“Oh, you look nice,” were the first words out of his mouth. He hadn’t planned for that, not this time. They’d just kind of slipped out, like a liquid spilling out of a bottle.
Gretchen blushed and turned her eyes down, smiling. “Hi,” she said after a while.
“Sorry,” Dave said. “I just...sorry.” He opened the door and stepped aside to let her in. “Hi.”
She entered the house, her backpack slung over her shoulder, the smell of honey in her wake. “It’s okay,” she said. “I haven’t showered today, so the compliment feels especially good.” She took a quick look around, poking her head into the living room, where Dave’s dad was watching a basketball game. “Hi,” she called out. “I’m Gretchen.”
Dave’s dad looked away from the TV and then stood up quickly, surprised by Gretchen’s presence. Dave expected him to shake her hand and mumble a hello before returning to his spot on the couch, but instead he introduced himself warmly, lingering by the entrance to the living room, not looking like he wanted to escape back to the TV. He was polite and smiley, just like Dave remembered him being years ago. Dave had thought that part of his dad had disappeared. But maybe he was different when he wasn’t around Dave and Brett. Maybe at work, with friends, he’d gone back to being himself, able to escape the quiet grief he couldn’t seem to shake around his sons.
“Well, I’ll let you kids get to studying,” he said, and Dave’s head almost exploded when his dad winked at him slyly before turning away.
They took the stairs up to Dave’s room. When he pushed open the door, he wished he’d spent those fifteen minutes tidying up instead of wondering whether or not to shower. Gretchen plopped her backpack down by Dave’s desk, which was set against the wall by the door and mostly bare, save for his laptop and about six or seven pairs of tangled earphones. His bed was unmade, thanks to his dad’s very lax policy on bed making. His laundry was mostly contained to the hamper in the corner, though a few shirts and socks hung on the edge like prisoners making a break for it.
“Sorry for the mess,” Dave said, brushing the nest of headphones into his drawer, instead of into the trash can, like he should have done months ago.
“My room’s worse.” Gretchen looked around, her hands on her hips. “You don’t do the whole hot babe and sports posters on your wall,” she said. “That’s refreshing.”
One wall was blank, painted the same dull green it had been since Dave was a kid. Another two walls were technically blank, too, but one had the window that faced out at the big, pretty jacaranda tree in their yard, and the other was mounted with Dave’s TV, so they didn’t feel blank. The fourth wall had a whiteboard hanging above his desk, and it wasn’t until now that Dave remembered he’d written a little better than you found it on his whiteboard after their date at the harbor. Gretchen sat herself on the edge of Dave’s bed, her hands clasped between her thighs, staring at the board.
Dave wanted to smack himself for not erasing it. New to this whole pursuing-girls thing, he had no idea how to play it cool. He did know that writing a girl’s life motto down on your whiteboard after only one date was not playing it cool. On the spectrum of coolness, it was way too close to building a shrine in her honor, which was way too close to collecting a bag of her hair. How had Dave so quickly turned into a hair collector?
“That’s really cute,” Gretchen said, then she lay back on Dave’s bed, her hair and arms sprawled out beside her. Dave let out a sigh of relief. “I have a confession. I have very little interest in studying AP Chem tonight.”
Was it weird to burp out of excitement? That was his first instinct, but he managed to suppress the burp, thankfully. Add that one to life’s long list of mysteries. “You don’t?”
“No. I’ve had very little interest in doing any studying at all, actually.”
“Ah, you have it, too. Senioritis.”