“You got it,” says Hugo.
Freddie turns to me. “Sorry. I guess they try to get people in and out pretty fast, but it’s great diner food.”
“It’s okay.” It’s not what I expected for a date, but I guess nothing about this is what I expected. And I don’t even know if I’ve really been on a date. Do people even go on dates anymore? With Grace it was more like hang out, make out, watch TV, hang out, eat food, make out.(Which, if I’m being honest, is nothing to complain about.)
“So, I never asked. How did you likeStar Wars?”
He latches his pinkie with mine. “It was good.”
“Yeah?”
His lips fall into a faint frown. “Got me thinking about my dad.”
I squeeze his pinkie with mine.
“I had such a big crush on you when we were kids,” Freddie blurts, changing the subject abruptly.
My cheeks grow warm, but it might just be the rising temperature in the packed diner. I go along with the subject change, not wanting to make him talk about anything he doesn’t want to. “Did you really?”
“Yeah. You were like this wild summer child who was always in a swimsuit, with hair full of sand. I didn’t even realize until, like, fourth grade that your real name wasn’t Ramona Blue. You were as much a character in my life as Santa Claus was.”
Hugo returns with our drinks and whips two straws out like a set of swords. “Food’ll be out in a minute.”
“You were like my own Peter Pan,” says Freddie. “I thought you would never grow up and that you’d always be this constant fixture on the beach, challenging other kids to races in the sand and swimming-noodle duels.”
His words suck the breath right out of my lungs. No one has ever summed me up in such a succinct way. I feel like Peter Pan, and it’s like Eulogy is my Neverland. “I guess that makes you my Wendy Darling.”
He grins. “I like that.”
I laugh. “I thought you guys were so rich. I thought everyone who visited the coast was rich. I knewweweren’t rich, but we got to live in the place where everyone else vacationed, so it seemed like a fair trade-off.”
“Did you like me?” he asks. “Even a little bit?”
“I remember feeling a faint curiosity,” I admit. “But I think I was too busy worrying about why I wanted to kiss girls.”
“How did you know?” he asks. His brow furrows, and I can see he’s trying to make sense of us with what he knows to be true about me in mind. Frankly, I’m trying to do the same. “Were you ever scared that you were supposed to be a boy or something?”
“I was never confused about my gender,” I tell him. “I’ve definitely always felt like a girl. The confusing part waslikingother girls. Not feeling like I wasn’t one.” I know I should be disappointed that his understanding of my sexuality is so elementary, but at least he’s eager to learn. Growing up in the deep, deep South, I might have found it easy to assume that my feelings for girls made me less of one.
He takes a sip from his drink. “Will you think I’m some gross dude if I admit that I was kind of disappointed when I found out you were into girls?”
“Yes, but no,” I say. “I guess it’s like when someone you like is already with somebody else.”
He nods. “Yeah. Sort of. But I thought we—this!—was impossible.”
“But you had Viv!”
“I did,” he says. His shoulders fall into a downward slope. “I guess maybe that’s why I tried so hard to make it work with her even when I knew it was over.”
On one hand, this revelation elates me, but on the other, I feel so much more pressure not to mess this up.
“Grilled cheese for the man in the tux,” says Hugo. “And pancakes for the lady in the tux.” Then he drops our bill on the table.
Freddie pulls a twenty from his pocket. “No change.”
“My two favorite words,” says Hugo.
I don’t know if I’m starving or if the pancakes are really that good, but I finish every last syrup-doused crumb.
