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If there’s any loophole, it is that he still has his phone. Maybe his parents know such a confiscation would be the straw that causes the camel to attack. Maybe they understand that he’ll comply with his confinement as long as they leave a window open. Or maybe his father has secretly turned Ryan’s phone into a tracking device; Ryan wouldn’t put it past him.
Avery’s first reaction to the grounding is much worse than Ryan’s, for the simple reason that Ryan needed to react in front of his parents, while Avery merely has to react over the phone to Ryan.
“It’s not fair,” Avery keeps saying. “It’s just not fair.”
Ryan admires the way Avery holds the concept of fairness in such high esteem, as if it’s nature’s default instead of its grail. How has Ryan found a pink-haired boy with faith in the universe doing the right thing?
Ryan finds himself reassuring Avery, “It’ll be fine. I promise. We’ll figure something out.”
“Okay,” Avery says. “I just wish…”
“What?”
“I just wish it was still yesterday. I wish you were still here.”
“Me too.”
Ryan knows he can’t lose hold of this fact: It was worth it. Even if he’s grounded. Even if he and Avery have to be apart a little longer than expected. It was worth it, to spend a night in his arms. It will be worth it, to reach another night where that can happen again.
—
Being grounded wouldbe a pleasure if it also meant he got to stay home from school. But that isn’t how it works. The day after he gets home, the day after he’s grounded, the roads are plowed, the furnaces are reignited, and school is open again.
He texted his best friend, Alicia, to tell her what happened. She is waiting at his locker first thing in the morning with a sympathetic look and a chocolate croissant she picked up at the Kindling Bakery, the only spot in town worth a stop on the way to school.
Ryan is glad that Alicia has met Avery. It makes her sympathy feel more genuine.
“You look even worse than usual,” she observes. This is the way they say good morning.
“You look like you’ve been stuck here all your life,” he replies, taking the croissant gratefully and breaking off a piece.
Alicia sighs. “You at least got to enjoy your snow day. I babysat.”
“Where was your dad?”
“Out shoveling bullshit.”
Now it’s Ryan’s turn to let out a sympatheticdamn.
Alicia shrugs it off, doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“Tell me more about your time with your boyfriend.”
Ryan tells her about sleeping over at Avery’s house, about how nice his parents were. He can tell she’s happy for him, and then sad for him when he gets to the part about being grounded. He registers all this, but the whole time, he also feels he’s answering a question under false pretenses. Because didn’t Alicia just ask about his boyfriend? Is Avery really his boyfriend?
This is uncharted territory for Ryan; he knew it existed on other people’s maps, but this is the first time he’s wandered out of the confines of his ordinary plot to discover it waiting.
The whole day, it’s all he can think about. Can you be boyfriends if you haven’t had the conversation about being boyfriends? Is it too soon to even think about using that word? Is there a certain number of dates you have to ace before you can raise the question? Five dates is too soon, right?
But…what about how it feels? Because when he’s with Avery, when he’s there beside him, it feels like boyfriends.
Or at least it does to him. How does Avery feel?
It’s not like Ryan can text and ask.
Hey, just wondering…are we boyfriends?
Was just talking to Alicia and she called you my boyfriend. Cool to agree?
