Page 72 of The Other Brother

I reach across the table. His hand is lying flat on the table, and I lay my palm on top of the back of his hand.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” I say.

A small grin creeps up Cody’s face. “Me too.”

The waiter comes over to take our order, and I retract my hand.

When he leaves, I lean back, looking out over the ocean where the sun is setting.

“Summer’s almost over,” I say.

“It was my favorite summer ever,” Cody says.

“Yeah, it was epic,” I agree.

Cody fiddles with the candle that’s flickering away in the middle of the table, dipping his fingertips into the pool of hot wax that’s forming at the base of the flame. “That’s such a Ryan word,” he says.

“What? Epic?”

“Yeah, you use it a lot.”

“What other words do I use?”

“Awesome is up there in Ryan usage as well.”

“Epic. Awesome. All words I could use to describe myself,” I say.

Cody laughs. “You also use seriously a lot too.”

“Yeah, well, I am such a serious guy,” I take a sip of my drink. “I didn’t realize you were doing such a complete study of my vocab.”

“You’re saying you didn’t learn things about me this summer?” he asks.

“Oh, my level of Cody knowledge has expanded beyond belief.”

“What things did you learn?” He’s looking at me seriously now.

I shrug. “You work really, really hard. And you worry too much about what other people think about you, but partly it’s because you consider other people’s feelings more than most people. So it’s not actually a bad thing.”

Cody withdraws his hand from the candle and studies me for a moment.

“You’re so much more than you pretend to be, you know?” he says, eventually.

So are you.I don’t say this aloud though. Instead, I go for humor.

“Yeah, I’m much more than the handsome, man-stud package that everyone wants a piece of. I have hidden depths.”

Cody rolls his eyes.

The waiter delivers our meals then, and thankfully our conversation moves on to other stuff. That’s the thing about Cody and me. We can shoot the shit with each other forever. We never run out of things to say.

We split the bill when it comes, and I can’t help wondering what comes next.

“You ready to head off?” Cody asks.

“Yeah.”

I follow him out of the restaurant, my mind racing. We’ve agreed to keep making out. But so far, apart from checking each other out when we were changing and a few lingering, heated stares, nothing seems different between us.