said.
They moved on to Troy’s least favorite (
III
— “the violence just struck me as mindless”) and then to Gabe’s (
II
—“love on the fields of
Naboo”).
And then Troy had to take a call from his girlfriend.
“So,” Gabe said to Elena, “who’s your favorite character?”
“What are you doing?” Elena said.
“Talking about Star Wars.”
“Why?”
“I thought this was what you wanted.”
“So now you’re trying to give me what I want?”
Gabe sighed. “Not exactly. Just . . . maybe you were right.”
“When?” she asked.
“When you said that the point of being in this line was to be excited about Star Wars with other people who love Star Wars.”
“Of course I was right,” Elena said. “That’s obviously why people camp out like this. Nobody leaves their house to sit outside a theater for a week just so they can
ignore other fans.”
“So I was getting in my own way,” Gabe admitted. “OK?”
“OK,” Elena said carefully.
“So, who’s your favorite character?” he asked again.
“You’ll probably think it’s basic.”
“I’m not a jerk,” he said.
“People who are jerks don’t get to decide whether they’re jerks. It’s left up to a jury of their peers.”
“I disagree. I do not identify as a jerk, so I’m not going to act like one.”
“Fine,” Elena said. “Princess Leia.”
“Great choice,” he said.
She was still suspicious. “What about you?”
The thing about Gabe being nice to Elena for unknown, suspicious reasons was . . . he was still being nice to her. And interesting. And funny. And good company.
She kept forgetting that it was all an act and possibly a ruse—and just enjoyed herself.
They were
all
enjoying themselves.
“Excuse me,” someone said, interrupting a lively discussion about whom they’d each buy a drink for in the cantina.
The whole line looked up. There were two women standing on the sidewalk with bakery boxes. One of them cleared her throat. “We heard that people were camping out for Star Wars . .
.”
“That’s us!” Troy said, only slightly less enthusiastically than he’d said it yesterday.
“Where’s everybody else?” she asked. “Are they around the back? Do you do this in shifts?”
“It’s just us,” Elena said.
“We’re the Cupcake Gals,” the other woman said. “We thought we’d bring Star Wars cupcakes? For the line?”
“Great!” Troy said.
The Cupcake Gals held on tight to their boxes.
“It’s just . . .” the first woman said, “we were going to take a photo of the whole line, and post it on Instagram . . .”
“I can help you there!” Elena said. Those cupcakes were not going to just walk away. Not on Elena’s watch.
Elena took a selfie of their line, the Cupcake Gals and a theater employee all holding Star Wars cupcakes—it looked like a snapshot from a crowd— and promised to post it across all
her channels. The lighting was perfect. Magic hour, no filter necessary.
#CupcakeGals #TheForceACAKEns #SalaciousCrumbs
The Gals were completely satisfied and left both boxes of cupcakes.
“This is the first time I’ve been happy that there were only three of us,” Elena said, helping herself to a second cupcake. It was frosted to look like Chewbacca.
“You
saved
these cupcakes,” Gabe said. “Those women were going to walk away with them.”
“I know,” Elena said. “I could see it in their eyes. I would’ve stopped at nothing to change their minds.”
“Thank God they were satisfied by a selfie then,” Gabe said. His cupcake looked like Darth Vader, and his tongue was black.
“I’m really good at selfies,” Elena said. “Especially for someone with short arms.”
“Great job,” Troy said. “You’ll make someone a great provider someday.”
“That day is today,” Elena said, leaning back against the theater wall. “You’re both welcome.”
“Errrggh,” Troy said, kicking his feet out. “Cupcake coma.”
“How many did you eat?”