“We could live for weeks on donuts alone,” Avery says. “I’m on board. Bring on the snow.”

  This is the vocabulary of the sixth date, all these different ways of saying I like you, you know?

  Ryan tries to make his donuts last, but it’s like each bite has a subliminal message planted within it, insisting You must take another bite right now this moment. Both donuts are gone within two minutes.

  Avery has been slowing himself down with milk, but can only last about a minute longer.

  This isn’t the time to talk about play practice or parents or how their school days have gone. No, not when they only have an hour together—forty-two minutes, actually, since it’s timed from when Ryan had left Mr. Castor, not from when Avery arrived. Yet another unfairness, c/o the universe.

  “Do you want to walk around?” Avery asks.

  Ryan says sure.

  Since neither of them has been to Bluff Lake before, they have no idea where to go. Ryan resists the urge to give a running commentary of how he’s feeling, which would sound something like I am so glad you’re here I really hope you are too I hope we can keep doing this do you?

  Also, he wants to kiss Avery again. Because that always feels the most real.

  Avery gestures to a dollar store named Dollar Store.

  “Want to buy some dollars?” he asks.

  “How much do they cost?” Ryan asks back.

  I like you, you know?

  It doesn’t take long for the stores to give way to offices—law offices, tax offices, dentists.

  “There,” Avery says, tilting his head to indicate a parking lot behind one of the tax offices. There aren’t any cars.

  “Here?” Ryan asks.

  Avery takes his hand. Pulls him around a corner so they’re out of view of the street. Smiles again, and keeps holding Ryan’s hand as he leans in for a kiss.

  It doesn’t feel like last time, which hadn’t felt like the time before that. It’s still early enough that each kiss contains the revival of all the earlier kisses…and then brings its own twist, its own reason for being. Kissing is always a confirmation, and there are times when this confirmation is needed more than others. Right now Ryan needs it badly. Confirmation of intention, of desire. Of feelings shared, of dreams being true.

  “Oh, Ryan,” Avery says when they stop for breath. It is all there in the way he says Ryan’s name—confirmation of the confirmation.

  “Oh, Avery,” Ryan says back, drawing the name out so he can fit as much affection as possible within it.

  They kiss and hold and move their hands under one another’s coats. For a few minutes, they fall out of the timekeeper’s domain, only to be brought back when Ryan’s phone vibrates against both of their thighs.

  Avery pulls away, though not without another kiss. Ryan sees he has a message from Mr. Castor, telling him to start heading back. Ryan shows it to Avery, and Avery says, “I’ll come with you. I’ll just pretend I’m from one of the other schools.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Ryan tells him.

  Avery smiles. “I figure if I come see your imaginary forensics match, then you’ll have to come see my actual school play at least once—maybe twice.”

  A plan.

  A future plan.

  This is what it takes for Ryan to finally see it clearly: Avery’s I like you, you know?

  Now he feels comfortable making his own visible, without anything else written on top of it.

  “I wouldn’t miss your play for anything,” he says. Then, even though the door hasn’t been opened perfectly, he decides it’s opened enough to add, “And, if possible, I’d really love to be the boyfriend waiting for you with flowers after the show.”

  Ryan has never waited with flowers for anything or anyone. At first he has no idea where this idea has come from. Then he realizes it must have come from Avery, from what Avery has introduced into his thoughts.

  Avery pulls him close again, gives him another kiss. “I guess that means I’m about to be the boyfriend cheering from the sidelines at a forensics competition. Except that you’re not competing. And I don’t think cheering is allowed.”

  Ryan laughs. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  When the laugh is over, he sees that Avery is looking at him—really looking at him, that intense concentration that comes when you’re reading a book, only directed at another person.

  “What?” Ryan asks.

  The book is still open, still being read, as Avery asks, “We’re going to do this, aren’t we?”

  There is no how in this question. No what, no why, no where, no when. This is what lies underneath all of those. The foundation from which all the other questions will be built.

  Ryan takes Avery’s hand again, squeezes it. “Yes,” he says quietly. “I think we’re going to do this.”

  Avery, who is always such lightness. Avery, who brings the music into the room. Avery, who Ryan thinks is so much better at this than he is—this same Avery balances precariously on the verge of tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, wiping at his eyes. “I’m really sorry. It’s just that—we were joking about it, about flowers and debate and everything. But I need you to know this is not a joke to me. Not at all. It’s a really big deal, and I need to know it means a lot to you, too, because I haven’t done this before, not like this, and I think I need you to know that. You need to know that I have been thinking about it constantly, ever since you left my house, and it scares me to want something so much. I don’t think you have any idea how much I think about you, Ryan. I don’t think you have any idea how afraid I am, because I’ve been trying so hard to avoid showing it to you. But here it is, right in front of you, and I guess what I’m saying is that if we’re really going to be boyfriends, you need to know that I’m scared, and you also need to know I’m scared because I like you so much. You might not want a boyfriend like that. And if that’s the case, I’ll be sad and disappointed, but I’ll understand. I just think it’s fair to tell you all this. I have to. You have to see how bad I am at this, right?”

