The Summer I Became a Nerd - By Leah Rae Miller Page 0,49

hint of jealousy.” I feel him tap my shoe with his. At first I think it’s an accident, and then he does it again. And again. I can’t believe he’s playing footsie with me.

All I can do is glance up through my lashes and stick my tongue out at him. He just laughs and rests his ankle where it’s touching mine.

I look around to distract myself and notice we’re the only customers. This calms me a little. As much as I love being around Logan, I still wouldn’t know what to do if someone saw us here. Together. “At least we have the place to ourselves.”

“I guess it’s nice if you look at it that way.” He squeezes his lemon into his water, then stirs the drink with his straw. “This place is amazing. It should be busier than this at this time of day. I’m sure most people are at the fast food places or the chain restaurants for lunch, like always.”

I can hear a hint of animosity in his voice. “Not a fan of corporations, huh?”

“Damn the man,” Vera says out of the blue, and I almost choke on the sip of water I’ve just taken.

Logan frowns. “Veer, what have we said about that word?”

“Right, sorry. Darn the man.” She looks down because of the scold, then grins at me.

“Having a mom and pop comic book shop in a small town can make one bitter,” Logan says to me, running a hand through his hair again. “I don’t know if it’s because we’re not originally from around here or if it’s because people just don’t care about comics these days, but it’s like The Phoenix is doomed to be just another local business that had the potential to be great, but just never got the customers.”

Well, that sucks. There must be some way to fix it, though. “Could it be because of advertising? Not to be rude or anything, but I hardly ever see ads for you guys.”

“Could be that. But it’s hard to pay for billboards when you’re hardly paying the rent. Anyway, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s not get into it. Not today.” Logan looks at me wistfully.

Corina comes back with a big tray of food. Vera doesn’t waste any time picking up one of the fried churros and dipping it into the cup of icing they came with. Our burrito is the last plate put on the table. Logan wasn’t lying—the thing is huge, the size of one of my Dad’s work boots, and it smells delicious. The stuffed-to-its-limit burrito sits in a pool of green sauce, steaming.

Logan picks up his fork and knife like he’s about to dig into Thanksgiving dinner and begins to cut it into edible bites. I stab a piece with my fork, and so does he. He raises his eyebrow as we both take a bite. Again, he was right. This is so mouth-wateringly yummy I’d sell my pom-poms to pay for another taste.

We only finish half of “the monster” before we’re both stuffed, and Logan has to request a to-go box. Like most kids, Vera finished like ten minutes ago.

“Are y’all done yet?” she asks for the hundredth time in the past five minutes.

“I think so,” Logan says.

She bounces in her seat. “Yay! Can we go to the—”

Logan puts a finger to his lips. “Right, right.” She nods her head. “It’s a surprise.”

…

We’ve left the bricks of Front Street behind and passed Logan’s house. Now I’m very curious about what he has planned because there’s nothing out this way except for a place that sells mobile homes and an animal hospital. We pass both of those things and keep going.

If she wasn’t strapped in, I’m sure Vera would be bouncing off the windows right now. “Are we there yet?” Classic kid question.

Logan glances at her in his rearview mirror. “Almost.”

It isn’t until we turn into the gravel parking lot that I realize what Logan has in store for our first date.

“I love bowling!” I shout and begin bouncing just like Vera. “I haven’t been here in forever. Can we play air hockey? I rule at air hockey, just so you know.”

Logan turns off the car. “We’ll see about that.” He leans over to open the glove compartment and tosses my comic journal in it.

I flinch. Just a little.

When we walk in, all those familiar noises hit me at once. The beeps and crashes of the arcade machines collide with the smash of someone taking out at least