Chapter Five

Alyssa and I went to her favorite restaurant. I had been there once or twice before with her. It wasn’t really my type of scene. It was upscale and full of people who always asked you to subtract certain things from their orders rather than eating the thing that was actually on the menu.

We grabbed one of the tables outside where the sun could shine down on us and our conversation wouldn’t be overheard. You had to be careful where you sat down to speak in a small town. The gossip spread fast and it wouldn’t always be in the favor of the person it spread outward from.

“I’ll have my usual, please,” Alyssa said to the waiter who took our order. He was still holding the menus that he was about to hand to us if Alyssa had given him the chance. He looked a little put out.

“I’ll take one of those, please. In the meantime, could I have a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice?” The man smiled at me as he handed me my menu and I returned the smile. It was the little things that helped improve someone else’s day.

As he walked away from the table, I turned to face Alyssa. Her eyebrows were raised. I had started to get used to the look of surprise that she seemed intent on wearing when in my presence that day. “Orange juice?”

“It’s way too early to have a scotch on the rocks anyway, Ally.”

She nodded her head, conceding. “Okay. It’s just really weird to see you being all healthy and stuff. I’m a little freaked out that you were covered in sweat from a run when I saw you this morning. You’re normally in bed with a hangover, okay.”

I laughed. “You make me sound a hell of a lot worse than I actually am. You realize that, right?”

“I’ll have you know that as your, uhm, female best friend…” She shook her head, shutting her eyes. When she looked at me again, her expression was apologetic. “Sorry, that’s really weird. I didn’t know you had another best friend. I’m still getting used to that revelation.”

“I think we can go with that term. No one will ever replace what Roland is to me but you’re definitely one of my closest friends, Ally. So, go on, I’m curious. As my, uhm, female best friend…?”

“It’s kind of my job to exaggerate how absolutely horrendous your lifestyle is in the slightest hopes that you might actually start to sort your shit out.”

The laughter that burst from me was loud, rumbling. My eyes started to water and around us, people had started to look at our table. When I had finally stopped, Alyssa was staring at me with wide eyes again. “What?” I asked.

“You’re totally like, the most embarrassing person I know.”

I picked up a menu and began skimming through the breakfast items. I surreptitiously peeked over the top of it at her. “That’s one of the many reasons you love me. Enough about me, though. You’ve had your chance to mull it all over and now your gay best friend is tired of waiting. You’re going to have to spill the beans already.”

I didn’t need to look at her to know that she had gotten nervous again. The quiet told me all that I needed to know. Alyssa was nothing if not loud. I continued to look over the menu, allowing her to gather her thoughts. I was going to go with something extra healthy but I decided, given that I had already taken a morning run and skipped my ritualistic glass of whiskey the previous evening, I could indulge in breakfast.

The waiter returned on time. He put a bowl of leafy greens and something that resembled hummus in front of Alyssa as well as a glass of water. He placed my orange juice in front of me. I immediately began drinking through the straw. My exercise had made me really thirsty.

“Are you ready to order, sir?” he asked me. His voice was gentle and polite. I couldn’t help but notice that he couldn’t take his eyes off of me.

“Yes. I’ll have the full breakfast, please. Eggs sunny side up and whole wheat toast.” I passed my menu back to him and he nodded, smiling.

As he walked away, I took another sip of my orange juice. “You ready?”

“The waiter totally digs you, you know,” Alyssa said. She took a sip of her water. “I really like Freddie.”

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows. “You like Freddie? That’s what is making you all… I don’t even know. This?”

She nodded, sighing. “Look, it’s not the same as it usually is. You know me. I don’t do relationships.”

“Ohhh,” I said. The realization hit me. She wasn’t kidding. Alyssa was notoriously anti-love. “You really like him. Like, do you want to actually be with him like him?”

“I don’t know, Lyle. I’ve  never really been like this before. I mean, for goodness’ sake, I only met the guy on Friday night.”

“Wait, if you only met him on Friday, how did he get an invitation to your party?”

“We were in the same class. He came with a friend, who happens to be one of the guys I used to hook up with when we were still in high school. As if that isn’t awkward enough, the friend asked Freddie to find out if I was still single and stuff.”

“Freddie was asked to scope you out. Well, okay then. That’s an interesting turn of events.”

