“You going to run home now too?” I ask.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a stroll.”

“Get in,” I tell him. “But I’m surprised one of your good buddies wasn’t here to pick you up.”

He doesn’t take my bait and we drive in silence until I roll to a stop at a red light at a totally empty intersection. “So how is it that a mechanic’s car breaks down?”

He throws his head back with a laugh, his stubble-covered Adam’s apple bobbing. “A shitty truck is still a shitty truck.”

“Do you need a ride in the morning to pick it up?” I hate myself for even asking, and I rarely stir before eleven on a Saturday morning, but I’m starting to feel like I’m not in control of my brain.

“Nah. I’ll get the tow truck so I can fix it in the shop.”

“Hey, Tucker, were you embarrassed of me today? In the parking lot with Bryce and Patrick. Is that why you wouldn’t look at me? Because if you’re embarrassed to be seen with me, it’s best if we go our separate ways now.”

“No,” he says firmly. “God, no.” He runs his hands down his thighs, pushing so hard his nails turn white. “I was being stupid and I—”

“I’m sure being paired with me for prom court hasn’t been . . . easy on you,” I say, laying the guilt on thick just like Mom.

“I wasn’t embarrassed by you. I was embarrassed to be seen with those asshats.”

“Well, you didn’t do a great job of showing it. Aren’t those asshats your old football buddies?” It’s hard not to feel his answer isn’t some kind of cop-out.

“I’m not going to tell you I haven’t spent years hanging out with those guys or pretend like I haven’t known them my whole life. Your parents dump you in peewee football when you’re a kid and in a place like this, that means you’re basically stuck with the same guys forever. But I don’t really think of them as friends. They wouldn’t, like, help me out of a bind or anything.”

“My dad tried to get me into football,” I tell him. “Second grade. I didn’t make it past the first practice.” I try to imagine, for a moment, what things would be like today if I’d stuck with it. Maybe I’d be the best queer football player Clover City had ever seen. Or maybe I’d be just another meathead, suppressing who I really was.

He grunts. “You should have stuck with it. Turns out football is super gay.”

“Is it really now?” I ask, my hands immediately sweating. This is what I was trying to explain to Clem. Endless mixed signals!

He bites down on his lower lip, eyebrow arched. “Trust me.”

I wonder if he can hear my heart pounding. My mouth is dry and my palms are slick on the steering wheel. “Do you remember in sophomore year when you asked to switch seats so you didn’t have to sit next to me?”

He grimaces. “You gonna make me answer for all my sins tonight?”

The click, click, click of my blinker is my only response. I want to let Tucker in. I want to be friends. But I can’t do that without retreading the past. I have to know why he despised me. He has to say it out loud or else the wondering will never end.

“I felt bad. I felt bad about ditching you on our group project, and I—I had stuff going on and then when we were seated together that one time . . . I figured if I didn’t have to see you, I wouldn’t have to think about it. And I wouldn’t have to think about you.”

My heart stops and all I can hear is that he thought about me. Years ago, before I even knew who I wanted to be, he thought about me. I felt so entirely alone, and I wonder what would have happened differently if when we first met up for that group project, I asked Tucker to stay for dinner or walk to Sonic.

I want to ask him why he ditched me to begin with and what kind of stuff he was dealing with. But I can barely even register that we’re here at his dad’s shop where they live in the apartment above, and he’s practically out of the car before I’m even in park.

“I gotta go,” he says in a hurry, but before he can even shut his door, his dad is rambling through the dusty gravel toward my truck with a graying mutt who I recognize as Duke trotting behind him.

“Thanks for the ride,” Tucker says. “I’ll text you later.”

I might be petty, but Mom didn’t raise me rude, so I call past Tucker, “Hi, Mr. Watson.”

Duke dodges past him and walks right up to the open door to investigate me. I reach my hand across the seat for him to sniff and he carefully nudges the top of my hand with his wet nose. Our family dog, Griff, died when I was thirteen and Dad was too heartbroken to let us get a new one. A dog is high on my list of priorities once I’m a fully functioning adult.

Mr. Watson doesn’t even look up at the sound of my voice. I can see him in Tucker. The shoulders and the shape of their lips. The way their noses gather into a square point at the end. In many ways, Mr. Watson looks like a deflated version of Tucker, but with a smattering of sun spots.

“Dad, why aren’t you in bed?” Tucker asks in a stern voice that sounds so foreign coming from him.

“I, uh, lost the s—key to the apartment,” he slurs. Mr. Watson pats down the front of his jeans and his back pockets like the keys might somehow miraculously appear.

He looks so much like Tucker. It almost makes me uncomfortable. Tall and broad, but softer. He’s overdue for a haircut, with curls gathering at the nape of his neck, and his skin is papery and translucent. I bet that before Tucker was as big as he is today, helping his dad into bed was much more of a task than he could easily handle.

I feel suddenly protective of younger Tucker, and I hate myself for being so venomous with him and quick to assume that the whole situation between us was about me entirely.

“You’re that Brewer boy,” he says. “The queer one.”

“That’s me,” I cheerfully admit. I’m plenty used to being the queer one.

“Good for you,” he says, giving me a hearty thumbs-up.

Tucker turns back to me and whispers, “Sorry.”

“Your daddy worked so hard for that business of his.” Mr. Watson shakes a finger in my direction. “Shame you won’t be the one to be taking it over.”

“Oh,” I say, taken aback. That took a turn, but I’m quick to remind myself that Mr. Watson is an alcoholic and the last thing Tucker needs is me getting into a scuffle with his dad. “I’d run the whole thing into the ground.” Even though I could totally take over the family business if I wanted to, but yeah, sorry, my heart’s not in the construction biz. This hair is too good for a hard hat.

Sorry, Tucker mouths through a grimace, apologizing again. That’s all it takes for everything to get through my thick skull to my brain. It wasn’t me who Tucker was embarrassed of when we were younger. It wasn’t me who he didn’t want to be seen with during our group project.

I can’t believe I didn’t piece it together sooner, but I can sense his frazzled nerves over anyone seeing this side of him. Whoever Tucker brings into his life is committing to more than just him, and judging by the tension radiating from him, he knows it. And somehow, I take a little bit of pleasure in witnessing this. Not because I like to see Tucker suffer, but because seeing the most difficult corners of his life makes me feel closer to him. It makes me want to keep him close.