A flush climbed his cheeks beneath his thick beard, and he looked down at his boots nervously.
“Teagan?” Fern asked in concern.
“Sorry,” he said in that same deep voice. He held up his hands to show me he was unarmed except for his keys. “I didn’t mean to startle you, and I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. I’m just here to… “ He made a vague, anxious motion toward me where I leaned against the mailboxes. “But you know what? I… I can come back. You look busy.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna leave now—”
“Oh my God!” I squealed, putting the pieces together—the way the guy was standing there, watching me, had to mean he was there forme. Or, at least, for my sofa.
Jace hadn’t forgotten about me after all. I was saved!
“No, wait, stop! Don’t leave!” I cried. Into the phone, I said, “Fern? I’ve gotta go. Fate has sent me a knight in shining armor after all!”
The guy blinked in surprise, but when he saw my smile, he smiled back, tentatively at first and thengloriously, transforming his whole face from fairly attractive to breath-stealingly, blindingly handsome. His eyes were a deep, soft brown and crinkled at the corners like he was used to laughinga lot, and his whole personality just magnified peace and gladness, the way a prism turned sunlight into rainbows.
