I whisk the blindfold off, but he doesn’t notice. My eyes instantly seek his hands and I breathe. They are not clasping the wheel that weird way they were after the lark brought up boarding school. The speed indicator is far more to the right than it should be, but I know that’s just his way of driving.
When he talks, he doesn’t sound half as mad as I feared. “How do you know about her?”
“Umm… Parker sort of-”
He grunts.
“Don’t get mad at him. It sort of slipped.”
“What exactly slipped?” I catch the faintest hint of anger.
“That she… died at your high school graduation,” I say in a small voice.
Neither of us speaks for a few seconds. I try to gauge something, anything from his expression, but it’s completely unreadable as he looks forward.
“You’d think that would have been the worst day of my life.” All signs of anger are gone from his voice. “But the days after it were much worse. The years, really.”
I know what he means. At first there’s the shock. The beautiful, marvelous, numbing shock that wipes away every thought.
And then the pain comes.
“I went into sort of a nightmare afterward and only woke up from it when the balance on my account hit zero.”
“James you don’t have to tell me these things. I just-I’m sorry I brought this up.”
“No, it’s fine.” He looks at me with a kind, warm smile. “My dad, understandably, cut off any financial aid, so I started working the summer before senior year. Found out it drained me more than partying, so I took on as much as possible.”
Ah, addiction to work and exhaustion. One more thing we have in common besides the obsession with movies.
“Much more constructive,” I say in an attempt to cheer us up.
“You’ve dealt with things in a constructive way right from the beginning,” he says and there’s something in his voice that makes the hair at the nape of my neck stand up. I think it’s the admiration Parker was talking about.
“Everyone copes in their own way,” I say quietly. I sink in my seat as I realize the speed indicator is so far to the right I can’t see it at all anymore. “When you said one hour did you mean three hours for normal drivers?”
He smirks. “One of the reasons I thought a blindfold might be useful. By the way, put that back on.”
“But I already know you’re driving like a maniac,” I protest.
“I said that was just one of the reasons.” His smirk accelerates along with the car. “We’re almost there so I really want you to put that on.”
“Fine,” I say and I start tying the silk, twitching as I accidentally pull a few strands of hair.
A sharp curve to the right tells me that we are leaving the highway.
“And we’re here,” James announces a few minutes later. I sit up straight in my seat, pointing my ears as the car slows down and then comes to a halt. A muffled sound comes from outside, like metal scratching. A gate opening, maybe? My guess is confirmed when we start moving again, at a slow pace. We stop again almost immediately and this time I hear James turn off the engine. He gets out of the car without a word. A few seconds later, he (or at least I hope it’s James) opens my door. I expect him to take my hand and guide me out, but he lifts me in his arms.
“This is bordering on creepy,” I giggle.
“Your faith in me is astounding,” James says.
I barely manage to take in a few deep breaths of the warm, evening air when we step into a closed space. A weirdly smelling one too. Good weird. There’s a slightly sweet aroma lingering in the air. An aroma I know. An aroma I love.
Chocolate.
It’s a few more steps before James finally puts me down and takes my blindfold off. I stare at the long corridor in front of us confused. There’s no chocolate in sight. Only plastic containers, like oversized liquid soap dispensers lined up on each side, and giant glass windows through which huge metal cans and pipes are visible.
“It’s not Willy Wonka’s factory, but you can try every single recipe they have,” James says from behind me.
“Oh wow,” I exclaim, realizing that those containers don’t have soap in them but chocolate.
We’re in a chocolate factory.
I swirl around and throw my arms around his neck, pulling him in a tight embrace. “How is this possible?” I ask, unable to stop my legs from jiggling with nervous excitement.
“A friend of mine owns the factory,” he says when I finally step back, allowing him to breathe. “He wants to add a museum to it, to show the process, offer tastings and everything. It won’t open for another month or so, so you’re their unofficial test customer.”
“Fantastic,” I say, turning toward the corridor.
“The machines,” he points to the huge metal cans behind the windows, “are actually closed at night but I told him you’d care only about the tasting part any way.”
“You know me well.”
“What are you waiting for? Dig in. And feel free to ignore me, I won’t mind.”
There is a bowl with mini waffles next to each chocolate dispenser. I grab one and hold it under the first dispenser, pushing the big round button on it. A dark reddish-brown cream decorates my waffle.
“Oh my God. Hot cherry chocolate,” I say, shoving the entire waffle in my mouth. “This is a dream come true.”
I fill another waffle and wave in front of James’s lips, “Come on, just one bite.”
“I’m really okay,” he says and actually takes a step back.
“How can you be in chocolate paradise and not taste anything?”
“One of the perks of not being a big chocolate fan,” he smirks. I shrug and eat the tiny piece of heaven myself. I make a grab for a third waffle but James says, “I’d suggest you don’t empty the cherry supply. You’ve got plenty of others to taste.”
“Thanks for saving me from myself,” I joke while proceeding to the next dispenser.
Fifteen mini waffles later, and strawberry, raspberry, banana, pineapple, currant, caramel, cinnamon, mocchacino, cappuccino, chili, and so many kinds of pepper chocolate I keep mixing up their names, there’s not one type of chocolate in the room I haven’t tasted.
I take a deep breath and make a mental note to only use half a waffle for each container as we step into the next room. It’s twice as long as the one we left behind. There are no waffles next to the dispensers. The dispensers aren’t like the other ones either. Through the glass tops I can clearly
see that the chocolate inside each is solid. I press the lever under the dispenser and a long slim piece of chocolate falls in the tray next to it.
By the time we reach the last room, which is part of the museum-to-be, I can hardly breathe. We’ve been in one room where chocolates were arranged according to how much milk they have inside, one according to how many different flavors there are, and one where I got to mix my own personal chocolate drink.
“I am officially stoned on chocolate,” I say, as James opens the door. My jaw drops. I step inside, glancing incredulously to my left and then to my right. A melted chocolate river flows on each side. Of course they kept what is best for last. There is a basket full of regular-sized waffles on the table between the two rivulets.
“Are you saying what I’m thinking?” James asks.
“Depends what you’re thinking.”
“That you can’t eat anymore.”
“That’s really the only thing you are thinking about?” I ask playfully.
“That and everything else I still have planned for tonight.” He bites his lip.
“Tell me.”
“I’ll do something better. I’ll show you if you’re done here.”
“You think I’d leave this place without tasting the chocolate rivers?” I ask with fake horror. I grab a waffle and a paper plate then dip half in one river, and the other half in the second one, resulting in my fingers getting as dirty as a three-year-old’s when left alone with a chocolate cake.
“I just don’t think I’ll be able to eat more than a waffle.” I do my best to eat up all the chocolate on my fingers.
He laughs softly, wrapping his arms around me from behind and placing small, delicious kisses on the side of my neck.
“James,” I murmur, as soft bites replace the kisses, and delicious tingles take over my entire body. I put down the plate and turn around and kiss him.
Or attempt to, because this thing we are doing doesn’t really do justice to the concept of kissing. It’s clumsy and weird and I have the strange feeling he’s trying to hold back.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“The first kiss I had in sixth grade was less awkward than this, and there was a lot of teeth clashing involved. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’ll bring this up another time, eat your waffle.”
“James,” I press.