Page 127 of Happy After All

“I don’t seem like a happy paradegoer?”

“You do not,” I say, chuckling.

We decide against driving. Parking is going to be a nightmare.

So we walk, holding hands, down the sidewalk that only a couple of weeks ago we walked down as relative strangers.

I still think ... maybe we were not so much strangers as I thought we were. We clearly recognized something in each other from the first moment.

I am bolstered by that as we continue on.

I smile when I see town. It is absolutely festive. There are lights wrapped around every lamppost. Tinsel intertwined with them.

There are cars parked up and down both sides of the street, and a section of it is blocked off for the parade. The smells of chestnuts, pecans cooked in sugar and cinnamon, churros, and popcorn are thick in the air. My stomach growls.

“Should I get you a treat before the parade starts?” He bumps my elbow, and my heart flutters. It’s a casually affectionate gesture.

Given that we tend to run on high intensity or sexual chemistry, it feels new.

“Of course I would like a treat,” I say. “Will you have one, or will your arteries seize up?”

He gives me side-eye. “It isn’t that I never eat sweets.”

That creates a slightly weird vibe between us, because I sat with him when he ate some cake when he happened to be drunk off his ass, so I’m not entirely sure if that is indicative of much of anything.

“Just very rarely,” I say. “I get it. I think maybe you deserve a treat.”

“Right. Because I’m your fake boyfriend for the afternoon?”

That hurts. It cuts a deep groove right into my heart, and I do my best to breathe past it. I do my best not to let it hurt me. After all, he’s operating on the rules that we established at the beginning of all this. We’re doing sex and friendship. At least officially. My feelings have changed, but we didn’t agree to that. I’m hoping ... I’m hoping he likes what we have enough to give me more.

To give me something more than just leaving and never coming back. I can’t bear that. I can’t face it.

“No,” I say. “You’re Nathan. And you’re with me. I think you should get a churro.”

He grimaces. “I can’t say no to a fresh churro.”

“I knew it. You’re not a monster. No matter how much you want everybody to believe that you are.”

“That’s evidence that I’m not a monster?”

“I mean, I have other evidence, but there are children present. So I can’t say it.”

Silence lapses between us as we walk to the churro stand.

“Hey,” I say. “If I ... If I did want to write a different kind of book, with my newfound creative itch ... could you help me figure out which agents I might want to query, and all of that?”

The truth is, I’m good at doing things myself. That doesn’t mean I want to do everything by myself. I don’t want my mother’s barren lawn. I want connection.

“Yes,” he says. “Sure.”

I realize that’s the test balloon. My first acknowledgment to him that I might want connection that extends beyond this week.

He doesn’t say no. So.

We wait in line, and he buys the treats, complete with the chocolate dipping sauce. This feels relevant. Sweet. Like this might actually be a date.

In spite of what he just said about being my fake boyfriend.

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