How to Steal a Happy Ending

~ Interlude: misdirection ~

~~~ last summer ~~~

"What's with guys and their rides?" I asked as James gave his motorcycle a fifth, and hopefully final, rinse. He's shirtless, it's not like you have much to complain about. He's James, I have much to complain about. Sure, keep telling yourself that...

James got up from his haunches, wiping his hands on the discarded shirt and tossing it over his shoulder.

He sat in the lawn chair next to mine, "What's with girls and falling in love?"

"Oh please, you care about things like that more than I do." I handed him a glass of the lemonade I'd made earlier. It was super watery and didn't have enough sugar. Nonetheless, he took it from me with one of those infrequent, not-so-dangerous smiles playing on his lips.

"I find love interesting. Don't you?"

"Not really. Hand me some ice, would you?"

The summer heat beat down on us. It seeped through the hat I had on and lashed the back of my neck. Bending, I placed the ice that he more or less tossed at me on the spot, letting its sweat mingle with mine.

Here, James gave me a dubious look. "Don't tell me you don't believe in it."

"I do, but..." I sighed at the random direction this conversation was going in. "Probably not the way you believe in it."

"Elaborate," he demanded, stretching himself out on the low hanging lawn chair.

I cast him a side-long glace, hating the way his muscles barely made the cut to being defined and yet we're all I could look at.

"I think...it doesn't happen to everyone. It's rare, you know? Like cancer."

James didn't reply to this, he just took another sip of his drink. It wasn't hard to tell that he was hiding a snigger behind the rim of that cup.

Bristling, I rose from my seat and, nudging aside the squeezed lemon peels with the sides of my flip flops, made towards his house.

"It's always the one that doesn't believe that dies first." He called behind me.

"Don't hold your breath, or you'll be the one dying." I told him, the mesh door snapping shut soon after.