Manties in a Twist (The Subs Club Book 3) (30 page)

“Or Seattle.”

He leaned back and stretched, chewing on his lip. “Well, we’ve got some time to think about it.”

“For sure.”

“You’re being really weird right now.”

“I’m just hungry. We should make dinner. Pasta Boat? What about juice? You want juice? I could juice some shit.”

He was staring at me like I’d grown a microwave-sized Collingsworth head. “I don’t think you should be around the juicer right now. It has sharp things.”

“I can handle sharp things.”

I got the juicer out and juiced the fuck out of some apples and some kale and a star fruit, just to prove a point.

I was a lot like that for the next couple of days, as my panic about the idea of moving fought with these random bursts of
Yeah, I do want to do this. ’Cause maybe my destiny is waiting for me in some city I’ve never thought about, and maybe I
will
become a famous singer. Maybe I’ve been holding myself back for a long time.

The day of the concert, I threw myself into a city search. Ryan was at work for a half day, so I spent five straight hours on the computer, only getting up to walk Collingsworth.

I looked up Austin.
Holy elephant fuck
, no. Shitty apartments were, like, thousands of dollars. Seattle, I decided, was too rainy. And Pittsburgh was too . . . Pittsburgh.

“What about Cleveland?” I asked when Ryan came home at lunchtime.

He walked to the back of the couch and leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “Cleveland?”

“Yeah. It used to be a joke, but I’ve been reading about it. They’ve made tons of renovations over the past few years. And now they have a good music scene.”

He paused. He’d been kind of skittish around me since that vigorous juicing session. “I’d be down for Cleveland. It’s not too far away. And probably, like, half an hour closer to my family than I am now.”

Not too far away.

It was like four hours from my friends. But that was okay. Because the whole point of moving was to find out who I was when they weren’t, like, factoring into everything I did in life. And if I needed to see them, I could make weekend trips. Take a couple weeks off in the summer and visit for longer—if the guys even still wanted me around, since apparently I’d fallen in love with a monster who failed to weep every time we brought up Hal.

“I even found some places near Cleveland State that are pet-friendly. So we could get a dog. Or a cat, whatever. And I could work at one of the restaurants that does mad student business. And if you decide you want to go to law school, there’s Case.”

He patted my shoulder, staring at the screen. “This is awesome. Get ready, Cleveland.”

“You don’t sound excited. Why aren’t you excited?”

“No, I’m excited. I’m just surprised you suddenly want to do this.”

“Well, you’re the one who gets freaking alerts on your phone about apartments.” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. “I’m just getting on the train. The moving-forward train.”

“Did something happen?”

“
No
. Nothing happened. God.”

“Well, this is gonna be a fun concert, huh?” he said dryly. He went to shower, closing the bathroom door way too hard. I stayed at the computer, staring at the tabs for Cleveland apartments.

The concert was a fucking bust. I couldn’t really focus. I imagined the others eating gluten-free cake downtown, and drinking beer, and then going back to Dave’s to watch whatever stupid shit was on Netflix. Imagined them being fine without me.

Ryan was in a freaking great mood. He sang the whole way home. But I think that was less of a for-real great mood and more a way of digging at me, since I was being a dick.

I went over to the duplex the next day after pony practice, where I’d managed to get actually zero dressage moves right. I wanted to wish Gould a happy birthday and apologize again for not being there, since it wasn’t his fault that Dave was a bastard and that I’d gotten myself into a whole big moving-way-too-far-forward mess.

Gould was gone, but Dave was there, and we were super cold to each other, which— Good. Just a few more months of not talking, and then I wouldn’t even have to worry about him anymore.

Except I couldn’t exactly keep my mouth shut. “Ryan and I are gonna move to Cleveland,” I said, with an I-give-zero-fucks shrug.

He gave me a real kind of, you know, death stare. “What?”

“We’ve been thinking about it a lot. And when our lease is up next year, we might want to try something different.” Dave was looking at me like he wanted to put a grappling hook through my face. “He wants to be closer to his parents. I want a change of pace. So we’re moving.”

“To
Cleveland
?”

“It’s turning into a really nice city now.”

“Cleveland.”

“Yeah.”

“River-on-fire Cleveland.”

“That was decades ago.”

“The city that regularly lets LeBron James jizz on its face.”

“That’s the one.”

“Fucking
West Sixth Street
.”

“Yeah, man. Cleveland.”

Dave turned away and gave this incredibly derisive snort.

I glared at him. “What do you have against Cleveland?”

“My God, Kamen, Cleveland is the Cobalt of cities!”

Ouch.

Dave took a deep breath. “My Megabus broke down there once, and a tramp tried to take my gas station grab-n-go sandwich.”

“Well, that’s where we’re moving. So deal with it.”

He shook his head in disgust. “I’ve already dealt with it. Like you said: other people’s lives are none of my business.”

I hated this. But I didn’t know how to make it better. So I said something really, like, not at all a comeback, like, “See you around.”

And I left.

The next day was even worse. I was doing dishes when Ryan came home from work, and I couldn’t get all the damn plates into the dumb-fuck dishwasher. I was getting frustrated enough to want to throw shit.

“Hey!” Ryan called from the living room. I listened to him hang his keys on the key hook, which for some reason made me feel even worse. Why did we have a
key hook
? Who the hell was I?

