the cone with a smile. But before I can grab it, he has a spoon in one hand and knocks the offending scoop into a container.
“I’ll give that to Ellis later; he’ll eat anything. Let me take another shot at it.” He walks back to the freezer and reaches down into it. I’m not sure if he’s flirting with me, or he just really loves his job.
“I like anything chocolate,” I offer.
He comes back to the window with a swirl of brown and white topping my colorful cone. “S’more,” he says, giving me a skeptical look. “Chocolate, marshmallow, and candied graham cracker bits.”
I smile. “Perfect.”
He smiles at me like he just aced a test.
“I’m Sidney,” I say. It bursts out of me almost beyond my control. “I have a friend who works here—” I nod back toward where I can see Kara at the desk, her eyes fixed on us. “So you’ll probably see me around. I’m on vacation. I have no life,” I offer as an excuse. Shut up, Sidney.
“I’m Caleb.” He hands me the ice-cream cone as I pass a ten-dollar bill—my mom’s grocery store change from yesterday—across the counter. “So I guess I’ll see you around, Sidney.”
I take my change with a nod and a smile, and head back toward Kara, licking at the dribble of blue ice cream that’s now escaping down my cone. Holy hell, this is going to be a giant puddle by the time I make it to my car.
“Yummy, huh?” Kara says as I approach the counter.
I have a feeling she’s referring to more than the ice cream, and I have to agree. “Very.”
“What if I told you the party was at his house?”
“Is it?”
“No.” She smiles and I smack her shoulder. “But he’ll be there.”
“I’ll think about it.” And as I walk out to my car, I am definitely thinking about it. Because seeing Caleb at the party seems like a better option than making daily ice-cream trips.
Asher
Sometimes I think our parents are in on this whole Ash-and-Sid-prank-each-other-into-fiery-oblivion thing. Or that they have their own game, where they see how long they can go without acknowledging the tension between us. Like, they each get a point for not smiling at something snarky we say to each other. Two points if they keep talking right through it. Money could be passing under the dinner table for all we know. I wonder if they pick a winner each summer, or if the longevity of their game is only surpassed by ours. Sure, we do our best to plaster smiles onto our faces in front of them, and keep our mouths shut, but you’d have to be completely oblivious to not notice the twisted game we’ve had going on for years.
And yet, our normally capable parents haven’t acknowledged our feud since the first summer it started, when we were fourteen. That was the second year my family came up with Sidney’s, and back then the pranks didn’t feel like the norm. Sometimes I barely remember what things were like before all of this, that first summer when Sidney and I were on the same team, but there was a before.
I especially suspect they’re using us for their own amusement when they do crap like announce that we’re going to start having dinner together every night. Sidney’s mom, Kris, claims it makes sense. Why should we sit in our separate homes, eating meals at the same time, when we could sit around and eat with each other?
Because it gives us more time to guard our homes?
Because I’m closer to my room and all of my stuff that Sidney inevitably wants to mess with?
And because she’s Kris, she also reminds us that not only will it be fun and practical, but we’ll also save electricity and water (and basically everything but our sanity) by having these joint family dinners. Nightly. That’s fifty-six dinners.
Which means Sidney and I have an entire hour that we have to play nice while we’re held captive at the dining room table. I’m not sure we even know how to function like normal people anymore. Will we just implode from being in the same area for an hour without tormenting one another? Will the angry little crease in her forehead become permanent being in my presence for fifty-six hours’ worth of dinners this summer?
Tonight we’re at her house, seated at opposite ends of the long oval table, with our parents coupled up on either side of us. We are the reigning king