elliot

It's so easy talking to Alyssa. The whole way to the Cumm-n-Gitt, our conversation goes nonstop. We end up in the same spot in the parking lot as yesterday, and I catch myself wondering if she'll slip on the gravel or not. I had a pair of extra flip flops that I never use in my car, which are definitely way too big for her. She's not complaining, though. And watching her try not to slip in them is sadistically adorable.

Duncan leans against the storefront, nodding at people as they walk through the doors like it's his job. His smile is contagious, and everyone knows him anyways. If I were to try that, I would feel more than awkward. Duncan does it like it's his god-given duty, and he does it well.

When he spots us, he waves, the already bordering-on-insane smile increasing ten fold. He and I have made it our practice to grab coffee together once a week since middle school, back when we were the only two kids at the library book club. Even after Neema joined the club and our friend group, we kept the tradition to just the two of us, although other people have tagged along before. (Always a girlfriend of Duncan's. Which isn't terrible, I guess.)

"Hey!" he says with an overexaggerated Duncan nod. "What's fresh, my broskis?"

"Please, no," I tell him, lightly smacking his shoulder.

"Fruit," says Alyssa, stepping forward to hold the door open for us. "Fruit is fresh. As is the Prince of Bel-Air."

Duncan smiles even wider, so fiercely that his eyes seem to disappear. "Oh I like her."

I walk through the doors and groan.

The cool air conditioning of the Cumm-n-Gitt hits me like a wave, making me feel shivery and sticky all at once. Alyssa and her bare shoulders appear to be faring no better, which I definitely need to not be noticing, because my YouTube deviancies are still too fresh. I look over at the cash registers quickly, but there's no Norm, just a guy I vaguely recognise from math class freshman year and a girl with shoulder-length hair and dramatic eye makeup. Duncan waves enthusiastically.

"Do you want me to buy you flip flops?" I ask Alyssa. "There's a little display over there with the sunglasses." I don't tell her that the flip flops are even worse than the ones she had on, and that they'll likely snap within an hour or so, after giving her terrible blisters.

She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ears. I wonder if she knows how often she plays with it. "You don't have to. I'm the one who broke them."

"I'm the one who laughed, though." The excuse sounds flimsy in my ears. I pray she doesn't notice.

Alyssa rolls her eyes at me, smiling faintly. The tips of her ears have gone pink again. "Thanks, but I'm good. I can cover it. You lent me yours, anyways. You've paid the laughing price."

Duncan taps my shoulder like his life depends on it. "Elliot Elliot Elliot, you know what we should get?"

"Ugh noooo." I know where this is going. "Coffee. Quick coffee. No junk food. Your mom would kill me, then you, then me again for letting you ingest it."

"Elliooooooooooot," he whines. "Please?"

I can't handle the Duncan puppy eyes. Ugh. "Fine."

There's a gasp from Duncan, accompanied by a cheering of, "Little Debbie time!" as he picks up a little shopping basket for himself and his carby vices. "You like Little Debbie, Alyssa?"

"Not really," she says, giving him a sly half-grin I haven't seen from her before.

"What?" He presses a hand to his chest in mock horror.

"Duncan. No one likes Little Debbie. It's just you," I say, wandering through the aisles to the crummy stuff in the back. The Cumm-n-Gitt is pretty big for a gas station, I guess. It used to be a truckstop, but truckers don't really come through here anymore; so, they got rid of things like showers and the attached restaurant, then made this place a practical convenience store for teenagers whose metabolisms don't warrant the amount of food they purchase.

Duncan sniffs indignantly as we begin our trek to the baked goods aisle. "Little Debbie is the mother of America."

"Literally anyone else, Duncan. Anyone else."

I'm all too aware of the fact that Alyssa is walking right next to me. I hate that I can imagine what it would be like to slip our hands together, what it would be like to tuck that stray strand of hair for her. Tempting. It's all too tempting.

"Thanks for inviting me out," she says, looking up at me. Her freckles seem darker today. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's nice to be out of the house."

"Of course. It's seriously no issue. I really like hanging with you, man," I say, adding the 'man' so I don't feel like the total loser simp I know, deep down, I am.

Her nose crinkles, and I notice she has crooked bottom teeth as she laugh-smiles. "I really like hanging out with you too. Actually, Elliot—"

Duncan whoops, and I cringe. We've reached Little Debbie.

