Armin lifts his head to take a gulp of his Monster, and I rush to pick my camera back up and peer at the LCD screen. I zoom in as close as I can on the car. 

“Evan!” 

I jump at the bark of my dad’s voice and slam down on the capture button. 

Dad is already giving me a small grin when I turn around. The sleeve of his Pittsburgh Steelers t-shirt is caught on the edge of the window and the thin layer of sweat on his brown skin makes him shine under his glasses perched on his nose. 

“Your shirt,” I say and lean out of my seat to reach for the window. “Grab it before it tears and you cry about it until I buy you another one for Christmas.” 

I push myself back into my spot next to Armin, and Dad laughs while he shakes his shirt free of the window ledge. 

His laugh is relatively obnoxious, just like him. It’s loud as if he wants everyone in town to know that whatever he heard was funny, his big white teeth and gap on display. 

I had the gap too, but I was tired of hearing how much we looked alike; how I was just a little him tucked under my mother’s arm. I love my dad, but I don’t want to be my dad. I had braces all through middle school, and thank God they worked. I could never pull it off like he does, anyway.

Dad adjusts his glasses and grabs onto the windowsill when he’s done. I’m feeling the vibe that he’s going to ask us to do something, and the corners of my mouth are already pulling down when he goes, “what are you guys up to?” 

There it is. 

“Same as always,” Armin says. He’s always quick thinking, already trying to get us out of this before we even get suckered into it. “We might go get slushies. My mom wants us to go to the market for her anyway. She’s been saying she needs tteok all day.” He tugs at the neckline of his loose collared shirt. 

Dad nods, looks up out of the corner of his eye, and hums before he says, “I saw Dan just got back.”

“That was quick,” Armin starts. 

“Yeah, we just saw Mr. Anderson a second ago,” I jump in, and Armin shakes his head. 

“Oh, good. So, you know. Won’t you introduce yourself? His nephew is going to be here for a while, and I think you’d be good to make friends. He’s about your age.” 

“Come on, Dad. You send your ten-year-old to go play with the neighbor’s kid. I’ll be sixteen next week! If we’re meant to talk, we’ll talk. C’est la vie, you know?” 

Armin holds his can up to his lips and he breathes a laugh out of his nose. He shakes it a little, and the liquid splashes against the inner walls of the tin. 

“It wouldn’t kill you. You’re getting slushies, right? Invite him.” Dad claps his hands and opens them out at me. “Oh! That’s a great idea.” He praises himself. “See you around.” 

He slaps the windowsill like a used car salesman on a ridiculously overpriced 2009 Honda Accord, and I groan while he goes back inside. 

Armin sighs before he takes the last sip of his energy drink and throws the can in the window. He picks himself up and follows behind it into my room with poise, landing on his feet with a little pounce and scooping up the can to throw it away. 

I launch myself through the window right behind him and land on the floor with a thump. He doesn’t even glance in my direction. A perfect representation of our friendship. 

I would follow Armin into the stratosphere with no spacesuit if he told me to. We’ve lived next door to each other our entire lives, so it’s only natural that we clung to each other like Velcro, him talking me out of stupid ideas like riding my bike down the porch stairs when I was eight, and me defending him from crooked bullies no matter how many times I had to get my ass kicked in middle school. Armin is my rock, my lifeline. I don’t think I would ever want any other voice of reason tickling my eardrum.

“Welp,” I say and dust off my blue denim shorts, fix the cuffs. I reach back outside to grab the blanket and throw it on the floor. “Should we talk to him, or is bothering that guy too bad of an idea?” 

Armin is quiet while he watches me get myself together over his shoulder, adjusting my tank top and shoving my hands deep in my pockets to straighten out my shorts. He shrugs when I step behind him and pull the door open with the toe of my sneaker, reaching over his shoulder to catch the door’s edge so it doesn’t fly open too far. 

“Bothering him is a bad idea,” Armin says, “but you’re still going to do it because your dad told you to, and you know how he is. I don’t want to hear you complaining about him complaining.” He steps into the hall first and clasps his hands behind his back, and I follow close behind him. “I guess it can’t really hurt, right?” he says on his way down the stairs. 

Uh, yeah, it can hurt. What if that guy sucks? What if he’s a big fat jerk and he says we’re losers and then I have to drag him because Armin’s feelings are hurt? Or what if he doesn’t suck, and he’s cool enough for even me to like him? Then we have to figure out how to squeeze a third into our little orbit, me and Armin already two little planets that only revolve around each other because other planets are big and scary.

My head spins while my legs follow Armin outside on autopilot. He stops short in the front lawn and stares at Mr. Anderson’s daffodil garden on the other side of the driveway, of the car, of Mr. Anderson’s nephew still holding on strong in the passenger seat only a few feet away.