[i]I don’t even leave my house, Ry, so you’re damn right.[/i] I smile at him fondly when I hear my nickname, and I know it’s too bright, too affected, but somehow I’m just. Comfortable. More than I’ve been in a long time, I’m so comfortable right now, with him and joking around and just basking in one another’s presence again. I forgot how this felt. I thought I played it all up in my head before, but I didn’t. He really just does have that calming effect on you. Like everything in life is easy and simple - ironic, when nothing between us had ever been that way before. But it’s easier to pretend around him. 

[i]Okay, okay, so we won’t trade- I’ll buy it from you, it can join my Tesla in being a car I have just for the sake of it, because I’m too lazy to leave my home.[/i] I laugh dubiously, about to comment on the fact that he probably has plenty of awards shows to be at or otherwise some invitation someplace that keeps him occupied, out of home. [i[Seriously, come over anytime, guarantee I’ll be in.[/i] My smile fades, by just a notch. I imagine us being people who actively hang out, spend time together. I imagine us being friends - and whether that means being “friends” the way we used to be, or actually friends, it didn’t matter, I’d take any excuse to be around him again because Brendon did mark the most wonderful, exciting, awful, emotionally tolling time of my life. Nowadays I didn’t feel much of anything. I’d appreciate his company again, yeah, if it meant that this short space of time together wasn’t just going to be a fleeting taste at what could’ve been. [b]”Maybe I will,”[/b] I say, and not mysteriously. More contemplatively. Maybe I will.

It seems like he knows, too, how valued a member of this party he is, how much people would love to whisk him away for conversation, and yet he’s not making any move to cut me off and make his exit. I’m almost flattered. Not like he’d ever be above talking to anyone, but still - I’m from the past, he could move on if he wanted. God knows he has all the options in the world. [i]Well, yeah. I was a good boy. You know that better than anyone.[/i] I stare at him for a moment, wondering if I should pretend like that’d gone right over my head, but we’re so painfully obvious. We are so, so ridiculously obvious that I crack a smile straight at him, gaze warm and knowing, and the way I welcome him back outside is as if I’m actively agreeing.

We’re back at the car, and I’m aligned against the door, body sloping from the curb comfortably as if I’m already drunk, but really - I’m just this relaxed, for once. I watch him admiring my car, and vaguely, I entertain the idea of what it’d be like to kiss him again. Not the storybook yearning, not something desperate and wanton and hungry, just. I wonder, distantly. It’s the kind of affection you’d have for someone you’ve only met a couple hours ago, who you’ve laughed with in a bar a little. It’s not all-consuming. But I register, belatedly, that I probably shouldn’t be thinking about that. [i]You are. Hey, how much was this thing?[/i] I raise my eyebrows. [b]”Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to ask that? Don’t know [i]why, [/i]but people say so.”[/b] I grin, then actually contemplate the question, knowing he’d come closer and forcing myself to keep cool about it. [b]”Around $40k, not too bad.”[/b]

I make fun of him as he climbs into the back, utterly charmed by how he’s smiling the whole way through. It’s a good thing I drove in. I don’t have much else to impress with. [i]It’s a good job I make up for it in other areas.[/i] I chalk up my interpretation of that to my drinking, even though I’d probably had the equivalent of just one shot up until now. I hate my brain. [i]You gonna sit?[/i] I’ve been bold up until now but at that I pause, finish my drink, then climb in. A little more gangly than Brendon, it takes some contorting to actually get into the back, and when I settle in I calculatedly attempt to keep some distance between us - I don’t know how comfortable he is with me, even if I am very much so with him. [b]”I bought it after figuring out that there wouldn’t be another Young Veins record,”[/b] I say, for lack of anything better, and my smile is bittersweet. It doesn’t suck to talk about anymore, but I still have to treat my shortcomings like a joke. [b]”It’s my mid-life crisis purchase. [i]Yes,[/i] 24 is mid-life for me.”[/b]