Alyssa took a bite of her weird salad. She spoke over a full mouth of food, her words rushing out even faster than they had when we were still back at my house. “Yeah, well, I mean. I didn’t know that. I thought he was finding out for himself, you know? And I guess, somewhere along the way, he kind of started doing exactly that.”

“So, what you are telling me is Freddie likes you, too,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess so. I just don’t know if Freddie likes me for real or if it’s just a casual thing. I’m the one who makes it a casual thing. I’m really not used to having to figure out if the guy is the one making it a casual thing.”

“I’ve never heard the words ‘casual thing’ said so many times in one go before.”

“Lyle! This is serious shit, you know.”

I laughed. “Actually, Alyssa, you’re adorable. I think it’s really cute that you finally found a guy you might want to do things other than sex with.”

“Oh, my God. You make me sound like a slut.”

The waiter reappeared at that moment. He was as pale as Alyssa was and it was impossible to miss the way his cheeks changed color, especially, as his ears did the same thing. He placed my plate down on the table and I thanked him before he hurried away from us. “I’ll have you know, that’s my job. You will not hear me bullshitting you, honey.”

“Okay, fine, so I found a guy that I actually want to go out on a date with. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t felt this way about a guy before.” She paused, doing that thing with her hands again. “All I can think about is him and his laugh and his smile. It actually makes me feel kind of sick, to be honest with you.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

That caught her attention. I could almost see the cogs working inside her head as she looked at me, analyzing the sentence and figuring out what I meant by it. “You like Roland.”

“We are not talking about me, Ally.”

“But you do! Don’t you?”

I stabbed a piece of bacon with my fork and shoved it into my mouth. “Maybe. I don’t know either.”

Thankfully, she didn’t have much to say to that. She let me eat in peace and she did the same. Only once our meals were nearly finished did she finally speak. “I feel like we haven’t chatted like this in forever. You’ve kind of gone AWOL, you know. I miss you.”

“I know. I miss you, too. We’ll have more chances to hang out now.”

“What’s changed?”

I sipped my orange juice some more as I thought about how to answer her question. In truth, I wasn’t entirely sure what had changed. All I knew is that something on Friday had sparked something in me—it could have been anything from seeing Roland once again, or the music that had played and the décor of the party that had thrown me so far backward into my teen years that I couldn’t climb out, or the idea of getting the chance to have my life the way I had wanted it all those years ago, or a combination of all of the above. I didn’t want to be the Lyle I had become, living in solitude and yearning. It was my life. If I wanted to make it different, then I could stand up and do exactly that.

“Everything has changed,” I finally answered. “There are going to be a lot more changes and I can’t wait to find out what they are.”

Alyssa reached across the table and took my hand in hers. She gave it a gentle squeeze, smiling at me. “No matter what, I’ll be here. If it makes you happy, then I say go for it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We finished the meal and our drinks in silence. We listened to the buzz of the restaurant. The sun on my skin felt great. I had not been kidding when I said what I said to Roland that night. I was amazed that I was still dark-skinned with the amount of time I spent inside. It was silly, because I had always loved spending time in the outdoors. I wondered why I had ever stopped.

When the waiter brought the bill to our table, Alyssa took great joy in laughing at the receipt. We halved the costs and she passed it to me. The waiter had written his number with a little smiley face beside it at the bottom of the piece of paper.

“I believe that’s definitely for you,” Alyssa said.

“Does he not realize how old I am?”

“I hate to break it to you, Lyle, but you really are not as old as you think you are.”

“I should go and buy a sports car right now. We’ll see how you feel about my age then.”

The beautiful brunette gave a giggle. We stood from the table and walked over to her car. The ride home was a quiet one. When she dropped me off at the house, we both got out of the car. She came around to my side and gave me a hug. It was so sudden that I took a moment to react and hug her back. I held her for a while, squeezing her gently.

“It’ll be okay,” I whispered into her hair. It smelled like coconuts.

She pulled away and gave me a smile before walking back around to the driver’s side. Alyssa climbed into the car and as she reversed out of the driveway, she honked her car’s horn. She waved at me and I waved back before she drove away. I watched until her car was out of sight before I made my way up to the front door.

It was only once I entered my house that the unease began to set in. I wondered if what I had told her was really true, not just for her sake but for my own. Would it really be okay?