AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You up for a drink?” Ryan asks Avery.
Avery is wiping the sweat off his forehead again. “Hell yes,” he says.
Even if Ryan and Avery had no sense of time on the river, no sense of when they’d arrive back, Caitlin somehow knew. Because not only is there pink lemonade ready in a pitcher, but there are oatmeal raisin cookies only minutes out of the oven. Countless times, Ryan has sat at this kitchen table when the world has felt like too much for him, when he’s wanted to sit inside a house that fully feels like a home. This table, he thinks, has seen so much of his anguish. But now, with Avery, it’s witnessing the opposite of anguish. The table’s presence makes it more real, because it makes it more a part of Ryan’s life.
Avery wants to make a good impression, and is too nervous to realize this won’t be hard. When Caitlin asks how they met, he turns it into the longest story in the history of humankind, telling her everything short of the amount of gas that was left in the tank after he and his friends drovehome to Marigold. Halfway through, he knows he’s talking too much, but Ryan and Caitlin don’t seem to notice it as much as he does, so he goes on. When it’s over, Caitlin asks, “And this was how many weeks ago?”
It’s Ryan who smiles and says, “This was all last night.”
“It makes sense,” Caitlin says. “With some people, the minute you start talking, it feels like you’ve known them for years. It only means that you were supposed to meet sooner. You’re feeling all the time you should’ve known each other, but didn’t. That time still counts. You can definitely feel it.”
Avery knows he should be trying to get Ryan away, should be trying to get him alone, get him close enough to kiss. Time is quietly ticking down to the moment he’ll have to leave—he promised his mother he’d be home before dark. But he is enjoying the company, the lemonade, the cookies. He feels it’s probably wrong to think of this as more worthy than kissing and making out. But right now, it is.
“Do you want to see some embarrassing photos of Ryan dressed up as Britney Spears for Halloween?” Caitlin asks.
“I was six, and I was playing dress-up,” Ryan clarifies. “I didn’t go out trick-or-treating as Britney.”
“Because if you had—”
Ryan groans. “Maybe we would’ve figured out things sooner?”
Avery laughs and says he’d still like to see the pictures.
Caitlin runs to her room and comes back with a few snapshots—some embarrassing, some sweet. Avery enjoys this, but also has the tug he sometimes gets when he knowsthat if the situation were flipped, he’d feel very different about Ryan seeing photos of him early on.
He doesn’t feel any scrutiny from Caitlin. Or any from Ryan, either, after all he said in the boat. While intellectually he understands this is possible, emotionally he’s still not ready for it, and has to accept it gradually rather than immediately.
What’s clear to him, as three of them eat cookies and two of them feel the satisfying soreness in their muscles, is something both simple and extraordinary, something that exists beyond doubt: Last night, Ryan appeared in his life…but today, he has truly entered it. And Avery has entered Ryan’s life as well. The rest is still to be determined.
Avery can try to ignore the clock, but it’s harder to ignore the sun lowering outside. Avery asks where the bathroom is, and once inside calls his parents, asking for an extension. But it’s pointed out that he’s only had a license for a little while, and he was already out late last night.
“I think I have to head home soon,” he says when he gets back to the kitchen.
“It’s been so wonderful to meet you,” Caitlin says. “Here, let me give you some cookies for the drive. And do you want a Coke, too, for some caffeine?”
Avery thanks her a few times, accepts her care package. He and Ryan both hug her, then head to Avery’s car so Avery can drive Ryan home.
The ride goes too fast. It feels like all they’ve managed to do is sum up the day, talk about how well it’s gone, withouta chance to really add to it. Ryan asks Avery to pull over a few blocks away from his house. He’ll be coming from the direction of Alicia’s house, which is where he’ll say he was, if his parents bother to ask.
“This is a good spot,” he tells Avery. “I don’t want to say goodbye in front of my house, if you know what I mean.”
Avery thinks he knows what Ryan means, knows what Ryan wants to do, and immediately all his senses are reaching out for it. The radio is on low, the dashboard glowing dimly in the increasing twilight.
“I’ve had a great time,” Avery says, because he feels it needs to be said again.
“Me too,” Ryan murmurs.
It is the shift into that murmur that marks the turn. Avery suddenly feels like he is breathing electricity, and it is through this air that Ryan is leaning. Avery leans into it, too, leans into all of it, and that is when their lips touch for the first time, that is the consecration of everything they’ve already known. Every serious kiss says at least ten things at once—I want youandI’m afraidandI want thisandI hope this isn’t all there isand so many other feelings. All of those are present in this kiss, but one word rises above them all, one word moves from one boy’s lips to the other’s, and back again.
Welcome,the kiss says.
Over and over. Back and forth.
Welcome.
The Cast Party
(the ninth date)
