Page 60 of Gambler's Conceit
The woman, whose name tag readsNancy, puts her phone into her pocket. “Sure.” She gets a little spoon—which is thankfully not one of those little wooden sticks that makes me cringe just thinking about them—and gets a taste for me.
I try it, making sure to only take a little, then offer it to Seven.
He accepts the little spoon, but I notice that his hand is shaking.
“Hey,” I say, much more softly. “It’s okay. It’s just ice cream, right?”
Nancy is looking curiously at us, so I tug on Seven’s arm until he retreats a few steps with me.
“It’s okay if you just want to get vanilla, or chocolate, or strawberry,” I tell him.
“I’ve only ever had the basics,” he mumbles, and I’m not sure he meant to tell me that. “I don’t know if I’d like the others. It just… seems like a big decision.”
I don’t like this side of him at all. “Yeah?” I say anyway. “Then how about I ask for the samples, and I taste them first so you can try them after?”
Seven hesitates, then nods. “Yeah. But no more than two or three. I don’t want to annoy her.”
I want to argue that she’s doing her job and she won’t care, but I don’t want to get too brash with him. “Sure. I’ll just pick out a few simple ones. They have this lavender one I’ve been eyeing, but that can taste like soap. So we won’t try that one. Just the basics for tonight, then we can come back another time and try something else.”
I ask for the basics: chocolate, strawberry, and birthday cake, and he tries them each, closing his eyes and mulling them over. I don’t rush him, and we step out of line when another couple shows up.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I know I’m taking forever. It’s just ice cream. It’s not the end of the world.”
But maybe it is to him. Maybe it’s something huge. It certainly sounds like it is.
What Caleb had said nags at me. Where is he from? What sort of past does he have to where he hasn’t even tried different kinds of ice cream?
“Strict parents?” I venture cautiously.
His eyes fly open. “What?”
“Your parents,” I say, watching his expression as it goes from shocked to scared. “Were they health nuts? Didn’t let you have sugar?”
He laughs darkly. “You could say that.”
I wait for him to elaborate, but I’m not surprised when he doesn’t.
“My parents died when I was nineteen,” I say carefully.
Seven looks away. “Lucky,” he mutters.
Yeah. Lucky that I ended up having to take care of my baby sister, lucky that I let her drain my accounts for her get-rich-quick schemes. I thought I was doing right by her. These days, I’m not so sure.
“I have a sister,” I tell Seven, volunteering more information in the hopes that he’ll give me something in return. “She’s ten years younger than I am. Do you have any siblings?”
He stares at me for a moment, his expression distant before he slowly nods. “I have an older sister.” His lips twist into a strange smile. “Anyway,” he says, “I think I want to have chocolate.” Before I can say anything, he goes on, “I know it’s boring, but it tastes good.”
“Sure. Do you want—” I start to ask if he wants toppings, but I have a feeling that would be opening up a new can of worms. “Okay.”
We get our plain ice cream to share and head over to a table, where he sits right next to me. At least the conversation hasn’t spooked him so much that he doesn’t want to be near me.
Yet.
I think back to what Caleb mentioned, about looking into the east coast.
“I think the best ice cream I ever had was at this Italian gelato cafe in New Bristol,” I say, making sure to keep my tone casual. He freezes anyway, going still at the words. I continue as though I didn’t notice the way he’s starting to freak out, “I didn’t realize ice cream in Italy was so different from here.”
“Y-yeah,” he says, tripping over the word. “I think everything in Italy is different from here. They probably think we’re heathens for what we do to pasta.”