  If before Avery looked like he was lost in reading Ryan, Ryan now looks like someone who has come to the part of the book he wasn’t expecting, and instead of being lost in it, he looks around the room at people who aren’t there, to say, Can you believe this is happening?

  He wants to laugh, it’s so ridiculous.

  “I’m even worse than you are!” he swears to Avery. “I promise! Everything you just said? Well, triple it. Quadruple it. That’s me. I have no idea what I’m doing, but at the same time I know I’m doing the right thing, being with you. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense. Because you—you are the most sense I’ve felt in a long, long time. Maybe ever. I have no idea what it’s like to be a boyfriend. I have no idea what it’s like to have a boyfriend. But what I do know is that I want to learn what both of those things are like with you.”

  Avery shakes his head, then says, “Get over here.” They kiss again, hold tight.

  “What a pair we are,” Avery says into Ryan’s ear.

  “I guess we deserve each other,” Ryan tells Avery’s neck.

  Avery nestles in and kisses his cheek. “I guess we do.”

  The phone vibrates again. Ryan texts Mr. Castor to say he’s on his way. Then he takes Avery’s hand, and they step out of the space they’ve made their own.

  “Which way is the school?” Avery asks.

  “That way, I think.”

  “You think?” Avery moves for his phone. “Here, I’ll look it up.”

  But Ryan stops him. “No,” he says. “We’ll find it.”

  And so they set out, still holding hands.

  * * *

  —

  The moment arrives. You aren’t simply walking through uncharted territory anymore. No, you realize it’s more than that.

  You’ve started to build a home here.

  And you’re not building it on your own.

  Opening Night at the Drive-In

  (the fourth date)

  Queerness is, among other things, driving two hours to see a movie just because it features characters whose lives may loosely resemble yours.

  For Ryan, the drive is actually closer to three hours. He’s picking up Avery for their fourth date, and then they’re heading to the closest college town, since college towns tend to be the county seats of queerness in America’s less-than-queer regions. The cab of his pickup has become a nest of blankets, since it’s not going to be an ordinary shared-popcorn, shared-armrest kind of movie night. No, tonight will be a drive-in affair, the one-night-only kickoff of a local film festival. A few weeks ago, Ryan might have come across the listing and stored it where all his other lost opportunities are kept. Sure, there are a few friends he could’ve dragged, had he been willing to owe them one, but he wouldn’t have felt comfortable asking. It wouldn’t have been like it was when he asked Avery: an enthusiastic response to a hopeful invitation, a knowledge that they are excited about the movie for similar, queer reasons. Having someone eager to see the movie with him is just as remarkable to Ryan as having the movie within driving distance tonight.

  A fourth date might be early for love, but it’s right on time for gratitude.

  How lucky and how dangerous, to be thankful to someone before he even gets into the truck.

  * * *

  —

  Avery spends too much time deciding what to wear. Not just because he wants to look good for Ryan, but also because he’s going to be a sixteen-year-old in a space populated by queer college kids. He feels like he’ll be auditioning for the role of his future self.

  It’s a beginner’s mistake, to think queerness has a dress code. Queerness is coding-optional. Avery hasn’t figured this out yet, but he’s close.

  Because it’s sure to be a cold night at the drive-in, Avery layers up. It relieves some pressure on his T-shirt (Tegan and Sara, predictable yet personal) to know there will be a striped sweater over it.

  Ryan texts that he’s five minutes away. Avery takes one last look in the mirror and heads downstairs. His parents have made it clear they want to meet Ryan, but Avery hasn’t relayed this to Ryan yet. Instead he’s bought some time by telling his parents Ryan will come inside on the way home. There isn’t any way to do it now, if they want to make it to the movie on time.

  Avery’s parents give him some popcorn money before he leaves and don’t say anything besides have a good time. They know he’ll be embarrassed if they wish him luck. They are happy he’s going with a boy to a drive-in, and in this way, they are old-fashioned and new-fashioned at the same time, the two combining to become something that might be called good-fashioned.

  Meaning: They’ve let their son fashion himself while keeping a safety net beneath him. They are doing the best they can.

  * * *

  —

  Ryan and Avery both smile when Avery slides into the passenger seat, because at this point, physical presence is the most reliable evidence for everything that’s been playing out in their heads. It hasn’t been long since they last saw each other, rowing on the river. But in the intervening days, both boys have doubted that things could really be going this well. Avery is the dream that Ryan is having, just as Ryan is the dream that Avery is having. Now that they are together, they get to share the dream. And what is more astonishing than a shared dream?

  Two hours in a truck is a long time for two boys who haven’t yet found the comfort of a togethering silence. Avery is a better master of solo silence, so his barometer doesn’t measure a lack of conversation as acutely as Ryan’s. Fortuitously, their destination lends itself easily as a topic of conversation. The movie they are seeing, You and Me, is the first nonbinary love story to reach movie screens in their part of the country. (The title comes from the idea that in a relationship, the only binary should be you/me…and even that becomes a bit of a blur.) Ryan and Avery have been poring over interviews with the young writer-director, whose unabashed desire to make the love story that they most wanted to see in the world is itself a love story, as far as Ryan and Avery are concerned—a love story between the writer-director and the audience they want to reach, a love story between the writer-director and their younger self, who felt the absence of a movie like You and Me, and a love story between the forces of creativity and necessity. The writer-director has created something bigger than themself that still manages to represent themself, which is something that Avery and Ryan both aspire to, even if they have no idea how to get there right now.

