Page 146 of Two Marlboros

“It’s not a definite thing anyway, huh,” I retorted. “I’m just thinking about it. Maybe I go through all this talk and instead come back after a month because I find out that ranch life sucks. I just need a change of scenery, like you said too.”

He merely nodded his eyebrows in assent but said nothing more. Once again, he had not reacted in the way I had hoped.

“Look, I’m going to miss you!” I exclaimed, as if to snatch from his mouth those words I longed to hear. The fact that he had remained indifferent to what I told him, even to the prospect of losing me forever, planted in me the doubt that I had completely misunderstood his text and the reason for that date - or should I have just called it just an invitation?

“I will miss you, too,” he merely replied, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth and the feeling that my doubts might be coming true. I remembered the amoeba, the text he had shown me. Was it possible that it was true?

“Oh, if Steve could hear you...!” I taunted him.

He frowned for a moment. “What about it?”

“Aren’t you dating?”

“Who put such an idea in your head?”

“Well, Steve showed me a text where he said he was meeting with you, and so...”

Alan rubbed his hands over his face.

“Oh, that! Go figure, he had only texted me to ask when he could come to the station. He didn’t even show up, by the way.”

I sent the tape back at least a dozen times. Alan and Steve were not dating. The little bastard had taken advantage of a specially written text to make me think he was in some sort of relationship with Alan!

“Actually, I thought it was strange that a guy like you could be interested in a guy like Steve, but you never know.”

While I felt lighter, however, I had just crossed Steve off the list of reasons why Alan had not reacted as I would have liked to my departure. Only a couple of reasons remained: the first one was Oliver, and the second one was the trivial knowledge that I was just a friend to him.

“Would you like to take a walk?” he asked.

I watched the ominous clouds above our heads but agreed enthusiastically.

We got up from there and began walking close together, him with his head in the clouds and me unable to stop looking at him.

We wandered toward a cobblestone lane lined with hedges and, behind these, towering oaks to boss around. The driveway was quiet and secluded, the air filled only with the sound ofour shoes on the cobblestones or rolling pebbles, propelled by an involuntary kick. We could hear the sound of the breeze, caressing us and then moving on, and every now and then we could also hear the roar of the clouds, foretelling rain.

“Do you have your umbrella?” he asked.

“Nope, I left it at home. Do you?”

Alan shook his head. A drop hit my face, streaking it up to my chin. Another drop added to the first, and a second, until I lost count.

Alan rolled his eyes.

“There, I knew it. Why don’t we take shelter under a tree? Maybe it will stop soon.”

I crossed my arms in front of him with a mock know-it-all air.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to stand under a tree during a thunderstorm?”

“If you could call it a thunderstorm… It’s a couple of drops of rain!”

I gave him another grimace, but he wasted no time and pushed me toward a hole present in the hedge. We walked on the grass, and he accompanied me under one of the oaks with a hand behind my back.

“At least we will be sheltered here. Let’s wait a while and see if it increases.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to go home?” I asked.

Alan began to stare at the falling drops that were gradually soaking the driveway. He smiled and let his gaze fall into the void for a moment, then turned back to me.

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