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“No, it’s not,” Ryan snaps.
Avery finishes the maneuvering and gets them out of the parking lot.
“What’s next?” he asks.
—
Ryan knows heneeds to extricate himself from what just happened, needs to step outside of it and return to the day that he and Avery were having. But the rage he’s feeling is volcanic. If Avery weren’t here, he’d be going back there with a golf club of his own. He’d wait until they weren’t looking, and then he’d beat the hell out of them. Or at least that’s what he wants to tell himself. These scenarios are much clearer when they’re not actually happening.
“Ryan?”
Ryan hasn’t heard Avery’s question, and doesn’t realize that Avery needs to know where they’re going. He looks at his watch and realizes he told Alicia they’d drop by in about fifteen minutes.
“Make a left,” he says.
He knows he should explain more to Avery, tell him who those guys were. But how can he explain when he can’t understand it himself? He and Skylar used to play Little League together. They never had a single fight. But it’s like one day half the guys in his grade decided it was fun to pick on Ryan. He wasn’t even out then. Didn’t even have blue hair. He just didn’t want to be a part of their group, and that made him the group’s enemy. But never like this. Never like what just happened. That wasn’t taunting. That was an actual attack.
Avery wants it to be okay, wants to pretend it didn’t happen. Ryan wants that, too. He’s already nostalgic for the way they were fifteen minutes ago. But what just happened with Skylar is too big to let go.
—
Alicia senses something’soff as soon as Ryan and Avery sit down at their table at the Kindling Café. Ryan introduces Avery first, then Alicia, Dez, Flora, and Miles…but he doesn’t seem nearly as excited in person about having them all together as he was when he was texting. Alicia remembers Avery from the dance, but it’s not like they got to talk oranything—as soon as he and Ryan connected, everyone else turned into extras in the scene.
This was supposed to be the chance for them to get to know each other. But Ryan isn’t smiling…he’s scowling. At first Alicia assumes it’s because the date hasn’t gone well, and Avery hasn’t measured up to what Ryan had hoped he would be. But she knows if this were the case, Ryan wouldn’t have brought him by at all. Also, there is a hope in Avery’s eyes as he meets Ryan’s friends. Avery wants this to work.
Alicia sends Ryan to the counter for coffee, because coffee deprivation can be a serious cause of surly moods. He asks Avery what he’d like, which is a good sign, but then insists Avery not join him, which is a mixed signal. Once Ryan’s away from the table, Alicia asks Avery what they’ve done today, and he mentions pancakes and that abandoned mini-golf course, which wouldn’t have been in Alicia’s top twenty in terms of places to take a date. Avery says it was “wild” and then asks the rest of them what their favorite spots in town are. None of them can think of anything besides the café they’re sitting in, although Flora advocates for a playground at their old elementary school until Miles reminds her it was torn down as a health hazard a few months ago.
“What’re you talking about?” Ryan asks when he gets back to the table.
“Just telling embarrassing stories about you,” Alicia answers.
This snaps Ryan out of his funk. At least for a second.
“No fair! I leave for ten seconds…”
“They weren’t really—” Avery begins, but Alicia shusheshim.
“Like, did Ryan tell you about his obsession with Pink?”
“Whoa, you’re goingthere,” Dez says.
Avery gestures up to his hair. “There’s nothing wrong with pink.”
Alicia shakes her head. “I’m not talking the color. I’m talking thesinger.”
“C’mon,” Ryan says. Flora starts to hum “Raise Your Glass.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with the singer, either. I love her. But there’s love and then there’s…obsession. She’d already been having hit songs for, what, a decade, but Ryan acted like he’ddiscoveredher.”
Ryan turns to Avery. “We’re talking about sixth grade here.”
“And part of seventh,” Alicia corrects. “You know how I know that?”
Ryan clearly doesn’t. But Dez goes, “OH, shiiiiiiiit.”
Alicia sees it hit Ryan. His nostrils flare in that way they do when he’s mad he doesn’t control the universe and the behavior of everyone around him.
“Enough,” he says.
