Page 137 of The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

“I’m not the one who likes it so much,” he says, and we lapse into silence for a while because it’s Levi, who’s not in the habit of saying something if he doesn’t have anything to say. It’s a silence like a favorite sweater: warm, soft, welcoming.

I watch them play shuffleboard for a while. Kat’s a little stiff at first, quiet, but she seems okay. Wyatt cheerfully trash talks her, their drinks on a table off to one side, and after a while she starts trash talking back. When she knocks his puck off the board, she throws her head back and laughs gleefully as Wyatt throws his hands in the air and shouts.

“She’s killing me,” he calls over his shoulder at me.

“Good,” I call back.

Their game finishes, and the brewery is filling up since it’s Saturday night. Wyatt and Kat are still at the shuffleboard table, Wyatt animatedly telling Kat something that involves a lot of hand motions. Gideon’s wandered off, and as I watch, Javier heads over to where Wyatt and Kat’s beers are.

Then he picks one up—Wyatt’s, I think—and takes two long hauls before putting it down and walking away. It happens so quickly that I don’t react, just freeze, a faint alarm bell going off in my head.

“What?” Levi asks. He’s looking at me curiously. Not a lot gets by him.

I lose Javier in the crowd. He’s probably seen someone he knows, since half the people under thirty-five in Sprucevale are here tonight.

“Nothing,” I say, and shake my head, because that’s what it was. A couple sips of beer. He probably just wanted a taste.

I wonder if his father’s kept calling him, but then Wyatt’s there, leaning over the table between Levi and I, orange hair falling into his eyes.

“You guys up for a game?” he asks.

* * *

I stay laterthan I mean to, playing shuffleboard and then darts. Sitting by a fire pit with my arm around Kat, listening to Wyatt complain about work.

When we finally leave, I can’t find Gideon.

“Maybe he went home,” Wyatt says, shrugging. “You know how he is.”

“Hates fun?” says Javier. “Thinks muttering bye from across a crowded room counts as a proper farewell?”

“Pretty much,” agrees Wyatt. “It’s not—"

Wyatt frowns.

“Is that him?” he asks, hands in the pockets of his jacket.

Javier, Kat, and I all turn at the exact same time, following Wyatt’s gaze, and find Gideon standing in the light of a fire pit. Animatedly talking to a woman with long blond hair, rings on every finger, and a flowing skirt that moves in the breeze.

Then he says something to her. She laughs, and he grins, looking a little sheepish.

“What,” whispers Javier.

“Don’t stare, you’re being super obvious,” Wyatt says, staring. Super obviously.

“Is he… hitting on her?” I ask, the words feeling a little weird in my mouth when I say them about Gideon. I’ve known him to go on dates, that sort of thing, but I’ve never once seen it in action.

“Maybe?” whispers Wyatt. “I feel like I’m in a nature documentary.”

I open my mouth to tell Wyatt not to be a dick, but then something extraordinary happens: Gideon hugs this woman. She hugs him back. It’s a long hug. There’s back rubbing in this hug. He says something into her ear while they’re hugging, and when they pull away, he smiles at her for the second time in a few minutes.

“What the hell,” whispers Wyatt.

Kat glances between the three of us, looking confused.

“Not a hugger?” she asks, and all we can do is shake our heads.

* * *