Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Okay.” He leapt off the bumper and took out his phone. “What’s your number?”
“Are you hitting on me?”
“No. I mean, I will later, because you’re smoking hot. You look like a big, buff version of that Korean guy from that cooking show.”
“What cooking show?”
“Dude, focus.” He was one to talk. “It’s too hard to yell back and forth, so I want to call you and put you on speaker. That way, you can tell me when to turn, or switch lanes, or whatever.”
He had a point. I recited my number, and he quickly typed it into his phone before saying, “Got it. What’s your name?”
“Miller.”
“Your first name.”
“That is my first name. My last name is Anderson.”
“Why did your parents give you two last names and no first names?”
A horn blasted, so I asked, “Can we go, before that huge guy in the truck beats us up?”
“Okay. And not that you asked, but I’m Collie Souza.”
“Like the dog?”
He shot me a look, but then he said, “Yes, exactly like the dog.”
I had to ask. “Why did your parents give you a dog name?”
“They didn’t. They named me Collin, but—” Another prolonged honk cut him off. He yelled over it, “I’ll tell you later,” and ran back to the van.
My phone rang a moment after we pulled out of the lot. When I answered, he said, “Hi, it’s Collie.”
“I figured.”
For the next fifteen minutes or so, we slowly and awkwardly made our way to my neighborhood. Finally, we pulled onto my street, and I said, “My house is halfway down the block, on the right.”
“There’s no parking. Like, literally none.”
“I know, but I think we’ll both fit into my garage. It’s made to hold two cars end-to-end, and mine’s on the small side. Just please don’t mash me into the wall.”
I hit the remote to open the garage door, and Collie asked, “How do you expect us to pull in there? We’re too long to make such a tight ninety-degree turn.”
We’d had to swing wide on every right turn we’d made on the way here, but my street was too narrow for that. I still thought it was possible though, so I said, “We’ll do a three-point turn. We might have to pull forward and back up a couple of times, but I’m sure we can make it.”
A couple of times turned into about a hundred attempts, back and forth, back and forth. Okay, so it wasn’t actually a hundred, but it sure felt like it. Each time, we got maybe an inch closer to lining up with the driveway.
I sighed and slumped in my seat while Collie kept up a running monologue. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to get wedged in at an angle,” he said. “It’ll be like that time a ship got stuck in the Suez Canal. Remember that? I can’t recall why it happened. Like, I’m pretty sure they weren’t trying to make a three-point turn, but that was a real shit show. They were stuck for days, and no one could get through. I’m glad your street’s not busier, but five cars have had to back up out of here so far, because they couldn’t get by.”
I grunted a reply and moved my sunglasses to the top of my head, so I could scrub my hands over my face.
He was still talking. “If we really get stuck, do you think it’ll make the news? Or will the cops show up and give us a ticket for obstructing traffic? Maybe both of those things will happen.” He backed up, again, and I turned the wheel, again, and we moved forward and gained another inch.
“This definitely isn’t how I pictured my first day in San Francisco,” he said. “I was going to drive around for a bit and take in the sights before heading to the beach. I wanted to watch the sunset over the Pacific.”
I asked, “How long is your vacation?”
“It’s not a vacation. This is my new home.”
“Did you move here for a job?”
“No. I just always wanted to live here.”
“Why’s that?”
“Lots of reasons. But most of all, I wanted to live someplace where I wasn’t the entire gay community. To be fair, I probably wasn’t literally the only gay person in my hometown, but everyone else was deep in the closet, so it felt like it was just me.”
“I get that. So, why didn’t you move here sooner? Did you just graduate from high school or something?”
He snort-laughed at that and said, “Dude, I’m twenty-seven. I would have loved to move here right after high school, but I stayed because my aunt needed me. I mean, she wasn’t really my aunt. She was my mom’s best friend, but none of my relatives stepped up after my parents died, so she raised me. I couldn’t just leave her when she got sick, but she passed away last month. Right before she died, she made me promise to make this dream come true, so here I am.”