Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [32]
“I broke up with my boyfriend,” she said, wondering why revealing this to Zak made her so nervous. Was it because she was afraid this announcement might change their casual relationship, or because she was afraid it wouldn’t?
“Okay. Sorry to hear that. How about a movie?”
“I think it might be too soon to go out with other people.”
“We’re just friends, right? This won’t be a romance or anything. I mean, I won’t send you flowers or chocolates or a watermelon. I just don’t like going to movies by myself.”
“A watermelon?” They both laughed. “Okay. Sure, then.”
Their first date was disappointingly platonic. Nadine wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but they hadn’t held hands in the theater line in the cold or done anything more than chat the way they always chatted. She liked talking with him, liked being with him, and had the feeling he liked being with her, too.
He was twenty-eight years old and lived in a world of men and women who did things she could only dream of, while she was a nineteen-year-old student who still resided mostly at home, was answerable to Mom and Dad every night, and had never done anything more thrilling than wrecking the Lexus her father had purchased for her eighteenth birthday.
Before the trailers began, Zak leaned over and said, “Would you like some popcorn?”
“Sure.”
“With butter or without?”
“Without, I guess. I am supposed to be in training.”
“Just a little butter?”
“No, thank you.”
“Something to drink?”
“A Diet Pepsi.”
“Jujubes?”
“No, thank you.”
“Sure you don’t want any butter?”
“No butter.”
“Licorice Whips?”
“No, thank you.”
“Dots?”
“Would you just go?”
“Okay, but what about M&M’s?”
“I don’t want M&M’s. Just go,” Nadine said, a little too loudly, realizing their neighbors in the packed house were glancing at her. It was hard sometimes for her to tell when he was pulling her leg. She laughed quietly. She’d never met anybody quite so bent on making everything just a little bit fun.
14
Zak and Nadine were on a jaunt to see Nadine’s grandmother in Broadmoor, an exclusive, gated community in Engine 34’s district where her father had been raised.
Since she was old enough to walk, her grandmother had kept up with her comings and goings and had recently been following her relationship with Scooter, though not with approval. Now, learning that she had a new guy in her life, Nana had insisted she bring Zak around so she could inspect him. Nadine thought it would be tricky to convince Zak to visit her grandmother, but after he learned she had been arrested back in the 1960s for protesting the Vietnam War and more recently for a sit-in at city hall to spotlight the city’s poor treatment of the homeless, he said he would love to meet her.
Nana was going to get along famously with Zak. For one thing, they both had a no-nonsense approach to life. For another, they both believed humankind was slowly but wantonly destroying the planet. Plus, each had an offbeat sense of humor she was sure the other would appreciate.
Even though the May weather had turned nippy and clouds were rolling in, Zak and Nadine both wore shorts with light jackets and athletic shoes. Zak mentioned he couldn’t recall ever wearing anything but athletic shoes, and Nadine said she couldn’t, either. She wondered if it was silly to be thinking they had a lot in common because they both wore Nikes. But of course there was more; there was always more. There was what her friend Lindsey called the “indefinable chemical attraction” that either exists or doesn’t exist between every person on the planet. It definitely existed between Nadine and Zak, though neither had acted on it yet. There was the way Zak listened to her talk about tennis or her religious beliefs or school, interested in what she was saying in a way nobody else in her life was interested, except perhaps Nana. There was the way he encouraged and admired her athletic ambitions—her parents condescendingly regarded her sport as nothing more than a “stage” she would outgrow,