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Avery has been slowing himself down with milk, but can only last about a minute longer.
This isn’t the time to talk about play practice or parents or how their school days have gone. No, not when they only have an hour together—forty-two minutes, actually, sinceit’s timed from when Ryan had left Mr. Castor, not from when Avery arrived. Yet another unfairness, c/o the universe.
“Do you want to walk around?” Avery asks.
Ryan says sure.
Since neither of them has been to Bluff Lake before, they have no idea where to go. Ryan resists the urge to give a running commentary of how he’s feeling, which would sound something likeI am so glad you’re here I really hope you are too I hope we can keep doing this do you?
Also, he wants to kiss Avery again. Because that always feels the most real.
Avery gestures to a dollar store named Dollar Store.
“Want to buy some dollars?” he asks.
“How much do they cost?” Ryan asks back.
I like you, you know?
It doesn’t take long for the stores to give way to offices—law offices, tax offices, dentists.
“There,” Avery says, tilting his head to indicate a parking lot behind one of the tax offices. There aren’t any cars.
“Here?” Ryan asks.
Avery takes his hand. Pulls him around a corner so they’re out of view of the street. Smiles again, and keeps holding Ryan’s hand as he leans in for a kiss.
It doesn’t feel like last time, which hadn’t felt like the time before that. It’s still early enough that each kiss contains the revival of all the earlier kisses…and then brings its own twist, its own reason for being. Kissing is always a confirmation, and there are times when this confirmation isneeded more than others. Right now Ryan needs it badly. Confirmation of intention, of desire. Of feelings shared, of dreams being true.
“Oh, Ryan,” Avery says when they stop for breath. It is all there in the way he says Ryan’s name—confirmation of the confirmation.
“Oh,Avery,” Ryan says back, drawing the name out so he can fit as much affection as possible within it.
They kiss and hold and move their hands under one another’s coats. For a few minutes, they fall out of the timekeeper’s domain, only to be brought back when Ryan’s phone vibrates against both of their thighs.
Avery pulls away, though not without another kiss. Ryan sees he has a message from Mr. Castor, telling him to start heading back. Ryan shows it to Avery, and Avery says, “I’ll come with you. I’ll just pretend I’m from one of the other schools.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ryan tells him.
Avery smiles. “I figure if I come see your imaginary forensics match, then you’ll have to come see my actual school play at least once—maybe twice.”
A plan.
A future plan.
This is what it takes for Ryan to finally see it clearly: Avery’sI like you, you know?
Now he feels comfortable making his own visible, without anything else written on top of it.
“I wouldn’t miss your play for anything,” he says. Then,even though the door hasn’t been opened perfectly, he decides it’s opened enough to add, “And, if possible, I’d really love to be the boyfriend waiting for you with flowers after the show.”
Ryan has never waited with flowers for anything or anyone. At first he has no idea where this idea has come from. Then he realizes it must have come from Avery, from what Avery has introduced into his thoughts.
Avery pulls him close again, gives him another kiss. “I guess that means I’m about to be the boyfriend cheering from the sidelines at a forensics competition. Except that you’re not competing. And I don’t think cheering is allowed.”
Ryan laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
When the laugh is over, he sees that Avery is looking at him—reallylooking at him, that intense concentration that comes when you’re reading a book, only directed at another person.
