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On the way out, the eyes are still there, the extra self-consciousness. Avery won’t let it change his actions, not anymore. But he can’t deny it’s there.
When Avery returns to the car, he finds Ryan busy texting. He barely looks up when Avery gets in.
Avery half expects Ryan to say that something’s come up, that the date is being canceled, even though this would contradict everything Avery’s felt and thought about Ryan so far. They don’t really know each other enough for any impressions to feel like truth.
From that half expectation, he’s half surprised when Ryan smiles and explains, “Everyone wants to meet you.”
This fills Avery with another kind of anxiety.
“Everyone?” he asks.
Now the change in Ryan is more pronounced—whatever edge was there when Avery got into the car has smoothed. He seems much more excited as he says, “I may have told one or two or seven of my friends about you. I mean, some of them saw us dancing the other night. I had to keep them updated.”
Avery starts the car and asks, “Where to?”
“Do you want to meet some of my friends?”
The answer is yes, and the answer is no. The answer is that Avery wants to see more of Ryan’s life, for sure. And the answer is that he likes it only being the two of them for now.
“Maybe later?” he offers.
Ryan takes this in stride. “Oh, definitely later. I just need to know whether to put them on standby or not. But we’ve got hours of us-time before that.”
Avery likes the sound of this. But he still feels uneasy. Not because Ryan’s making him feel wrong. He’s just uneasy because nothing is easy.
Don’t overthink this,he tells himself.Live it instead.
—
Ryan is sohappy he’s not driving. He doesn’t need to look at the road. He can look at Avery instead.
It’s like being on drugs, the desire he has to take everything in, to stop and ask himself,Can you believe that you’re here with this really cool boy, and you have a whole day to yourselves?
These are not thoughts he usually has.
It’s making him smile. He must look like a total dope. Which only makes him smile more. And he is not a smiler by nature. He comes from a long line of nonsmilers.
“What?”Avery asks, part confounded and part annoyed.
Oops. Ryan sees how the whole staring-smiling thing might be a little weird from the outside. “I’m sorry,” he says.Then he tries to explain. “I don’t usually like people. So when I do, part of me is really amused and the other part refuses to believe it’s happening.”
“Oh,” Avery replies. “In that case, feel free to keep staring. I was worried my shirt was inside out or something.”
Ryan momentarily forgets he’s giving directions, and they miss a turn. He decides if he doesn’t mention it, Avery won’t notice. He tells him to make a left now. Then, eventually, another left.
“What are we doing?” Avery asks.
Ryan has also forgotten he hasn’t told Avery the plan. Now he says, “I figured we’d start with pancakes. Do you want pancakes?”
“It’s hard to imagine a scenario where someone would say no to pancakes. I’m guessing that’s our destination?”
“Yup.”
The Pancake Century Diner is like a flamingo sitting in a row of hens, the most colorful thing this stretch of interstate has to offer. Avery parks, and as the two of them walk past the diner’s locally legendary sign, he says, “I don’t understand why they have to do that—put eyes and mouths on food you’re about to eat.”
“You know, in all these years, I’ve never thought of Mr. Hot Stack as a sentient being,” Ryan admits.
“He has a name?! And a gender?!”
