“I’m fine,” I say.
“No, you’re not. Stop lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Telling yourself you’re fine and trying to make yourself believe it doesn’t mean you’renotlying when you tell me you’re fine,” he gasps. “You’re just… double lying.”
I think about that for a minute. My chest is hurting all over again and my skin feels prickly.
“Okay,” I say. “I hate stores. Shopping is a lot. There are a lot of people in there. It was loud. And really fucking difficult to handle.”
He watches me carefully, then says, “Then why did you go? Why not just tell me?”
“Because you wanted to go shopping.”
“Don’t stress yourself out for me, Hudson. I just thought we would have funtogether.But if you’re not going to have fun doing something, I don’t want to do it. Don’t think you have to prove yourself to me.”
“That’s not—” I sigh, running a hand down my face. “Okay. You’re right.”
“It’s not about being right,” he says softly, turning in his seat and taking my hand. “I just don’t think either of us should force ourselves to do things because the other wants to. What good will that do us?”
I nod, squeezing his hand.
“Now, can we please go eat? Because I am starving.”
I smirk as I drop his hand and start the car, giving it a few minutes to heat up since the windows are fogged from us talking in here and it being so cold outside.
The restaurant isn’t far across the lot, but I drive us over there because it’s cold, and will only be colder when we finish eating, so I don’t want to walk. I hate dressing in layers, I’d rather be cold, so being out in this weather isn’t great for me.
The Golden Noodle isn’t the best Italian place I’ve been to, but it is good. The inside is basic hard wood floors and red walls with photos of Italy all over the place, even though they have nothing authentic here—they try, but don’t succeed. Either way, it tastes good, and that’s all I care about.
We get seated in a booth, and a waitress is with us right away to take our drink orders. We ask for a few moments to look over the menu, even though I already know what I’m getting.
“What’s good?” Trey asks, his eyes flicking over the lines on the menu.
“I’ve only ever had their cheese ravioli with meat sauce.”
I know what he’s thinking as soon as I say it.
That’s because of the autism.
He looks up at me with a smile, not a single questioning thing in his eyes. “Then I’ll get that too.”
We put in our order when the waitress comes back with our drinks—we each got their house beer on tap, which I already know I like.
I watch Trey as he takes his first sip. He nods as he puts the glass down. “That’s good.”
I smile. “Glad you like it.”
“Hey, Hudson?”
I look over to see Terry, one of the other analysts at work.
“Hi, Terry,” I say.
“It’s so nice to see you. I haven’t been at the office much since they have me watching the live games now, so my schedule is all over the place. How have you been?”
“I’m good,” I answer. “And how about you?”