I didn’t answer.

He came into the kitchen. “How was your day?”

I forced another plate into the lower rack. Were we even gonna have a dishwasher in Cleveland? Where would we live? How long would it take me to make new friends? Would my old friends ever call me? Or was it gonna be, like, texts every day . . . then once a week . . . then every couple of months . . . then never?

I tried to keep my voice normal. “Stupid.”

“Stupid, huh?”

“Worked the lunch shift. Which is stupid.”

“Got ya.”

“My car needs new brakes. And I can’t fit all the plates in here.”

“So leave some in the sink.”

I straightened. “It’s not that simple!”

“Eaaaaasy. What the hell has been up your ass the past couple of days, buddy?”

That was almost too much, him using names my friends had always used with me. Big guy. Buddy.
Condescending fucking nicknames
. I wanted this life with him. I did. I wanted to be independent and push myself and not always make safe decisions. I wanted to—I don’t know—have this relationship be the most important thing to me. Wanted Ryan to be my family.

But I also wanted what I’d always had. Because even if my friends and I weren’t perfect, I loved them so much that it, like, physically hurt, and being part of that group was an opportunity beyond what most people were given. Maybe that sounded stupid, since pretty much everyone had friends. But not like mine.

Ryan stepped around me and picked up the stack of remaining plates. Started washing them by hand in the sink. “Sorry about your car.”

“It’s a piece of shit anyway.”

“When we move next year, we can get a new car. One of those tiny ones. With three wheels.”

“With what money?”

He turned. “Come on. Don’t be like this.”

I tossed some silverware in the dishwasher basket. “I might not even want to move to Cleveland.”

“It was your idea.”

“Well, maybe now I’m changing my mind! Is that okay? Am I allowed to change my mind? You change your mind all the time.”

He stared at me. “Dude. What is going
on
? If you tell me, maybe I can help.”

“Don’t call me ‘dude.’ We’re not sixteen.” I grabbed another plate and stuffed it in the rack. “Dave’s Megabus broke down in Cleveland and a hobo took his sandwich.”

He turned off the water. “What kind of sandwich?”

“Does it matter? Cleveland hobos are relentless. They’ll take anything!”

He stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around me. Oh my God. Why was he trying to be nice to me? Why did he not want to throw the plates too? Was I completely fucking alone in my need to just
destroy
something? His hands left wet patches on my shirt. “We have hobos here.”

“Not like Cleveland hobos.”

“What do you know about Cleveland hobos?”

I shrugged him off and put the plate in the dishwasher. “I’m just not sure we’ve thought this through.”

“You know Dave has a tendency to exaggerate to try to get you to—”

“No. Don’t say things about my friends. You don’t know them like I do. You don’t know what we’ve been through. You weren’t
there
.” I was fucking this up so bad. Like, possibly worse than anything had ever been fucked up in the whole history of the world.

Ryan was silent.

I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just . . .”

He waited a second, and when I didn’t continue, asked, “So where
do
you want to move?”

“Maybe nowhere! Maybe I never freaking wanted to move anywhere! But you—”

“So what, it’s my fault? I forced you into this? We hang out with
your
friends and go to
your
dungeon and get the painting of the animal
you
want—”

“You wanted the hare too! Don’t even act like you didn’t want the hare!”

“I wanted a megalodon! You know what I think this is about? Your friends dictating your life. Everything you do, you have to think about how they’ll feel or what you’ll tell them—”

“They don’t dictate my life!”

“Then why can’t we do this one thing I want?”

I turned to him and continued, my panic rising. “Do you really want it? Or is this like what your parents were talking about? Where you work really hard for a while to build a perfect life here and then leave it unfinished?”

He stared at me. Not even a glare, just, like, this shocked, almost blank expression.

“Ryan. I’m s—”

“No.” He looked away. “Don’t.”

He stalked to our bedroom. I listened to him slam around in there for a while. I wasn’t sure what to do. I pretty much didn’t fight with anyone. Like, once in a while I had to check my friends if I thought they were being too dickish about something, but I didn’t even
know
how to fight with Ryan. We’d always been best buds.

Best buds was not a relationship.

Best buds was not adulting.

I went to the front hall and leaned beside the well-dressed hare. Collingsworth followed me and watched as I tried to calm down.

I couldn’t talk to Dave. Miles would be nice to me, but he was the most likely to secretly judge. I took out my phone. But Gould . . .

One time, last year, I was kinda mad because I thought Dave and Miles weren’t taking me seriously. And Gould took me aside and was like, “You know what’s up better than any of us. We could all learn a lot from you.” And that made me feel way better.

Gould answered on the second ring. “Hey, Kamen.”

“Hey, um . . .” I took a breath. “Can I come over?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I just . . .” I glanced over my shoulder as though I expected Ryan to be right there. “I need to come over. As long as Dave’s not there. Please?”

“He’s out with Maya. Come on over,” Gould said calmly.

When I got to the front porch of the duplex, it hit me that I shouldn’t be bothering him with this. If he was really having a shitty time like Dave had said, he probably didn’t want to hear about me having a fight with Ryan. Plus I’d bailed on his birthday to go to a friggin’ Rob Thomas concert, so I probably wasn’t his favorite person right now.