Perfect Couple

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I was all too familiar with going out with a group of friends and being one half of the Couple That Wasn’t Getting Along. I’d spent the last six weeks that way with Kennedy. It was strange to arrive at the movie theater with Brody as half of a brand-new couple who’d spent the entire afternoon together having so much fun that we couldn’t stop grinning. Tonight the Couple That Wasn’t Getting Along was the one that had been dating for three years, Kaye and Aidan. Kaye made Tia trade places with her so she could sit by me, with Tia and Will between her and Aidan.

“Oooh, I love your hair!” I exclaimed as she sat down.

“Thanks,” she said flatly. “Aidan said it looks like I have an afro.”

Not the thing to say to Kaye. “An afro would be cute on you, but that’s more fashion forward than you usually go.”

She glowered at me. I wasn’t making her feel better.

“It’s not really an afro, the way you have it styled in front. I think of a real 1970s afro as being round all over. Anyway, calling it an afro is not an insult.”

“He meant it as an insult,” she said.

“If he did, he must have meant you looked retro. He wasn’t being racist. Aidan isn’t like that.” He had many qualities I didn’t like, but that wasn’t one of them. “I’ll bet he was just surprised. You’ve worn it in twists for a long time.”

Her mouth flattened into a line, and flattened again whenever Aidan leaned around Tia and Will, whispering her name to get her attention. She wouldn’t turn in his direction.

They were still fighting when we filed around a big table in the center of the room at the Crab Lab.

“Sorry,” I heard Tia tell Sawyer in his Crab Lab T-shirt and waiter’s apron as we sat down. “I didn’t think you’d be working this late tonight, or I would have convinced everybody to go somewhere else.”

“I took a longer shift. I have nothing better to do since I quit drinking.” He smiled wryly. “It’s okay.” He moved toward the kitchen.

“What was that about?” I asked Tia across the table.

“He has a little problem with one of us,” she said quietly.

“Oh. With Brody or me, because of last night?”

“Gosh, no,” she said. “Believe it or not, it’s more fucked up than that.”

I figured he must dread having to serve Kaye and her boyfriend. Lucky for Sawyer, Kaye and Aidan were still three seats from each other. Anyway, I’d hardly had time to ponder this before Sawyer marched back with a tray full of drinks balanced precariously high on one hand. He set a soda in front of me and an iced tea in front of Brody.

“Wait,” Brody said. “Did we order drinks?”

Ten minutes later, it was the same thing: “Wait. Sawyer. Did we order food?”

“Y’all, save it,” Tia warned. “He’s in a bad mood.”

“When was he ever in a good mood?” Kaye asked.

Tia glared at her.

Kaye spread her hands. “If you know he’s in a bad mood, don’t you need a good mood for comparison? I’ve never seen it.”

“You’re picking on him.”

“We’re not picking on him,” Will clarified. “At least, I’m not. I’m eating grouper when I wanted shrimp.”

Sawyer came back from the kitchen again and bent over the table between Noah and Quinn. “I didn’t put in an order yet for you two. Sometimes you want one thing, and sometimes you want another.”

A spontaneous snicker burst from two or three people, then instantly hushed. After a moment of silence, Quinn said, “You know what’s consistent? You’re a complete jerk-off,” at the same time Noah stood.

Before I even registered what I was doing, I jumped up and put a hand between Noah and Sawyer. Just as quickly, I was pulled backward. Brody had his arm around my waist, wrestling me back down into my chair. He said in my ear, “Don’t.”

Sawyer stared defiantly up into Noah’s dark eyes, pen to his pad. “Cheeseburger or patty melt?” he asked.

“Cheeseburger,” Noah said grudgingly.

Sawyer leaned around him to ask Quinn, “Fried or broiled shrimp?”

“Broiled,” Quinn said.

Sawyer made a show of jotting the orders on his pad with a flourish. “Mm-hm,” he said as he turned for the kitchen. The way he intoned it made it sound like a “So there.”

Noah sank back down into his seat and told Quinn, “I won’t miss him when he goes to jail.”

Sawyer came back out with another laden tray. Working his way around the table, he set a plate of shrimp and fries in front of Kaye. The food had been arranged in a smiley face. The fries were the mouth, and two cherry tomatoes were the eyes. The shrimp had been spaced in a semicircle across the arc of the head, like Kaye’s beautiful new pouf of hair.

“Sawyer, dammit,” she said. “What is this supposed to be?”

“It doesn’t look quite right, does it? Here.” He took one of her shrimp from the picture and tossed it onto Tia’s plate.

“We didn’t even order,” Aidan complained from down the table.

“Kids’ grilled cheese?” Sawyer asked. “That’s what you always order when you come here with your mommy and daddy, Aidan.”

Kaye burst into laughter.

“Kaye,” Aidan barked around Tia and Will. When he got her attention, he pointed at her, then firmly pointed to the empty seat beside him.