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Buzz asked him out again the next day, while they were working the side-by-side water slides in the children’s area.

“We don’t have to, you know…” Putting a thumb and forefinger together in a circle, Buzz made a decidedly lewd gesture with his other hand. “We can just catch a show or something.”

A blush crept up Adam’s neck and into his cheeks. “Good grief, Buzz. Do you have to do that?”

“What?” Buzz lifted a towheaded toddler into position at the top of the slide and nudged him down the yellow plastic slope. “Are you worried about the kids? C’mon, they don’t know what that means.”

“Doesn’t matter. What if one of them goes home and shows their parents the neat hand gesture they learned from the guy on the slide? You’d get fired.”

“Good point.” Buzz waited until Adam sent a little girl in a SpongeBob swimsuit down the slide, then leaned close enough for Adam to catch his sun-and-sweat scent. “So what about it? There’s a poetry slam at Darkshines tonight, wanna go?”

He’s courtin’ you, Scarlett purred. You’re not going to turn him down again, are you? Such an attractive young man.

“No thanks,” Adam answered, ignoring Scarlett and her prodding. No way was he spending his evening listening to a bunch of emo kids recite their overwrought odes to misery, even if he did want to go out with Buzz. Which he didn’t.

Really.

“We don’t have to—”

“Yeah, you said that,” Adam interrupted before Buzz could make it even clearer. “I’m not really a fan of poetry slams.”

Buzz shrugged. “Suit yourself, dude.”

He turned back to his work, seemingly unaffected by Adam’s refusal. To Adam’s annoyance, part of him felt stung by the fact that Buzz didn’t continue the pursuit.

Stop it, he admonished himself, helping a gangly preteen boy settle his baby sister on his lap for a trip down the slide. What are you, an eighth-grade girl? You don’t want to go out with him anyway. He’s not your type.

Inside his head, Scarlett chuckled. Honey, that boy’s hotter than blacktop in July, and he’s got a hankerin’ for you. Tell him you changed your mind.

“But I didn’t,” he blurted. “I don’t want to.”

Shoving his sunglasses on top of his head, Buzz shot Adam a puzzled look. “What’d you say?”

Adam cringed. When would he learn not to answer Scarlett out loud? “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Just talking to myself.”

Buzz laughed. “You’re weird.”

You have no idea. Adam kept that thought to himself.