“How are we so different?”
He laughs. “How are we not different? You love everyone, and I immensely dislike most people. You love everything and pretty much everything annoys me to some level. I have to work to see things positively. You just have to open your eyes.”
“I do hate things,” I say. “I hate Super Bowl parties. Parades. Dresses. Zoos. The circus.”
“When have you seen a circus?” he asks, doubting my sincerity.
“I haven’t and I don’t intend to. It’s basically a traveling zoo. And I have an unexplained fear of clowns.”
Gray smiles and it charges me with energy. It’s suddenly hard to stay seated. His smile is like fuel.
“Besides, you love all the right things,” I continue. “You love your friends. You love your family, you love good music and good food and you love me more than anyone I’ve ever met.” He winces when I say this, and I catch myself. “I mean, you used to. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know. You just don’t see it. But I think you’re a better person than I am,” I admit.
“That’s insane,” he tells me. My heartbeat picks up when I hear the word come out of his mouth. I remind myself, he didn’t say I was insane. But it’s still promising.
“You always put people first,” I say. “And I don’t. I put myself first. I have for years. That’s one of the reasons why I dropped everything to go after Serena. If I hadn’t met you, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But if something like that had ever happened to your sister, you would have left everything to go after Amanda.”
Gray nods because he knows I’m right. Maybe being alike isn’t what’s best. It’s bringing out the best in each other that matters.
I open my backpack and throw a few things on the bed, looking for my overnight clothes and the toiletries shoved in the bottom. Gray surprises me and sits down on the bed next to me. It squeaks under the additional weight. My internal radar informs me Gray has entered PRZ. I sit on my hands and cross my legs. I try to ignore all my heightened nerve endings.
He reaches for a square CD case next to me. He recognizes it. He opens it and flips through the discs and my cheeks feel hotter than a sunburn. There are ten CD's inside, all mixes he made for me three summers ago.
He looks at me and I suddenly feel naked under his eyes.
“It’s great road trip music,” I say, trying to keep it light.
“These are three years old,” he says. “Aren’t you getting sick of them?”
Never.
“Maybe a little. You should make me some new ones,” I say and he just looks away. I zip my backpack shut before he notices anything else inside. He leans back on his hands and his eyes trail around the room for a couple of seconds. I watch his chest rise and fall when he breathes. He looks so calm and relaxed while I feel like my blood’s on fire.
“Tell me your bedroom never looked like this,” he says.
I shake my head. “I never really liked pink. I think it even makes flowers look fake.”
“What does your bedroom look like?” he asks me.
I meet his eyes. “My bedroom?” I ask.
“Back at home,” he says. “In Wisconsin,” he clarifies in case I forgot where I’m from.
“Why do you want to know?” I ask.
He shrugs and looks around the room. “It’s just something I never asked you about,” he says. “And I always wondered. Probably because you never settle down, so I was always trying to imagine what a ‘settled down Dylan’ looks like.”
I think back to my parent’s ranch-style house in central Wisconsin.
“It’s a sewing room now,” I say.
“Tell me one random thing you had in it,” Gray says.
“A sex swing,” I say and he raises his eyebrows.
I laugh and he smiles back. I think about the things my mom agreed to stow away in the attic. “You’d probably appreciate my Jack Black box,” I say.
“Your what?”
“It’s a big, black filing box I kept in my room.” I explain that I named it after Jack Black because, A) he’s a brilliant actor and musician, 2) he’s hilarious, and D) he doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him. His self-esteem has a black belt in jujitsu.
“Okay,” Gray says with a nod. “I’ve listened to enough Tenacious D to agree with his musical talent.”
“And his acting?” I ask.
“I’ve seen High Fidelity,” Gray says. “And Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. Point made.”
“Well, I was thinking of Nacho Libre and School of Rock, but whatever,” I say. “So, starting in middle school, if I was upset or insecure about something, or having a bad day, I wrote down my problem on a piece of paper, folded it up and put it in my Jack Black box. Then I latched the box closed and stopped thinking about it. Problem solved. Jack took care of it for me.”