He sets his basket on the ground and rubs his hands together. "The nourishment is very palatable," he announces.

"And now," I say, right as Duncan starts loading his basket up with various baked goods (a lot of chocolate cupcakes), "we watch Duncan load up on enough cakes to make a stoned college student cry."

When he glances over his shoulder at me, his eyes are lit up. "It's good."

"One day, you're going to lose your metabolism. And you're going to gain a lot of weight." Duncan throws a pack of Little Debbie cakes into his basket without even looking. "It won't even just be abs you lose. You're going to look like the mom from that Gilbert Grape movie. Sumo wrestlers will tremble in fear. You know Austin Powers? You—"

"Heed the Deb!" Duncan cries, whirling around and shooting a pack of Zebra Cakes into my chest like it's basketball season. It lands on the floor. "Wa-pow!"

I frown and bend down, then toss it into his basket—miraculously, making it. "Those give me stomach aches."

"Your stomach needs to toughen up," he retorts, finally done with his big Little Debbie spree. "Who can't handle the Deb?"

"Quit calling it 'the Deb.' Stop trying to make 'the Deb' happen. Also, what in nature is that color?"

Duncan sniffs. "There's purple in nature. Bright, neon purple. Retina-destroying purple."

"Your intestines are likely in need of a therapist. Did you know the actual daily recommended amount of sugar is five to six grams, dude? Your liver is probably dead."

He rolls his eyes pointedly as he turns to gather his basket. "Shut up, ruiner of my vices."

"I am sooo much nicer to you than any of your over-sugared 'vices', Duncan." I turn and start towards the coffee. Alyssa follows, and my heart buzzes when I see she looks amused. Is it me? Am I funny? Am I making her smile? Did Elliot do a good?

I need to stop focusing on her. Seriously.

"Oh my gosh they have pizza," Duncan says as we near the counter, hopping up and down like he's already had ten Little Debbie treats. I'm sure people can see his head bobbing from other aisles as he bounces along. "Pizza pizza pizza pizza!"

"Why do you have so much energy?" I ask him. "Where does it come from? What and to whom did you sacrifice to receive this unholy amount of spazziness?"

He ignores me, and before I know it, we're walking out of the Cumm-n-Gitt with a pair of flip flops, a slice of pizza, a giant bag full of artificially flavored "pastries," and two cups of bitter, watery coffee—like it isn't over ninety outside. Gravel crunches beneath the soles of my sneakers, and the smell of salt, cigarettes, and sugar all mingle together on the breeze.

"So, have you ever been in love before, Alyssa?" Duncan asks out of nowhere, and my heart stops. I feel my whole body freeze. Why? Why would he ask this? Why? I feel like, based on the information in my texts last night, he would be able to glean that yes, Alyssa has dated before. Why is he asking now?

"Um, I—maybe?" she says, squinting at Duncan like the sun isn't behind her head, framing her hair with this tinge of white. "Why?"

He blinks rapidly, clutching his bag close. "Nooo reason. No reason. At all." It's punctuated with a sipping of definitely-too-hot coffee.

Alyssa smiles and nods, and it's obvious she's weirded out. "Right. Well. Um. I'm gonna go wait in the car. Bye, Duncan."

"Bye!" he says, like he didn't just act like a dweeb.

"Bruh," I hiss as soon as she's off towards the Camry. "Bruhhhh."

"What?" Duncan being Duncan, of course, he goes straight for the pizza. "AH—hot! Hot, hot, hot, hot."

He fans his mouth, and I tilt my head condescendingly. "Dude, you totally walked into that one."

"Whaaaaaaaaa?"

"Also, dude, you totally just made Alyssa uncomfortable. Not cool, man."

"Onlo!" he cries, mouth still hanging open and, evidently, very burnt. "Awly, Ellioh." Then he goes on to continue murmuring "hot" again and again, but with his new impediment, it sounds like "HA" on repeat.

"It's not me you need to apologise to. It's Alyssa."

He takes a sip of his coffee, which was a mistake for sure—Cumm-n-Gitt coffee is always scorching. Duncan makes this strangled cry sound. "Ullllggghhhh ah awly ulllgggh ahhhhh."

I shrug. "Whatever, man. It's fine. Just, like, why ask that out of the blue?"

He points at me, still fanning away.

