Sweeter Than Summer

10 | mint medley

"Carter?"

"What?"

"Why are you flexing?"

Even though I had been watching him tense and un-tense his shoulder muscles for the entirety of our shift, he looked surprised, as if he didn't know he was doing it. "I wasn't," he said, then corrected himself to, "I'm not." Right on cue, I could see his right shoulder move under his Franny's polo.

"Alright."

"I'm not."

"Sure thing."

"I'm not," he said earnestly.

"Okay, I believe you."

His bicep inadvertently flexed, and, as if he finally noticed it, he grabbed a cone off the rack and started to aggressively scoop himself a hefty amount of the new Flavor of the Day. Earlier, Carter had helped me brainstorm the name – mint medley – and had elected himself official taste tester. His verdict had been that, while the Andes candies and mint m & m's were enjoyable, it was "like eating toothpaste straight out of the tube." That hadn't stopped him from eating almost half the container.

"It's just like some fucking muscle spasm or something."

"Sorry," I said, "if I knew you'd get this upset I wouldn't have asked. I'm sorry."

Finally, Carter deflated, his tensed shoulders slumping over. "It's an annoying nervous thing I do," he admitted gruffly.

"Huh." I waited for him to offer up more information, but he just continued to scoop, a little less angrily. "So, why are you nervous?"

"It's not a big deal."

"Then why won't you tell me?"

"Because it's not a big deal," he grunted.

"Carter?"

"Yeah?"

"Why won't you tell me?"

"God," he groaned, "you're relentless." Carter grimaced, then started to lick the ice cream that was already starting to drip.

I handed a napkin. "I prefer to think of myself as 'curious.'"

"Curious my –"

The door to the freezer flew open, hitting the wall with a thunk. Abby walked out seconds later, carrying a huge tub of ice cream and her typical permanent scowl. "Here's the coffee ice cream you wanted."

"Thanks, you can just put in on the floor for now," I said.

She did as she was told, and we all stood there for a while, in silence, with Abby trying not to make eye contact and Carter slurping his slowly melting cone. Finally, Abby rolled her eyes and said, "Wow, you guys are boring."

"Yup."

Carter, too, made an affirmative noise through his mouthful of mint chip.

"God," she scoffed, "can I please scrub the toilets or something? Do dishes? Anything is better than feeling your weird, nerd, standing-in-silence germs rubbing off on me."

I smiled, but when Abby shot me a glare, I stopped. "You could put away all the dishes Logan cleaned yesterday," I suggested.

"Fine. Great. Good. Whatever."

Abby was the only person I knew who wore combat boots in the middle of summer, and they clunked across the tile as she stomped into the back room. A minute later, I heard the sound of cabinets slamming shut, and a bout of incoherent, passive aggressive mumbling.