“That’s good,” he said, “because I have something I have to tell you, too.”
I drew a deep breath and mentally rehearsed my lines once more.
“You go first,” he said.
“No, no, you go first.”
“Come on, Jakob, you should really go first. I insist.”
When we stared at one another, I remembered the time in which we regarded each other the exact same way before lunging at each other.
I had to spit it out before anything crazy happened.
I said, “I want to take the next step with you,” simultaneously with Zane saying, “We’ve got to explore this amazing thing we’ve got going here.”
Then we both shut up, like we’d each spewed the vilest blasphemy in history. I felt thankful that I had no cutlery at the table because I might’ve cut out my tongue. Zane huffed and puffed as if ready to hyperventilate.
I said, “I want us to become a couple,” at the exact time he said, “I think we could have an incredible future together.”
We each shut up again. That wasn’t evencloseto what I wanted to tell him. In fact, it wasn’t even in the same galaxy. If Zane really meant to say what he had, I would’ve been equally horrified.
“That’s not what I meant to say,” I said.
“Me neither.”
“But does it make you want to burn your tongue?”
“I wouldn’t go that far… But it was pretty fucking vile.”
“That’s better.”
Okay, I know how bad that last part sounded too, but it paled in comparison to my first two sentences.
“That isn’t what you meant to say, was it?” he asked.
“Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner. What’ve we got for him, Johnny?”
At that point, I didn’t care that people at other tables were glancing at us again.
“No, it isn’t,” I said.
“You could’ve just said it that way. You didn’t have to be an asshole.”
I sighed and covered my face with my hands.
Then I said, “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t shown up to my place unannounced.
“It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t let me in.”
“Hey, you barged in.”
“But you didn’t throw me out.”
“Oh yeah, that’s real good. You came over to my place fully intending to fuck me.”
Now every customer in our general area didn’t just glance but stared at me. For the first time ever, I might’ve looked like a bigger idiot than Zane.
“Um… uh,” I said, “I mean, you were going to come to my place and fuck me over at Nintendo Switch.”
