You First

The wrappers were still warm between them, sitting like a peace treaty on the dashboard. Aaron unwrapped his sandwich with the kind of slow, deliberate care usually reserved for diffusing a bomb.

She loved that about him. How unaware he was to everything around him when he was focused. Until she thought about how unaware he was of her feeling for him.

Or was he ? Questions.

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “You always eat like it’s your last meal.”

Aaron didn’t look up. “Might be, the way you drive. One swerve away from headlines.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining when I swung through traffic to beat that school bus,” she said, popping a waffle fry into her mouth. “You was over there cheering like I hit a game-winner.”

“I was praying,” he muttered.

They sat in the parking lot with the windows halfway down. The Chick-fil-A sign buzzed above them like it had something to say. The lot was half-full, the usual quiet chaos of people hunting for sauces and salvation.

“Can I ask you something?” Jasmine said, wiping her fingers on a napkin she didn’t really need.

Aaron squinted at her like she’d just asked if she could borrow his Social Security number. “You just did.”

She smiled. “Serious question.”

Aaron leaned back, stretching. “That’s what you say right before you ask me if I’ve been with anybody else this week.”

“Have you?” she asked, sipping from her lemonade without blinking.

He paused. “Define ‘with.’”

“Aaron.”

He smirked. “What? We friends, right?”

“With mileage.”

“And good maintenance,” he added, tapping his chest.

They laughed. The kind of laugh that carried a bit of weight — a shared history in every syllable.

“I just wonder,” she said after a moment, staring out the windshield. “How stuff like this starts. Like, this… thing. Not us. Just… things.”

Aaron took a bite of his sandwich and nodded slowly, chewing like he was processing a government conspiracy.

“People say it’s simple,” he said. “But I feel like it’s more complicated. Like, maybe it doesn’t start. Maybe it’s always been there, and we just show up late.”

Jasmine tilted her head. “So it’s already going on, and we just step in like we’re supposed to know the lines?”

“Something like that,” he said. “Like a play that’s halfway through. You get on stage, and everybody mad ‘cause you don’t know your cues.”

She chuckled. “So who writes the script then?”

“I think we do. Kinda. But like… in pen. No erasers.”

There was a long silence. Not awkward — just long enough for a school of thoughts to swim through and not all of them friendly.

“I think about that sometimes,” Jasmine said, resting her head on the seat. “Whether I started something I didn’t know how to finish.”

Aaron looked at her now, really looked. Not with that usual glint in his eye, but like he was measuring her words against some weight in his own chest.

“Maybe it ain’t about finishing,” he said. “Maybe it’s just about not messing up the middle.”

She glanced at him. “That sounds like something you read on a bumper sticker.”

“It was a fortune cookie. You tried it”

They both grinned.

“Okay, but honestly,” Jasmine said, turning serious again. “Do you think people choose the order? Like, is there a right one?”

Aaron tapped the steering wheel. “Nah. I think people just pretend they know the order to feel better.”

“So what happens if you get it backwards?”

He shrugged. “Same thing that happens when you order fries and forget the sauce. Still edible. Just dry as hell.”

Jasmine burst out laughing. “You are so stupid.”

“You say that, but you still here,” he shot back.

“I’m here because I’m hungry,” she said, even though she hadn’t taken a bite in five minutes.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s what we calling it now?”

She stared at him. “You ever think maybe this ain’t sustainable?”

He looked out the window. “You ever think maybe it is, and we’re just scared to say it?”

Jasmine leaned back. “You always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Flip it. Make me the problem.”

“I didn’t say you were the problem.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Another silence. This one a little sharper.

“You know I care about you, right?” Aaron said finally, real quiet.

Jasmine nodded, arms crossed. “Yeah. I know. You just care in lowercase.”

Aaron smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Better than no case.”

“Is it?”

They watched a couple walk out of the restaurant, laughing. The woman touched the man’s shoulder like she’d done it a thousand times.

Aaron followed Jasmine’s gaze. “That don’t mean they got it figured out, you know.”

“Maybe not. But at least they’re playing the same game.”

He turned to her. “So what, you wanna change the rules?”

She looked at him. “I just want to know who’s going first. That’s all.”

He leaned back, exhaled slow. “Ladies first, right?”

She gave him a long look. “That’s the problem. You always want someone else to go first.”

And just like that, it landed. Heavy, but not mean.

Aaron didn’t have a comeback. That alone said everything.

A car honked a few spaces over. A kid dropped a milkshake and cried like the world ended. Jasmine turned toward the commotion but wasn’t really looking at it.

“You think we’ll ever stop doing this?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not if we keep asking the same questions.”

She smiled. “You saying I talk too much?”

“I’m saying you ask the kind of questions people avoid in therapy.”

“Well somebody’s gotta ask ‘em.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Just… not today.”

She unwrapped her sandwich at last, took one bite, and sighed. “They forgot the pickles.”

Aaron passed her half of his. “I got extras. You’re welcome.”

She took it without saying thank you.

The sun dipped a little lower behind the Chick-fil-A sign. Neither of them moved.

“So,” Jasmine said, licking sauce off her thumb. “If someone had to go first…”

Aaron nodded. “Yeah?”

She grinned. “You first.”