"Me?" I look back over at the car. "Man, it ... it's not gonna happen."

Duncan cocks his head, and as my heart sinks deeper and deeper in my chest, I know it's true. It won't happen. Alyssa and I will be friends, I'm sure, but dating? We won't date.

"Awly, Ellioh," Duncan says, giving my shoulder a squeeze. Then he takes another bite of the pizza, and—after literally choking on cheese for a moment, which he always does—resumes his intense mouth fanning.

I squeeze his shoulder back. "It's fine. I'll see you tonight for Thor, okay?"

He gives me a thumbs up, and I try to get rid of that still-sinking feeling in my chest.

The inside of the Camry is stuffy and hot, and Alyssa waits till I'm inside to shut the door. My seats are this pale, tan leather, but even so, they're scorching. I try not to act like my grey steering wheel is anything to flinch at, even though it burns.

"Hey," Alyssa says, "my house?"

"Of course," I say, even though it had completely slipped my mind. I slowly pull out of the makeshift spot, making sure I don't hit any smoking college students.

We're on the road when I mutter, "I'm really sorry about Duncan."

I'm taking the more scenic path to her house, which takes the same amount of time and is hardly more scenic—the sky is bright blue and nearly cloudless, and the image of the spray slamming down against the beaches beneath the cliffs is probably gorgeous to look at, but I've seen this view nearly every day for my entire life. You get used to it.

Alyssa doesn't focus on the scenery, though. She turns her head to me and says, "What about Duncan?"

"Y'know, asking about your dating history like that just out of the blue. It's ... not cool. Sorry."

She shrugs. "It's super fine. Don't worry about it."

"You sure? You seemed not happy before. And I know that it's kind of sensitive for you at this point in time and like—"

"I was just surprised, is all." She grins so wide that I can't not catch it in my periphery. Why is she smiling? And so deviously? "Why'd he ask?"

"No reason." Me, I think. He wants to get us together.

When Neema joined our little dorky duo in the seventh grade, Duncan and I were both wary at first. She was a girl—an actual girl—whereas I was more of a thing, just like Duncan was a dude, not a guy. It might sound cliche, but Duncan and I were super uncomfortable around her at first. Duncan was quiet back then, and I was afraid of even myself. He was the only person at that time who knew I was gay. It was just something obvious that we shared, in secret.

It took a few months for us to all click. And once we did, it was amazing. By the eighth grade, we were having little group sleepovers and hangouts (closely supervised by Neema's mistrusting parents, which, like, I do not blame them for; Duncan and I were still pretty sketchy and weird). Whatever discomfort had accompanied Neema when she joined our group had dissipated.

Then, the ninth grade hit, and Neema figured out I was queer.

In hindsight, it should have been pretty obvious. I mean, it should be obvious that I'm gay. I'm not super masculine, I don't think, but my short hair and short nails and texting style kinda scream "HELLO, FEMALES." In my opinion, at least. Neema was pretty shook, though. And suddenly, it was like we were all scared I was overtly hitting on her.

I didn't think I was, but even I wasn't sure. I knew I wasn't hitting on the swim girls, so wouldn't it make sense if I was hitting on one of my best friends, the only one I could have been attracted to? (Swim girls were never my type.) Duncan was the one who broke the weirdness that had settled between us all.

"Do you like women, Neema?" he'd asked one night after a basketball game, back when Duncan was the only freshman on varsity and Neema was convinced sideline cheer was her high school life calling.

She'd scrunched up her face at him. We were in the parking lot, up in the bed of Duncan's truck, and the parking lot lights reflected the gold highlighter on her cheeks this awe-inspiring mix of beautiful and unbelievable. "No?" she said.

"Cool," Duncan said. "I do. A lot. Like, Shannon Purser? Oh. My. God. She's too cute I can't."

Neema and I had groaned—Shannon Purser was Duncan's biggest fascination at the time—and things were back to normal. I knew it was Duncan figuring out where we all stood, though. And I knew that, if the answer had been anything close to "Yes," he would have been my wingman immediately.

But, I don't need a wingman now. Really. Duncan needs to let his Sabrina Carpenter moment be just that: a single moment. And I need to be a good friend to Alyssa and let her figure herself out. That's what she deserves.

A/N - *me, looking back over this* huh this is almost kinda slow burn innit?

Hope you enjoyed!!!!!!