I pretended like I was trying to catch the eye of other imaginary people sitting around us. ‘We don’t already?’
‘I mean, stuff queer friends talk about. Like … boyfriend stuff.’
I felt myself slump but tried to correct it and failed.
‘I’m sorry. Let’s just get the ice cream to go.’ He scooted across the booth to tell Grant to pack it up, but I reached for his hand.
I didn’t want to talk about Vic with Gabe. But I also didn’t want to go home. What was it called when you had conflicting emotions and knew exactly what you should and shouldn’t do but pretended you didn’t? When you did what you shouldn’t do and justified it in some Rube Goldberg logic machine in your head that only doesn’t make sense years later?
Oh, right, it’s called being a dipshit.
‘We can talk about it,’ I said dipshittily. I took my hand back and crossed my arms. ‘But I’m already biased. You know, because I kissed you that one time before I knew about him.’
I tried to make it sound like a joke, and he laughed, so I must have tricked him. Or he tricked me.
‘Can I ask why you don’t ever post pictures of the two of you on social media?’
Gabe started fidgeting with his fingers, suddenly very focused on his cuticles. ‘I don’t like posting a lot about my private life on socials. My family follows me, so as long as I’m only posting about family, friends or film, they won’t feel the need to comment with anything passive-aggressive. Or aggressive-aggressive.’
Well, shit.Now I felt bad. I’d thought he washidingVic because he was embarrassed by him, not as self-preservation. My mom wasn’t on social media, so I never had to worry about her. Plus, my profiles were private and I only approved people I knew. But also, I had slowly started subtly posting queer stuff and figured it would be an easy way to gauge my mom’s feelings if I did make my profiles public and if she ever got curious and searched for me. If she didn’t bring it up, maybe she didn’t want to know about it. If she did, maybe she was okay with it.
But it seemed like Gabe’s family brought it up even if they weren’t okay with it.
He settled back in the booth, and Grant came over with the ice cream, setting it down in front of us with gold plastic spoons and a handful of napkins.
‘Holy shit, that’s a lot of ice cream.’ There were at least five scoops of ice cream in the plastic bowl.
‘I gave you guys Executive. On me.’
‘Thanks!’ Gabe said.
‘Enjoy.’
I took my spoon, unsure where to start on the giant mound of frozen dairy. I dug into the side and saw Gabe was watching me. ‘What?’
‘You need to get a big scoop—’
‘Scoop-ita.’
‘Yes, that.’
I took a bite, and the banana ice cream really was pretty amazing. It didn’t have that fake banana flavor most banana confections had. But the caramel was super overpowering. It was a thick ribbon but a little too sweet and not enough salt.
He pushed the Frances McDor-Mint over to me and took my Jodie Bananas Foster. ‘See if you like this one better.’
I tasted it. And yes, it was less overwhelming. Much better. I gave him a thumbs-up.
‘So what’s going on?’
Gabe dug around in the ice cream before answering. ‘We got in a fight.’
Yes!
‘Or not a fight, I guess. An argument.’
‘What’s the difference?’
He scrunched up his face. ‘I actually don’t know? “Argument” sounds a little softer.’
