Ryan’s heart sank. “No no no, hold up,” he said, rushing to dig some money out of his pocket. “I’ll be right there.”
When he got outside Gabby was sitting on a bench with the iced coffees beside her, scrolling through Instagram on her phone. “So, that wasn’t what it looked like,” he said, knowing even as the words came out of his mouth that they were ridiculous. It was exactly what it looked like. He’d been flirting with the checkout girl. He always flirted with the checkout girl. He flirted with the checkout girl and the barista and the drive-through attendant at Wendy’s. He didn’t mean anything by it.
Gabby shrugged. “Okay,” she said, standing up and sticking her phone in her back pocket. “Let’s just go, yeah?”
“Gabby—” Ryan stopped, put the groceries down on the bench, and reached for her hands; Gabby rolled her eyes at him, but when he laced his fingers through hers, she didn’t protest. “There’s probably gonna be an adjustment period, right?” he asked. “While we figure out how to go from being friends to like . . . ?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gabby said, smirking at him as he trailed off. “To what, exactly?”
“Jerk,” Ryan said, and kissed her. His whole body relaxed when he felt her kiss him back.
They spent the weekend eating popcorn shrimp out of flimsy paper boats at picnic tables overlooking the ocean; they went bowling at an old-fashioned alley in a neighboring town, Gabby lining everybody up against a mural on the exterior wall and taking a million goofy pictures. They swam out past the breakers and floated until their toes were pruny, Gabby’s legs wrapped tight around his waist.
“Does this make the list?” she asked him, grinning. Ryan dunked her head under the waves.
RYAN
The summer seeped by. They walked into Colson Village for everything bagels slathered with cream cheese; they swung on the swings at Ridgeview Park and went out for pizza with Gabby’s friend Michelle and her pretentious, smelly boyfriend. They went down to Rye and rode the old wooden roller coaster that looked like a dragon, Gabby throwing her smooth, tan arms up into the air. Ryan loved her like that, the odd times when she was suddenly so fearless. The random moments when she seemed so free.
At the beginning of July, his mom started clearing the house out, dragging massive garbage bags full of ancient kitchen appliances and candleholders and old clothes into the garage to get ready for a yard sale at the end of the summer. “I think it’ll be nice, don’t you?” she asked Ryan, arms full of wilted winter coats she’d dug out of the hall closet. “To have all this old junk out of here before Phil moves in?”
Ryan frowned. His mom had gotten engaged to Phil the Dachshund Guy earlier that spring, had been walking around with a goofy smile and a fat diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, a stack of wedding magazines on top of the toilet tank when he went to brush his teeth in the morning. “So he’s just going to come live here?” Ryan had asked when she told him. “With all three of the dogs?”
“You won’t even be here,” she’d pointed out, handing him a dusty box full of what looked like orphaned power cords to take out to the garage. “You’ll be in Minnesota. What do you care?”
Ryan didn’t ask if that made him part of the old junk category or not.
“She has a point,” Gabby said when he complained about it. They were sorting through a bunch of old toys that still lived in Rubbermaid bins at the back of his closet, Pokémon cards and Transformers he obviously didn’t need anymore but felt suddenly salty about giving away. “It’s not like you’re going to have to see the guy every day. You’ll be halfway across the country. It’ll be nice for your mom to have the company.”
“Uh-huh,” Ryan agreed, tossing a plastic Wolverine into the garbage bag and not quite looking at her. They hadn’t talked at all about what would happen between them at the end of the summer: after all, Minnesota was also halfway across the country from New York City, where she was going to study photography at Pratt. He wanted to ask her about it, but the more time went by the more dangerous it felt, like a sinkhole they stepped neatly around but never mentioned. He’d never been afraid to have a conversation with Gabby before.
Well, that wasn’t true. More like: the only conversations he’d ever been afraid to have with Gabby were the ones about their actual relationship.
Still, Ryan liked dating her—loved dating her, even. He loved her skin and smile and the smell of her shampoo on his pillows. He loved the way she bit his bottom lip when they were kissing. And if sometimes things between them felt a little awkward, like a new pair of hockey skates that didn’t quite fit right—well. It took time to break things in, he guessed.