As we ate, Alden kept glancing around as if he were casing the joint or something.
“What’s your deal?” I asked, polishing off his unwanted bacon. “Anxious about making St. George on time or what?”
“Not that.” He rubbed his neck and studied his remaining pancake pieces. He lowered his voice. “I don’t know how other people do it.”
“Do what?” I asked cautiously.
“Be casual. About, you know.” He continued his whisper, his eyes still shifting around. “Feels like everyone must be able to tell.”
I had to take a sip of water to hide my smile. Matching his whisper, I leaned forward. “You think everyone can tell you—”
“Yes.” He cut me off before I could say had sex aloud. Which was adorable, if confounding.
“They can’t,” I assured him. “Any more than you can tell which of them—”
“Okay, okay.” The tips of his ears were red, as was his nose. “Point taken. It just feels…weird.”
“You’re still you. I’m still me. Nothing that much has changed.” I could tell from the way his face scrunched up that he didn’t like that explanation. And maybe it wasn’t completely accurate because darn near everything had changed for me internally—the way I saw him, the way I saw my life, the way I saw this last year. All of it. So I tried again. “Okay. A lot changed. But my point is that we’re fundamentally the same people. We just happened to figure out that we like k—”
“Yes. That.” He shot me a warning look, dropping back to a whisper again. “We’re in public.”
“Yes, and as soon as we’re not, I’m going do that to you until you stop worrying about stupid stuff.”
I don’t think I was imagining that he ate faster after that, and I was as good as my word back at the car. But quickly, because we had to make St. George. The scenery all the way there—all rugged rocks and vast landscapes—was spectacular, but unlike the day before, we kept the stopping to a minimum. Limited kissing, much to my disappointment. And at the game store, it was my turn to be uncomfortable.
It was located in an upscale-looking, newer strip mall, with a nail salon neighbor, taco place on the end of the row, and ample parking for Black Jack.
“So, you boys have a good night last night?” the owner asked. He was an exceptionally tall man who looked somewhat like Gandalf or maybe Dumbledore, with long, white hair and beard—not a costume—and his earnest demeanor made me feel bad for my mumbled reply.
“It was all right,” I said right as Alden said, too cheerfully, “We saw the stars at Arches.”
Damn it. Now we sounded suspect, but I kept my voice cool and my body a proper, friendly distance from Alden.
“Yeah. That was pretty cool.” I tried to tell Alden with my eyes that it was what had come after the stars that had been truly spectacular. But it felt somewhat like trying to flirt in the presence of my grandfather. Not Professor Tuttle, who although older, was way cooler—or at least I figured he’d be cool if he got wind of Alden and me being…
Whatever Alden and I were. I didn’t think we were likely to march into the next game night at Arthur’s store holding hands with matching deck boxes or anything, but we could and no one would care except to tease us—me especially, given my rep—mercilessly. I had to tamp down the surge of longing at that vision. I could not go getting sentimental about the future. And it was the present I needed to worry about, here where I was far less sure about our reception than back in New Jersey.
The owner guy was pretty ancient, with the vibe of his store being more “Grandpa’s special collectibles we don’t touch” than a hangout open to all. Almost everything remotely valuable or interesting was in locked glass cases, and the place was operating-room-level clean. The clientele was a weird mix of clean-cut young men our age in white button-down shirts and dark pants playing some of the more “family friendly” card games along with scruffy tourists in tie-dye browsing the souvenir racks.
“Do you want to play one of us, sir?” I asked after he’d shown us around with me filming and asking polite questions about his store. “Or maybe you have a particular patron you want us to play?”
“Oh, play each other. I always do enjoy the animosity between you two on the show. And after, I’ll give my critique of where you went wrong. I’m a ‘Gamer Grandpa,’ too, you know.” He laughed at his own terrible joke, but I couldn’t join him. My heart was too busy sinking to his immaculate tile floor. I hadn’t played Alden since…everything. The kissing. The hours and hours of talking about the most important things and nothing at all and all the points in between. The meals. The falling asleep together and waking up together—everything. And now I had to play him? What if it ruined this thing before it even had a chance to get started?