After a few hours of barely productive work, they’re outside tossing a football in Jacob’s backyard. Jacob is snapping some girl, (“It’s not fuckin’ Gabbie, right,” Colin had asked, and Jacob had responded by tackling him to a questionable degree of success.) Jacob takes off his thick-rimmed blue glasses to send the mystery girl another snap.

David is telling Evan a story about his cousin who doesn’t even exist. And Evan asks a question about him, and so now David’s telling a story about “Asher’s” “girlfriend.” And everything is great and perfect, until Colin drops the football to check his phone.

“Shit,” Colin says, furiously typing. “It’s late. I gotta go. My mom’s fucking pissed.”

“Bye,” David says, and then Jacob’s going inside without a word, and it’s just David, and Evan, left outside. And Evan, and Evan, and Evan.

“‘Aight, I think I’m gonna head out, too,” Evan says, standing up from the grass and brushing the fresh dirt off his cargo pants. He cuts a dark silhouette out of the sun. “Yeah,” David says. “Same.”

David’s lucky that he lives so close to Evan, because it makes sense for them to continue walking in the same direction together, up until a point of course. Maybe he could end up hanging out at Evan’s house for a bit? Can’t directly ask him though, of course. Evan’s talking about his art thing again. It surprised David so much when David was first figuring Evan out, and he told him that he did art. It was one of the many things that made Evan so intriguing to David. He always figured girls loved artists; he can kind of remember something saying that, according to women, one of the most attractive hobbies for men to have was art. For the millionth time, David wonders to himself how Evan doesn’t have a girlfriend yet. He couldn’t talk to him about it, of course. Evan never talked about that stuff, and for some reason David feels like he’d have trouble talking about it with him.

What would he say, then, if Evan just asked him? Panic, probably, and say something about still being into Lila. Fucking Lila. At this point, even her name makes him feel sick.

“So that’s what I’m thinking, probably,” Evan is saying, and David remembers that Evan was still talking, about the digital painting. “Sick,” David says. He instantly feels bad because he had only been listening in fragments. He constructs what he can from what he remembers. “The sword part’s gonna look so cool,” he says, sliding Evan a grin.

“Thanks,” Evan says, his face getting all nice and proud and smiley. Yes! David’s always worried, when making those gambles, but so far he hasn’t had any major losses, and the wins are always exhilarating. The problem now is that it’s too quiet, meaning Evan could be unhappy, or maybe secretly knew David wasn’t listening, even though David’s pretty confident he knows all of Evan’s expressions well enough already. From David’s peripheral, he can see that Evan’s still softly smiling, and his hands are resting comfortably in his pockets. His head is turned slightly down, watching his clean black-and-white converses make contact with the sidewalk underneath them. Which means it’s all probably fine.

So David takes a long moment to absorb, in efforts of finding inspiration. Front yard foliage, bright green with new growth, is sprinkled in between the quiet suburban houses. The two pass a dramatically symmetrical pine tree taller than the largest house on the street. Yes, there we go, perfect.

“Dude,” David says, “One time when I was, like, six, Asher climbed one of these kinda trees, waited for me to pass underneath, and fully jumped onto my back. I was like—” David applies a nasally quality to his voice—“‘Asher! Fuck you! Fuck you!’ ‘Cause I’d just learned the big F word and thought it was magic or something and that Asher’d be so offended that he’d, like, hop off with rage or something, I dunno.”

“Oh my god,” Evan says, giggling. “No way that worked.” Good sign, continue. “Yeah, no,” David says flatly, but ensuring the sarcasm was clear so it stayed friendly. “He picked a stick off the ground, told me it was a lightsaber, and that he was gonna cut my fucking head off.”

“He sounds insane, dude,” Evan says, shaking his head, but still smiling, which is the important part. “D’you cry? Six-year-old me totally would’ve.”

David laughs at that. “Nah,” he says. “I don’t even remember the last time I cried, dude.” That’s actually partially true. David remembers tears at something, at a very young age, but it definitely hasn’t happened since. David figures that'll continue to be true for a long while.