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Ryan looks a little confused. “I mean…yeah. I know. But even if it’s not the point, it’s still nice, right?”
“Of course!” Avery replies. “But not, like, right away.”
Ryan’s hand shoots up to his mouth and he looks at Avery for a second before lowering it and saying, “Oh God. You didn’t think we were going to have sextonight,did you?”
Avery feels his face flush. “No! Not at all!”
“Okay. Whew.”
“Don’t act sorelieved !” Avery blurts out, even though he himself is very relieved.
Now Ryan looks panicked. “Oh shit. I don’t mean that I don’t want to have sex with you. Just not, like, tonight, in the backseat of a car in some parking lot. Jesus. No.”
It’s all so ridiculous, Avery starts laughing. And once he starts laughing, he honestly cannot stop. Even as Ryan is asking, “What?What?” he is crying with laughter, Ryan staring until Avery laughs out, “I don’t want to have sex with you tonight, either!” and Ryan should be laughing, too, but mostly he looks confused.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Avery says once he gets his full voice back. “I just got it into my head that because it’s the seventh date, there’s a certain place we should be. Like, there’s all this pressure for sex to be The Big Moment. But I don’t want it to be The Big Moment. I want us to have a thousand different kinds of big moments. And I definitely want some of them to involve kissing and making out because whenever I’m near you, there’s absolutely a part of my body that wants to be completely all over yours, this irresistible pull, like gravity…only hotter. But because we never talk about sex, I didn’t know what you were expecting. Am I making any sense?”
Ryan puts his head in his hands, shakes it back and forth a few times, then peekaboos his palms into parentheses.
“You’re making sense,” he says. “But possibly there were other ways to have his conversation.”
“You’re not mad? Or disappointed?”
Ryan puts his hands down, makes sure no one else is within earshot, and says, “Avery. I didn’t come here for a quickie. Or even a slowie, if that’s a thing. That whole hot gravity thing you’re talking about? I feel it, too. But it’s about being with you, about being together. And to me,being together is this—talking and laughing and wanting to make out and having completely embarrassing conversations in public. Do I think we’ll have sex? Yeah. Eventually. Buteventuallyis a really wide range of time. And as for sex being the point? Honestly, it never even occurred to me to think that. In the list of things I was looking forward to tonight, I don’t think it even hit the page.”
Avery is still flushed, but now his shoulders are relaxed.
“But therewillbe making out?” he asks.
Ryan extends his legs so they touch Avery’s, pulling them a little toward him.
“Oh yes, there will be making out. I swear by the dying embers of the flaming cheese.”
It’s the least romantic image imaginable. And at the same time, Avery can’t imagine anything more wonderful.
—
They talk, theyjoke, they eat. Their legs stay largely intertwined. The waitress brings them a free dessert. When they ask her why, she says it’s because they both dressed up.
“It’s a sign of respect to wear those ties,” she says. “I appreciate it.”
It’s only when Ryan and Avery start talking about next weekend, about whether Ryan will be able to stay over after the play, that Ryan remembers that his parents exist. He remembers the fight he had with them before he came here. He imagines what he’ll be going back to.
But only for a few seconds. He doesn’t want them anywhere near this date.
—
In the parkinglot, they kiss between their cars. They both taste like honey and walnuts and vanilla ice cream.
They kiss with their lips and their hands. They can’t help but keep their ears attuned for any sudden noises…but no sudden noises arrive. Their kisses intensify time, and also erase it.
Toward the end, Avery pulls back and apologizes for the awkward conversation before.
“No, it’s good,” Ryan says. “We have to have those conversations, about what we want. All the small conversations are practice for the big ones.”
Avery likes that Ryan has made the sex conversation a small one.
A party of six loudly leaves the restaurant, and Ryan and Avery take this as their signal to call it a night. At home, dinner takes about a half hour. Tonight, it’s been two hours and counting. That feels major to each of them.
