Whistleblower ✓

31 | melting point

Night had snuck up on us while we were inside sipping sangria. The heat of the afternoon lingered, but the sky was dark when I slipped through the front doors of the restaurant and started down the steps. Light pollution from the city blotted out all but a handful of stars.

I sighed and hugged my arms over my chest.

He couldn't have gone far.

This was the last thought that crossed my mind before I turned the corner around the walled-in front patio and saw Bodie coming down the sidewalk toward me with one hand in the front pocket of his jean jacket and the other braced around a paper-wrapped cone of soft serve ice cream.

And here I'd thought he was off having an emotional breakdown.

"Hey," he called from the end of the block. He looked at the restaurant, then back at me, clearly confused. "What's up?"

An excuse.

I needed an excuse.

"I didn't have service in there," I blurted, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder. "And I had to check my—my emails. So I came out here. For the—for the signal."

There was free WiFi in the restaurant.

Bodie probably knew this, but he was nice enough not to say anything.

He stopped a few feet short of me, lifted his soft serve to his mouth and licked around the side of the cone, just barely catching a drip before it hit the side of his thumb. I was absolutely not staring at his hands. There was nothing remotely interesting about the way they made the cone look cute and miniature.

"Where'd you get the ice cream?" I blurted.

"Well, I put some more money in the meter," Bodie explained, oblivious to my pink cheeks, "and then I tried taking a shortcut on the way back. I passed a Foster's Freeze, and I had a few extra quarters, so I figured, you know, why not?"

I was jealous. Of Bodie—not the cone. Foster's Freeze sounded delicious right now, and he'd gotten the best kind: chocolate-dipped vanilla.

"Anything good?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

I managed to tear my eyes off his soft serve.

Bodie nodded toward the phone in my hand. Right. Emails.

"Oh! Uh, nothing yet. I'll just—I'll give it a minute. To load."

The silence stretched out. For a moment, I feared it would last forever.

What was I even doing? What did I think I would accomplish by hovering like this? Bodie and I were horrible conversationalists, and when we did manage to talk, we ended up arguing about Vaughn, my agenda, or Bodie's shortcomings.

I tried to step back and be a voice of reason for myself.

Go back inside, Laurel.

I didn't budge.

But neither did Bodie.

We just stood there, staring at each other, while his ice cream melted in the warm Los Angeles night.

"How do you know all the words to that song?" Bodie asked out of nowhere. "The Spanish one."

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about, and another second to get over the embarrassment of knowing he'd seen me mouthing the lyrics.

"Oh. Uh, my mom was from Mexico," I said with a shrug. "She loved Selena."

Bodie blinked at me.