Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,72

Cheetos for breakfast.”

“Gross.”

“David Babycakes Howard, you start bad mouthing hot Cheetos

and I’m gonna take away your Mexican passport.”

Dave smiled at that, but he was squinting like the sun was in his

eyes, worried. He reached over to turn the music up a bit, which was

weird because a dance song was playing and Dave didn’t like dance

music. Julia sat back and sang along, shoulder-shimmying in her seat,

her hand out the window. It was cold enough outside to get goose

bumps from the wind, but Julia was too happy to care.

They pulled into a gas station. “What are you having for breakfast?”

Julia said, climbing out of the car. Dave didn’t make a move to get out.

“Want me to grab you anything? Skittles? Red Bull? Hot Cheetos?”

“A barf bag,” Dave said with a groan.

When Julia came back out from the store with a bag full of junk

food, Dave was resting his head back with his eyes closed. She stood and 244 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

stared for a second, thankful she couldn’t see the look on her own face, how wide she was grinning. Dave, on the other hand, was not grinning

very much. Quite the contrary, actually. He looked stressed. She was

about to make a joke about postcoital vulnerability, when she was struck by a realization that she was surprised hadn’t come sooner. Gretchen

was on his mind. His heart was too big not to think about her.

“You want me to drive?”

Dave opened one eye. “You’re never getting these keys back. I’m the

driver now.”

“That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Sneaky.” She reached

into the bag and tossed the Cheetos at Dave, then slid back into the

passenger seat. Before he could turn the car back on, Julia reached for

his hand, lacing their fingers together. “This is kind of cool, isn’t it?”

She smiled, holding their hands up together, then bringing them up to

her mouth and planting a long kiss on the knuckle of his middle finger.

Dave nodded, then did the same thing to her hand, though his kiss

was short. Then he peeled away his fingers and turned on the ignition.

Was it more than guilt causing him to be quiet? Was it doubt?

For two hours, Julia switched songs. She stared out at the ocean,

which was as beautiful as she’d ever seen it. She laid her hand on Dave’s thigh, and when she saw his face turn tense she pulled the hand away,

switched songs, made a joke. She tried not to think of Dave with

Gretchen, but it wasn’t as if she was imagining things. He had been with her. Just yesterday, he’d kissed her, ran his hands through her

blond hair.

DAVE & JULIA 245

“Would you rather . . . ” Julia started without knowing how she was

going to finish, just wanting the silence to go away, “have to sit through eight years’ worth of Marroney classes or get lobotomized without

anesthetic?”

“That’s dumb, of course I’d choose Marroney’s classes.”

“Err! Trick question. They’re the same thing.”

Dave laughed. “You are so in love with that guy.”

“No, you goof.” Julia sat up, reaching out for his hand again, looking

out at Highway 1 curve away from the ocean as they approached San

Luis Obispo. “I’m in love with you.”

“I didn’t say the two were mutually exclusive.” He chuckled,

squeezing her fingers. Now it was Julia who reached to turn up the

music. She wished they would have just stayed behind on that beach

in Carmel. They should have kept their trip going, at least for the day.

Julia watched the familiar surroundings of San Luis Obispo pass by

her window. The chain restaurants in those strip malls, Laundromats

and nail salons that wouldn’t have survived without a restaurant to

draw traffic in. The farmland stretching from the edges of the city to

the distant hills. The high school, which would be releasing into lunch

any moment now, the seniors scurrying away in their cars to get slices

at Fratelli’s down the street.

“You’re just gonna go ahead and drive past school, right?” Julia said.

“It’s almost noon.”

“Yeah,” Dave said, trailing off. She could hear Gretchen on his voice.

“Can I come over to your place? Watch a movie? The last few movie

dates we had I’ve been dying to cuddle with you.”

246 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

“Julia Battlefield Gunteski, I had no idea you were so sentimen-

tal.”

“Shut the fuck up. Cuddling is not about sentimentality. It’s about

the immense pleasure of skin on skin, especially when that skin

contains someone you feel more or less strongly about.”

Dave was quiet as they arrived at a stoplight. He gripped the

steering wheel, rubbed the back of his neck. She tried hard not to

remember what the a cappella group had looked