Page 33 of One Little Problem
“I call ‘em like I see ‘em,” he replied smartly.
“I was dating you at the time, so, pretty sure the gay thoughts already caught me.” My head tilted as I thought and I gave him a goofy smile. “Or at least, a gay caught me.”
He pretended to swoon. “Wordplay, my only weakness.”
Couldn’t just let that slide or he would think he could get away with saying crazy things all the time. Or, well, crazier than normal. “Me, your shins, the periodic table, me.” I listed his weaknesses. Mentioning myself twice was a joke… or it was supposed to be.
Ryan was a sucker for my dimples and green eyes. But normally I thought of those as good weaknesses, things that gave me a fighting chance when met with the storm of Ryan, so that he didn’t get his way all the time, only like 80 percent of the time. But maybe... maybe they were just weaknesses.
“Sad commercials, shiny things,” added Ryan’s dad about his son’s weaknesses. Oh, didn’t know he was here. We were supposed to be not dating, so, uh, maybe we weren’t doing a very good job of that at the moment. Ryan and I stood close together but me being here at all was probably not very believable.
“Let’s leave now,” Ryan said, grabbing my hand and moving out the door.
“Ah, hand holding, is that something teen boys do now platonically?” Mr. Miller asked. Ryan stopped, turned around, and opened his mouth to explain before his dad stopped him. “No, forget I asked, Ryan will try to make it seem legitimate.”
“Uh, we just,” I started and then stopped because I had no idea where to go with this.
“It’s fine,” Mr. Miller told me easily. “I know you two aren’t broken up.”
I relaxed. “Oh, thank god.” I turned to Ryan. “You should have told me he knew.” Then we could have gone out at a normal time instead of pretending we were 70-year-olds who ate dinner at five P.M.
Ryan smiled tightly. “He didn’t know for sure until just now.”
Mr. Miller looked smug while Ryan seemed resigned. Oops. “I always fall into this trap,” I told the room. The room didn’t seem all that surprised.
“Well,” Mr. Miller said cheerfully. “Since you’re still dating, it’s time for tonight’s interrogation.” Ryan gave him a dirty look and he continued with, “Come on, scaring Luke is one of my favorite hobbies.” He focused on me while I went still under his assessing gaze. “He looks nervous. Why are you nervous?”
“Global warming,” I said. Not totally a lie. Actually, I didn’t think about global warming much, but not because I didn’t believe in it or wasn’t environmentally friendly. I didn’t care about it as much as my sister Rose, but she was crazy. And it was more that if I paid attention to global warming, then I’d be paying attention a lot and likely freaking out about it and what can I do to stop the ice caps from melting? Nothing, so worrying about it won’t do me any good.
“Called climate change now,” Ryan said.
“Right, that,” I agreed absentmindedly, taking Ryan’s hand and then dropping it when Mr. Miller focused on that. Oh, the hell with it, I grabbed Ryan’s hand again because I was nervous anyway, so I might as well get the benefit of holding his hand.
Mr. Miller’s eyes narrowed as I continued to be nervous. “Okay, now I really might need to know what you guys are doing tonight and if there are any adults who can corroborate these plans.”
“Dad!”
We didn’t have anything illicit planned, but they were both right about me being nervous. And it wasn’t because of fossil fuels and the bees disappearing and everything Al Gore and Bernie Sanders warned about with climate change.
Recently, a weight had lifted since I figured out who I was. Even when things went wrong, no one could take that away from me. Now, I don’t know. Spending more time with Ryan didn’t seem like a bad thing. There was no way that could be a bad thing. And him being gone for the whole summer? That would suck balls. And not in a good way.
But whenever I thought about him here with me when he could be somewhere else learning and being smart and whatever nerds do, it just didn’t feel great.
Apparently, there was a conversation going on around me that I had tuned out. “How am I supposed to threaten the guy when he’s not even paying attention?” Ryan’s dad wondered. “Are you high?” he asked me.
“Only on life,” I responded, trying to grin reassuringly.
He became more suspicious. “That’s not some clever new name the kids are using for a street drug, is it?”
“We are so leaving now,” Ryan declared. He tugged on my hand.
I stayed where I was. “No, your dad wants to talk. We should. How else are we going to get along better?” Good excuse. Climate change I couldn’t do a damn thing about. But Ryan? I didn’t mind worrying about him. I might be able to help when it came to him.
We all sat down in the living room, relatively stiffly, except for Ryan who decided it would be a good idea to sit on my lap. His dad didn’t seem too put out by that; he probably had a high tolerance for Ryan being awkward.
It was really too bad Mr. Miller didn’t like me. I thought we had a lot in common, or at least we were the two people who had to put up with Ryan being insane on a regular basis, so we could bond over that. I pushed Ryan off me with an eyeroll and he sat next to me instead.
“Things going better with your parents?” Mr. Miller asked. Way to get the ball rolling.
