A Love Triangle Most Unusual (Season 1)

The Best Wintermelon Prices In Washington

Once I reached the other side, I pulled my mask back up over my face, and went back to sprinting down the sidewalk. I occasionally slowed down and passed a few other pedestrians, but the walk was mostly uneventful. I panted and clutched my side occasionally, hating myself for not keeping with track, and for not going to the gym to get fit like I'd promised myself I would before the pandemic. 

Goddamn, why am I such a loser?

"Are you here for the vaccination, sir?" A lady asked me.

"Yes," I panted, trying not to sound like a dying horse, for fear she might suspect me of already having been infected.

"Is this your first time, or are you here for your second shot?"

"No, this is my first time."

"Do you have your ID and proof of eligibility?"

"Yeah, hold on," I gasped for air and rifled through my pockets, pulling out my driver's license and a screenshot of the text message I had received from my health provider.

"Alright, thank you, Dave," the lady replied. "Looks like you're right on time. Since you have allergies, they're going to want you to wait up until thirty minutes after the vaccination to check for side effects, understood?"

"Okay."

"Good, good. That's all for now, I'm going to need you to head down that way," she pointed at a station where a bunch of people were lining up.

As I hobbled over like a rheumatic old man to my designated space in line, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I immediately stepped back, expecting to be chastised for not standing six feet away. Instead, as I turned around, I found myself facing none other than Dean.

"You made it!" he said cheerily.

Fuck.

"Hi, Dean," I sighed. So much for trying to get to the vaccination site before him so I could avoid having to run into him again.

"Do you mind if we chat for a bit?" he asked.

"Six feet," I reminded him, and he chuckled and stepped back, giving me space.

"Of course! How could I forget," he said. "Sorry, I'm just not used to all this," he motioned at his face. "Marie and I, we both live in our own bubble together, so we're still used to walking around each other without masks. Except, of course, when we do grocery runs on the weekend-"

Ugh. Look at him, describing his perfect happy intimate love life to me. Disgusting. Nobody wants to hear about that.

"You know, they've got great deals on wintermelon," he said. "Would you like some? It was such a good deal, we ended up buying way more than we need."

"Uh, no thank you," I replied. I didn't particularly like wintermelon.

"It's so good," he babbled. "You know, I was just saying to Marie, it tastes exactly like lotus root. And we made this Vietnamese soup with it - have you ever had it? it's called Canh Bi Dao Tom."

"Yes, of course," I lied. I would rather die than let this white British stick of chalk know that he knew more about an Asian dish than me. Especially considering the fact I had grown up with Marie's family for longer than him.

"So good. We put some ground up pork and shrimp, and some scallions that we grew in our kitchen, and it was heavenly. You should come over and have some with us sometime."

What? So you can rub it in my face what a perfect couple you two are? "Yeah, sure."

"You could even join our bubble! It'll be fine as long as you don't hang out with too many other people outside of us," he added.

I did take a slight offense to the implication that I had no other friends to spend time being maskless and unprotected around, but he wasn't wrong, so I decided not to give him a hard time. "Sure, I can come by I guess. If I'm ever around. I can't come home now, unfortunately."

"Oh, right," he said, and he seemed a bit disappointed.

"So, it's just the two of you?" I asked. "Don't you two have any other friends?"

"Oh, yes. But they're all scattered about now," he said wistfully. "I'd like to fly back to see my parents but, you know, traveling restrictions."

Something about his demeanor changed, like watching a puppy go from eager to sad. I felt somewhat bad for him. If he didn't have any friends who lived nearby, chances are he probably wasn't getting any other contact besides Marie.

"So, what brings you to Seattle?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Well, mainly work," he replied. "But I'll be driving back to Tumwater in no time."

"That's good," I replied. "Do they have any injection sites back home?"

"Oh, in Tumwater? A few," he replied. He scratched the back of his neck, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Huh?" I asked. Someone behind us cleared their throat loudly and we both backed away from them. We then realized that they were waiting for us to move forward. Although only families or couples were supposed to be standing together, we both moved up to the next designated chalk line in the pavement. Dean didn't seem pleased to have moved up a spot in line, however. He kept fidgeting and looking back, as if he wanted to leave.

I raised an eyebrow. "You don't look like you really want to be here."

"I don't like needles," he replied.

"Next in line," someone called out, and I noticed a volunteer beckoning me over.

"Well, this was fun," I tried to smile politely. 

I expected him to throw me one of his needlessly bright smiles, but Dean seemed more bewildered if anything. 

"It appears it is my turn to recreate the Ides of March. Nice running into you, though!"