  They talk about this, and talk about the times they’ve seen themselves on the screen, knowing that the tragedies are important, but not the entirety of how they want themselves to be mapped onto the world. They’d rather step into Moonlight, into Booksmart, into the wish fulfillment of Love, Simon. There aren’t enough stories like theirs. Which, on the one hand, makes their lives and their love feel more original. But it would still be nice to see how other people deal with the things they have to deal with and navigate the feelings they find themselves feeling.

  That’s what they’re hoping for tonight.

  Especially Avery. Because Hollywood’s still put many more jelly beans in Ryan’s (cis, white) jar than in his. He knows there are plenty of filmmakers out there like him. But he’s also keenly aware of how little power they’ve been granted to tell their stories.

  “I want the trans superheroes,” Avery requests with a sigh.

  “I want the gay spies,” Ryan says. “There have to be gay secret agents. I mean, duh.”

  “And animation!”

  “Yeah—we get a male frog that, like, bats its eyelashes at another male frog for a nanosecond, and they call that progress.”

  It isn’t fair, especially because it pretends to be fair. Ryan and Avery feel that so deeply, it’s part of who they are.

  They start talking about other movies—mostly what they feel are queer-adjacent movies, like anime or musicals. (Avery adds another item to his wish list: “I want a queer Hamilton.” Ryan knows better than to admit the full depth to which he’s never gotten into Hamilton. But he does wonder aloud if a queer Hamilton would win him over. And/or a gender-bent version. Let Janelle Monáe play Hamilton and Lizzo play Burr. That, he’d watch in a second.)

  For two hours it goes like this. They share what they love and what they want that isn’t there, and in doing so, they bring themselves a few steps closer to understanding each other, which is just another way of saying they bring themselves a few steps closer to falling in love. They don’t have to agree on everything, but they find themselves agreeing enough that it matters, in ways both unexpected and delighting. (Ten minutes spent recounting a SpongeBob SquarePants episode; five minutes disclosing their Avatar: The Last Airbender elements; fifteen minutes singing along to Ariana, including her cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing,” which contains notes neither boy can attain, but they reach for them anyway and crack up when they miss.)

  It’s only when they hit the outskirts of the college town that the focus must turn to the far more mundane task of direction. They are led down the all-American alley that loops all major and minor cities—BurgerKingExxonStarbucksSubwayWalmart in excelsis—until they see the punctuation of a marquee, rainbow-lit even though it’s a far cry from June. There’s a long line of cars waiting to make it inside, so Ryan and Avery content themselves by watching the Morse code of brake lights spelling out a welcome until it’s their turn.

  The ticket-taker looks like she was born in the booth, and plans to die there in the very near future. She doesn’t cheer at the sight of a blue-haired boy and a pink-haired boy sharing a pickup, nor does she scowl. The only thing she considers is their cash, and the only change she requires comes in coins.

  Avery has never been to a drive-in before. Ryan has, but never as a driver. He follows the car in front of him and hopes whoever’s inside is making good choices. The theater itself is a parking lot organized with poles at the front of each space, the screen looming above like a gracious overlord. They end up about seven rows from the front, and Ryan reverses into the spot so the back of the pickup faces forward. The air has reduced itself to dusk, and the people spilling out of the cars react to it like neon. As soon as Ryan turns off the ignition, he and Avery hear a concord of laughter and happy anticipation, the merrymakers merrymaking as snacks are shared and viewing positions are staked out.

  As Avery fumbles for his phone and wallet, Ryan steps around the pickup and opens the door for him. He offers Avery a hand down, even though Avery doesn’t really need it, and then, in a movement that feels as essentially human as putting one foot in front of the other, they hold hands as they make their way to get popcorn. The handholding is not just because it’s a safe space—if you are defining a space by its safety level, there is still a certain amount of fear involved in the measurement. This opening night at the drive-in is a joyous space, a holiday from the world. For the first time in their lives, Ryan and Avery are using a queer default in an adult crowd. That alone is joyous, and more than a little surreal. If there are any straight people around, they’re doing their best to blend in, and as a result Ryan and Avery feel a collective kinship toward everyone they see, a feeling of having something in common that isn’t very common at all.

  Which isn’t to say that Ryan and Avery are seeing the same people in the exact same way. Ryan is still playing the guessing game in his head, reaching for the words to spell out each person’s identity. Avery, meanwhile, is trying to dismantle that part of his mind, to see everyone with the termlessness he feels each of them deserves, at least until they themselves ask to be seen a particular way.

  From the glances Ryan and Avery are getting, Avery understands that people aren’t looking at them and thinking queer or gay or trans; no, they’re looking at the two boys holding hands and thinking young. Even though the bystanders are mostly college students, Ryan and Avery represent what they once had, or never did. Most of the glances are accompanied by smiles; only occasionally do people turn away.